RADICAN’S TAKE: AEW should consider moving the Continental Classic outside of the holiday season

AEW’s Continental Classic tournament has been great so far. The matches have been a refreshing change of pace for AEW. The rules dictate that there’s no outside interference and that wins and losses matter, which is a nice break from the usual chaos that takes place before, during, and/or after the majority of matches, especially on Dynamite.

The announcers have even made it a point to say that wrestlers that are out of the running to win the Continental Classic at this point need to pick up wins because it will impact them going forward. The announcers didn’t say how winning matches would help the wrestlers that were out of contention, but the fact that the emphasis was on winning and losing and not something else, made those matches feel important.

AEW president Tony Khan was asked at the Worlds End media call by Jason Powell of Pro Wrestling Dot Net if he had thought about holding the Continental Classic at a different time of year so that the company wouldn’t have to air taped episodes and so that more people would be able to watch outside of the holiday season. “I really like the formula we have here,” said Khan. There is a lot of things we could potentially try as far as the scheduling of the tournament. In this case, I do like having the Continental Classic around the holiday season.

“I think it provides engaging and interesting wrestling content to follow around a beautiful time of year. I always associate the holidays with pro wrestling. I think it adds something really special this time of year.”

The problem is that with AEW airing taped content on Dynamite and Collison and both shows airing outside of their usual time slots at times, viewership during the holidays is going to naturally lower without those things factored in, especially with outside competition from the NFL and college football at times.

Sure the Continental Classic is great content for the holidays and naturally gives the World’s End PPV several big matches for people to look forward to, but with less eyeballs on the product, Khan should consider moving the Continental Classic to another time of year. AEW has put its best foot forward during the tournament this year with simplistic yet compelling storytelling and every match meaning something for the wrestlers involved.

Dynamite and Collision are offering something that is compelling and drastically different from what WWE presents on TV on a weekly basis. If anything with how their viewership has declined in recent years, pulling in new viewers should be more of a priority than just presenting something nice for fans to watch during the holidays.

Sean Radican has been Pro Wrestling Torch for over 22 years. He has covered the independents, ROH, and NJPW in-depth over the years in addition to also watching all the major promotions in the U.S. PWTorch VIP members get access to his weekly Radican Worlwide podcast looking at a variety of news topics from the past week and then an in-depth Go-Home segment with a guest on a big topic of the week. You can contact him at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. You can follow him on X @SR_Torch and on Bluesky @SeanRadican.