Add as a preferred source on Google AEW President Tony Khan has once again commented on WWE’s decision to hold Worlds Collide on the same day and in the same region as All Out 2026.
AEW‘s pay-per-view is set for September 26 at NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, with a 6:00 p.m. CT start time. WWE’s Worlds Collide will take place the same night at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois, beginning at 7:30 p.m. CT, creating a direct schedule overlap between the two events.
AEW announced All Out on July 6, ten days before WWE announced Worlds Collide. During a recent appearance on the Battleground Podcast, Khan called the strategy predatory, but also framed it as a sign of how well his promotion is doing.
“It’s probably all of the above. I think it’s all of the above. It’s the reality of current wrestling. It’s the frankly predatory nature of scheduling of events, but also the compliment that says that AEW is doing very well and Chicago’s a great city for wrestling.
I’m very excited about AEW All Out and it’s not something unexpected to have competition and I do welcome it. And I also really am excited about the run of shows coming up tonight. Just a stacked Dynamite, a major Redemption pay-per-view this weekend, and I think it’s going to put us on the course to All In and then All Out.”
This isn’t the first time Khan has addressed the situation. On June 29, following Forbidden Door, he called the two events WWE had scheduled against All In “double the compliment Jimmy Crockett got.”
Before that, NXT Great American Bash took place on the same day as Forbidden Door. For August 30, WWE has also scheduled NXT Heatwave and an AAA event opposite All In, which will be held at Wembley Stadium.
The Chicago situation, however, represents an escalation. This will be the first time in this sequence that the two companies compete, at the same time, for both the audience and the live crowd in the same region.