WWE announced Worlds Collide for September 26 at the Allstate Arena, putting it on the same night and in the same market as AEW All Out. JBL, who works closely with AAA, did not know about the overlap until moments before he went on the air, and he could not be happier about it.
“I love it too. I absolutely love it too. I didn’t realize that AEW had a show at the same time until you and I were talking before the show,” JBL said on Something to Wrestle, where he is filling in as host. “This is freaking fantastic.”
His first point was about how far AAA has come, and where it is going.
“It’s fantastic for what a great property AAA has become. It’s always been a great property, for Mr. Peña when he first founded it, when Konnan was headlining shows back in the early ’90s. It’s always been a great property,” JBL said. “But I think it’s you pouring gasoline on a fire when Jeremy Borash, Undertaker and WWE came in with all these great stars down there. El Grande Americano comes in, and all of a sudden you have this mixture of all this lucha libre. I think it’s just fantastic.”
The location is what makes it a step forward.
“For the first time, you’re starting to see lucha libre out of predominantly Hispanic regions. You run, say, a Texas show or a border show or Vegas show, Arizona show. All of a sudden, now you’re up in Chicago,” JBL said. “Of course, it’s a wrestling hotbed. When business was bad, Chicago was always good. It’s one of these towns that’s just red hot with wrestling, so I’m glad to be going back there. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
On the counter-programming itself, JBL reached for history.
“Look at when counter-programming was big. When it was big back in the territory days, when Vince McMahon was first starting to take over the world, wrestling was as hot as it ever was. Look at all the great stars from the ’80s that came out of that,” JBL said. “Then when counter-programming was big again back in the late ’90s, when the Attitude Era happened, and literally you’ve got guys designed to just watch the other guy’s show. Vince would change, and I’m sure Eric Bischoff probably did too, would change what was going on in his live television show based on what Eric Bischoff was doing at the same time down in WCW. It was the ultimate. This was real time counter-programming, and look at the massive amount of stars that came out of that era as well.”
He sees the same conditions now.
“Now you’ve got the exact same thing. I think it’s freaking awesome. And they’re putting AAA out there, saying, go bat with the big boys. Go have some fun,” JBL said. “I think this is going to be incredible.”
Asked whether the performers on both shows will feel it, JBL said that is exactly the point, and he reached for two athletes to make it.
“If you got an ego at all, and if you made it to the top in any business, you got an ego. I was just looking at clips today of Jordan, when he made that first game-winning shot, where the entire arena knew he’s getting the ball,” JBL said. “Then I saw a picture of Messi just a couple days ago, and the whole team is trying to contain him. Finally they found him, and they couldn’t contain him. And the coach comes out and goes, we didn’t get beat by Argentina, we got beat by Lionel Messi. Big guys rise to the occasion in big times, and that’s what we had during the Attitude Era. That’s what you had during the ’80s.”
His bottom line is that pressure reveals people.
“When guys get a chance to headline shows, when a guy’s got a chance to go up against competition, you find out. I say guys, guys and girls, I’m using that as the gender-neutral term, but you find out a lot about people,” JBL said. “Anybody can roll strikes in warm-ups. It’s when it’s the 10th frame that matters, and we’re going to find out a lot. I think it’s going to be awesome. I think we got some unbelievable performers in AAA. I can’t wait for more of the world to see the product that we have down there.”
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SI1dbfg11hTg4ILn9e9Yu?si=456f169334bd4801
