Tony Khan Took Inspiration From Jimmy Fallon And Saved By The Bell For Empty Arena AEW Shows

AEW has been running empty arena shows since March 18. The shows have been filmed across two locations; Daily’s Place in Florida and Nightmare Factory in Georgia. With no audience, AEW has changed up production from their normal shows and what WWE has done.

On the first show, AEW had wrestlers sit or stand at the ringside area to react and act as the audience, a move praised by many for being better than having only commentary or silence.

Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Tony Khan revealed where he got the idea from to have wrestlers be the audience.

“March 18, what we started doing with an audience of wrestlers around the ring, when I went from Salt Lake City to Jacksonville, I watched a lot of other programming to get a feel for what people were doing with the restrictions. I watched the shows Jimmy Fallon did without an audience and he had his writers and band as the audience. It made all the difference. I watched other talk shows with no audience and they were kinda cold. The next day, I was like, ‘We can have a babyface side and a heel side.’ Then I thought of Saved By The Bell. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if MJF and Shawn Spears were like Zack and Slater making bets,'” said Khan.

The gambling actually backfired for MJF as he suffered a severe hangnail during the action.

AEW had their largest live audience since the pandemic on Wednesday as wrestlers and staff occupied ringside and followed the action through the stadium concourse.

If you missed anything from Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite, check out Fightful’s full report by clicking here.

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