During a recent appearance on the Business of the Business podcast, GCW owner Brett Lauderdale talks on AEW holding the ROH Final Battle PPV, Collision and Dynamite at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom a month before GCW holds it’s PPV “The People vs. GCW” PPV at the same venue, on Saturday, January 19, 2025.
ROH Final Battle takes place at the Hammerstein Ballroom on December 20, with Collision the next night on December 21 and then a special Dynamite taping on December 22.
“I don’t know Tony Khan personally and I don’t know enough of their people well enough to know or to speculate that they would particularly do something like that just to hurt us. Without that being said, the traditional etiquette would be, there is a window where you don’t go to the same buildings. Should that window exist? You can call it an unwritten rule, or in many cases it’s a written rule. I’m sure when AEW goes to venues, they probably have a rule written in that no other wrestling show can go there within 30 days or 60 days. It’s a pretty standard practice in the wrestling business and a lot of entertainment industries, both written and unwritten. Do I think they literally set out to look for a way to hurt GCW? I’m not ready to go that far with it. Do I think that maybe it wasn’t the most polite thing to do? Maybe. They are a billionaire company with endless resources and they run multiple television shows every week so they could run an event there anytime they wanted. They don’t have to do it in December or January. They can do it in February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September. They could do it every month if they wanted to, but they chose to do it in late December, which is less than 30 days before we are there. It’s not the greatest of circumstances for us…I’m not trying to inflammatory or instigate in any way, but it’s in many cases a written rule. There are a certain number of days that you have exclusivity in a building and you don’t go in if somebody is already there. It’s a type of thing that a company like AEW or WWE would sue a venue for if they let somebody else in. It would be a breach of contract. There are rules to this. It doesn’t surprise me that WWE, and I’m only going by reports that you’ve heard, but it wouldn’t surprise me that WWE would be told no because there is already somebody here. That’s the way it goes. Didn’t they used to say Vince McMahon would book Madison Square Garden so frequently just for the purpose of keeping everyone else out? He knew if he ran this many times, the window would be shut on everybody else.’
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Quote Source: Fightful