AEW Big Business
Big Business was a 2024 professional wrestling television special produced by All Elite Wrestling. It took place on March 13, 2024, at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts and aired live as a special episode of Wednesday Night Dynamite on TBS in the United States. The event notably featured the anticipated debut of Mercedes Moné in AEW, who had been speculated to debut at the event.
Five matches were contested during the live broadcast, with four additional matches taped for the March 15 episode of Friday Night Rampage on TNT. In the main event of Big Business, Willow Nightingale defeated Riho. In other prominent matches, Jay White defeated Darby Allin, and in the opening bout, Samoa Joe defeated Wardlow to retain the AEW World Championship.
Production
Background
AEW Dynamite is the flagship weekly television program of the American professional wrestling company All Elite Wrestling. During the February 7, 2024, episode of the show, AEW president Tony Khan announced a special edition of the program titled "Big Business". The television special was scheduled for March 13 at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts and aired live on TBS in the United States. Khan claimed that Big Business would be "one of the most important nights" for AEW.Due to the event taking place in Boston and with the promotional poster stylizing the event as "Big Bu$iness" and "Bo$$ton", speculation began that the event would see the AEW debut of Mercedes Moné, who is billed from Boston and had used a "Bo$$" gimmick when she performed in WWE as Sasha Banks from 2012 to 2022. Following her departure from WWE, she changed her ring name to Mercedes Moné and performed in New Japan Pro-Wrestling and its sister promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom in 2023. Both Fightful and wrestling journalist Andrew Zarian of Mat Men Radio also reported that she had been under contract with AEW since early January 2024 and would debut at the event. Moné had previously made a cameo appearance at AEW's All In pay-per-view event in August 2023 as a spectator.
Storylines
Big Business featured five professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines, written by AEW's writers. Storylines were produced on AEW's weekly television programs, Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision.At Revolution, Wardlow won the eight-man All-Star Scramble match to earn a future match against Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship. During the March 6 episode of Dynamite, the title match was scheduled for Big Business.
During Revolution's post-event media scrum, Tony Khan announced that Darby Allin would face Jay White at Big Business.
NJPW mainstay Kazuchika Okada had previously been speculated to make his official debut as an AEW roster member at Big Business and had previously made appearances in AEW through the company's partnership with NJPW. However, Okada instead made his official debut as a member of the AEW roster a week early on the March 6 episode of Dynamite and turned heel by attacking Eddie Kingston, subsequently joining with The Young Bucks. Nicholas then introduced Okada as the newest member of The Elite after announcing that "Hangman" Adam Page and Kenny Omega were fired from the group. Following the new Elite's debut match during the March 9 episode of Collision, Pac, who had been out since July 2023, made his return to AEW and saved Kingston and Penta El Zero Miedo from a beatdown by The Elite. It was then announced that The Elite would face Kingston and Death Triangle in a trios match at Big Business.