AEW Dynamite
AEW Dynamite, also known as Wednesday Night Dynamite or simply Dynamite, is an American professional wrestling television program produced by the American promotion All Elite Wrestling. It currently airs live every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, with some rare exceptions, and is simulcast on TBS and the streaming service HBO Max. The show premiered on October 2, 2019, and is considered AEW's flagship program. It is one of the company's two weekly programs, along with its second main program, Saturday Night Collision. ''Dynamite is the first professional wrestling program to air on TBS since the final episode of WCW Thunder on March 21, 2001.
The show was originally broadcast on TBS's sister channel, TNT, from October 2, 2019, to December 29, 2021, before moving to TBS on January 5, 2022. Before its time on TBS, major sporting events would cause some episodes to air at a later time or on other nights. From June 2023 to December 2024, it was one of AEW's three television programs with the addition of Friday Night Rampage, which had premiered in August 2021 and ended in December 2024. Since January 1, 2025, the show has been simulcast on TBS and the streaming service HBO Max, airing live on the streaming platform regardless of the location from where the show is produced. On April 16, 2025, Dynamite produced its 289th episode and became the longest running weekly professional wrestling show to air in prime time on a Turner network, surpassing WCW Monday Nitro''.
History
The American professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling was launched in January 2019. In addition to filing trademarks for the promotion's name, several other trademarks were filed at the time, including Tuesday Night Dynamite, presumably a name for a television show. In June 2019, AEW filed an additional trademark for Wednesday Night Dynamite, leading to many sources believing the show would air on Wednesday nights under this name.On May 15, 2019, AEW and WarnerMedia announced a deal for a weekly prime-time show airing live on TNT, the former broadcaster of World Championship Wrestling. They would also stream live events and pay-per-views on B/R Live in the United States and Canada. In April, veteran commentator Jim Ross confirmed the show would be a weekly two-hour show. During AEW's Fight for the Fallen event, AEW wrestler Chris Jericho revealed the show would begin airing in October. On July 24, AEW announced the show would premiere on Wednesday, October 2, and would broadcast from the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.; the show sold out within 3 hours of tickets going on sale. AEW President and Chief Executive Officer Tony Khan said that they chose to air the show on Wednesday nights instead of Tuesday nights because TNT airs the National Basketball Association on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and to prevent counter-programming against the National Football League 's Thursday Night Football, as the Khan family also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team.
In August 2019, WWE announced that it was moving their WWE Network show NXT to the USA Network and expanding the program to a live, two-hour broadcast in the same timeslot as AEW's upcoming show. NXT premiered on USA on September 18, two weeks before AEW's broadcast debut on TNT. On August 30, the day before AEW's PPV All Out, TNT aired a one-hour special called Countdown to All Out at 10pm Eastern Time, which averaged 390,000 viewers.
File:AEW Dynamite stage area 2019.jpg|thumb|270px|The standard Dynamite set used from October 2, 2019, to December 28, 2022. It had also been used by its sister shows Rampage, Battle of the Belts, and some of its pay-per-view events. Dynamite utilized a different set when Rampage was held in a different city or when the arena was not standard size. This set design returned for Dynamites 200th episode on August 2, 2023.
Like they had done for each of their PPV events, AEW began a "Road to" YouTube series on September 4 entitled The Road to AEW on TNT to build anticipation for the debut broadcast of the show. On September 19, 2019, the show's name was revealed as Dynamite. A two-hour preview show called Countdown to All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite aired on October 1 at 8pm ET; it averaged 631,000 viewers.
On October 2, 2019, Dynamite debuted on TNT which averaged 1.409 million viewers, which made it the largest television debut on TNT in the past five years. Also on October 2, NXT would make their two-hour debut on USA Network, and they averaged 891,000 viewers. Dynamite beat out NXT in viewership and more than doubled its competition in the key adults 18–49 demographic, scoring 878,000 viewers compared to NXTs 414,000. This would also mark the beginning of the "Wednesday Night Wars". Prior to and after the episode, dark matches were filmed to air on AEW's YouTube show called Dark, which began airing on the following Tuesday. Despite AEW's initial attempts to avoid conflicts with the NBA games, AEW had to run Dynamite on Thursdays, and even on a Saturday, due to the NBA playoffs. Dynamite was the first wrestling show to air on TNT since the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro on March 26, 2001.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020, which caused restrictions for live events around the world, AEW ran empty arena shows from March 18–25 and again from May 6–August 19 from Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida, and taped six weeks of shows from March 31 to April 2 from One Fall Power Factory in Norcross, Georgia, AEW's de facto training facility. During these broadcasts, AEW used their employees and other in-ring talent to serve as the live audience for matches when they were not involved in matches or other on-air segments. AEW later began allowing more family and friends of essential personnel to attend, and on August 27, 2020, AEW resumed live audiences from Daily's Place, though to a limited capacity of 10–15% of the venue. During the pandemic, in order to allow more time off, AEW often taped two weeks of shows in two days, which allowed wrestlers a week off. This procedure also allowed AEW to pre-tape Thanksgiving and Christmas shows in advance using the format. AEW then began running shows at full capacity of Daily's Place in May 2021. Also in May, AEW announced that they would be returning to live touring, beginning with a special episode of Dynamite titled Road Rager on July 7, in turn becoming the first major professional wrestling promotion to resume live touring during the pandemic. Road Rager was also the first in a four-week span of special Dynamite episodes called the "Welcome Back" tour, which continued with the two-part Fyter Fest on July 14 and 21 and concluded with Fight for the Fallen on July 28.
In regard to the addition of Rampage on TNT in August 2021, WarnerMedia had asked Khan if he would rather expand Dynamite to three hours, but he rejected the notion, stating that he did not want to run Dynamite for that length as he really wanted that third hour as a separate show on a different night. He also claimed that Rampage would not be a secondary show to Dynamite, and that it would be its partner or its equivalent. He further said that Dynamite and Rampage would be AEW's core properties, while their YouTube shows, Dark and Elevation, would be their peripheral properties, essentially their developmental programs.
It was announced on October 25, 2021, that Dynamite would start airing live from coast to coast starting with the October 27 episode. This lasted until Dynamites move to TBS.
On January 5, 2022, Dynamite moved from TNT to TBS, marking the first professional wrestling program to air on TBS since 2001.
File:Aew Dynamite set 2023.jpg|thumb|The Dynamite set used from January 4, 2023, to February 28, 2024. This set had also been used for Rampage and Battle of the Belts.
In May 2023, AEW confirmed another television program, Collision, to premiere that June on TNT. Prior to Collisions official announcement, it had been speculated that with the addition of Collision, AEW would do some form of a roster split, similar to WWE's brand extension, in which part of the roster would only perform on Dynamite, while the other part would be on Collision. In an appearance on the Barstool Sports Rasslin' podcast with Brandon Walker on June 13, Khan said that there would not be a hard split where wrestlers would exclusively appear on only one program. Instead, he said some wrestlers would be featured on certain shows, but there could be opportunities for storylines to cross between them. He also confirmed that the title holders would be the champions for all of AEW's programs.
File:AEW Dynamite set 2024.jpg|thumb|right|The Dynamite set used since March 6, 2024. This is also used for Collision and Ring of Honor Wrestling, and was also used for Rampage until its cancellation.
On March 23, 2025, AEW announced a special episode of Dynamite titled Spring BreakThru, scheduled for April 16, 2025, at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston, Massachusetts. This will be the 289th episode of Dynamite, making it the longest-running prime time weekly pro-wrestling program in Turner Sports history, surpassing WCW Monday Nitro, which had a total of 288 episodes that aired on TNT from September 1995 to March 2001.
Special episodes
Roster
The wrestlers featured on All Elite Wrestling take part in scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers are portrayed as heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match.The primary commentators for AEW Dynamite are Excalibur, Taz, and Bryan Danielson. Additional commentary has been provided by Jim Ross, Don Callis, Nigel McGuinness, Tony Schiavone and others since its creation.