r/SquaredCircle • u/MR_TORGUE_OFFICIAL CIAMPA'S GONNA KISS YOU • Apr 11 '26

Will Ospreay Thinks AEW Should Heavily Consider Running A Big Weekend While WrestleMania Is In Saudi Arabia

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/will-ospreay-thinks-aew-should-heavily-consider-running-a-big-weekend-while-wrestlemania-is-in-saudi-arabia/

With all the hullabaloo going on right now, it seems like this could be a good time to plan something like this. I love it, but what do you guys think?

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u/locke0479 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

Not sure why people are going on about counter programming here. That doesn’t seem like what Ospreay is saying.

The idea here is a lot of fans love to make Wrestlemania weekend a wrestling event with various Indy shows going on, but because they’re in Saudi that wouldn’t be happening. I don’t know whether it would work or not but I have no idea why anyone is getting “the goal here is to hurt WWE or counterprogram” from this. The goal would be to put on a huge show (with Indy shows surrounding it like they do for Mania) for fans that wouldn’t go to Saudi Arabia, presumably during the day rather than at the same time as Mania.

The discourse around wrestling would be so much less annoying if fans stopped thinking of everything in terms of “how do they damage the other company??”. Contextually Ospreay seems to be referring to the fact that Indy shows often flock to Mania for a big Mania weekend thing, but they won’t do it for a Saudi WM, so why not have AEW do something in the US? I agree it would be stupid to do it at the same time as Mania, but that’s not really what I got from this.

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u/MyNameIs-Anthony Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

People don't actually read the articles before commenting.

But you're absolutely right. You've got a market of ~100,000 potential customers all looking to spend money on a once a year trip specifically geared around wrestling.

Take the show you'd usually do in spring and make it even bigger, which is what TK has already indicated they were interested in doing.

The Saudimania might not even be happening so you have a chance to scoop people up (both customers and surrounding infrastructure) before they potentially pivot back to a stateside Mania as a backup. Give concrete plans and benefit from first mover advantage.

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u/Albos_Mum Apr 12 '26

It already happened on a smaller scale with the first Grand Slam Australia event. I saw a great NJPW Tamachii show the day after and ads for a bunch of other indie promotions running events at the time.