A huge announcement was recently made by All Elite Wrestling that the promotion’s Battle Of The Belts III special event will take place on Friday, August 5 at the Van Del Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Friday nights are usually when the promotion airs their live episode of Rampage, so it is likely that AEW will tape their Battle Of The Belts III special prior to or after the live episode of AEW Rampage on TNT. It is believed that matchups for future episodes of AEW Dark and Dark: Elevation will also be taped on that same night.
AEW’s Battle Of The Belts III Event is rumored to air on TNT on Saturday, August 6th, but the company has yet to officially announce when the event will air as of this writing. Tickets for the special is set to go on sale next Friday, June 10th at 10AM via Ticketmaster.com, with ticket prices starting at $30 (plus fees).
The inaugural Battle Of The Belts special took place on Saturday, January 8th from Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Inner Circle’s Sammy Guevara defeating Dustin Rhodes to become the Interim AEW TNT Champion, FTW Champion “Absolute” Ricky Starks beating Matt Sydal to retain his title and AEW Women’s World Champion Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. defeating Riho in the main event to retain her championship. The inaugural Battle Of The Belts special was able to draw 704,000 viewers and a rating of 0.27 in the 18-49 key demographic and the show ranked #11 for the night in the cable top 150.
The second Battle Of The Belts special then took place on Saturday, April 16th from inside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, with Scorpio Sky defending the AEW TNT Title against Sammy Guevara, ROH World Champion Jonathan Gresham putting his ROH World Title on the line against Dalton Castle and AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa defending her AEW Women’s World Title against Nyla Rose. This show was able to draw 527,000 viewers with a rating of 0.18 in the 18-49 key demo and the show ranked #10 for the night in the cable top 150.
WarnerMedia made a colossal announcement in May of last year that AEW’s flagship show, Dynamite, will be moving to TBS starting January 5, 2022 and that All Elite Wrestling will be holding four supercard specials starting in 2022 on TNT to coincide with Dynamite’s move to TBS.
Battle of the Belts was a show first held by the NWA and Championship Wrestling From Florida in 1985. The first-ever Battle of the Belts saw WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair, who was the NWA World Heavyweight Champion at the time, defeat Wahoo McDaniel in a best 2-Out-Of-3 Falls Match. In 1986, the second and third Battle of the Belts Events took place prior to the CWF going out of business in 1987.
