My Favorite AEW Tradition: Thanksgiving Eve in Chicago

Pro wrestling and Thanksgiving is a tradition that pre-dates my time on Earth. For a quarter-century of my life, it didn’t even exist.

From 1994 to 2018, the only Thanksgiving wrestling shows were taped episodes of SmackDown or TNA Impact that happened to fall on that date. There was nothing “special” about these shows, except they included a food fight and someone in a turkey suit. It wasn't always like that.

Through the early 1990s, pro wrestling promotions focused on Thanksgiving as a big date because families didn’t have much to do or watch that night – remember the NFL didn’t start playing on Thanksgiving night until 2006.

Jim Crockett Promotions hosted Starrcade on Thanksgiving night through 1987. The WWF held its Survivor Series show on Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Eve through 1994. If you’re a 1980s kid, you’ll remember the annual Saturday Night’s Main Event episode that aired in place of Saturday Night Live on Thanksgiving weekend.

In 2019, everything changed again, thanks to avowed pro wrestling nerd and AEW’s leader Tony Khan. We are roughly the same age, so our childhoods included a whole bunch of pro wrestling shows promoting a big event around Thanksgiving.

For that first show in 2019, Tony Khan booked Chris Jericho a televised AEW World Title match vs Scorpio Sky in Chicago. Everyone had high hopes, but the match and build didn’t quite live up to expectations. Ratings were also not good, though likely due more to Thanksgiving traffic than the show itself, and the future of a new Thanksgiving tradition seemed in doubt.

Most of us have memory holed 2020 thanks to a pandemic that ruined that year’s Thanksgiving. Who knew if or when AEW would ever return to touring, much less whether they would revisit traditions.

In fall 2021, CM Punk joined AEW. Regardless of how it ended up, those first few months were glorious and the promotion was at its absolute zenith. That year’s Thanksgiving eve episode from Chicago featured a 20-minute promo battle between MJF and Punk that the world had been waiting for.

Finally, the big Thanksgiving show delivered.

In 2022, the Thanksgiving eve episode again delivered, thanks to a shockingly good Chris Jericho vs Ishii match and the Elite (Kenny Omega & Young Bucks) wrestling the Death Triangle in Chicago after Brawl Out. The heat, as the kids say, was off the charts.

Last year, the Thanksgiving eve Dynamite kicked off the first Continental Classic and the start of the latest AEW tradition.

Can you believe it’s been more than five years? Before AEW existed, I didn’t even watch pro wrestling on a weekly basis. I was done with WWE and would only watch big NJPW shows.

Today? AEW Dynamite is now an established part of my Thanksgiving week routine. There’s no Wednesday travel for me, so I get to avoid the rush and enjoy pro wrestling.

This year, AEW combined the best of the past two years’ shows to give us Chris Jericho vs Ishii II and the first three matches of the second Continental Classic. I couldn’t be more excited.

The point of this piece, though, is to thank Tony Khan for his devotion to creating new traditions.

For too long, thanks to the WWE monopoly, traditions across pro wrestling have been replaced or removed. Sure, WWE has its WrestleMania weekend, and other big shows, but the traditions that tied pro wrestling to friends and families around holidays were removed.

Beginning with the territory days, pro wrestling promotions focused on holidays because it was easier for fans to spend time together and go to shows. That feeling of community had faded across pro wrestling.

AEW restored that feeling. Double or Nothing is Memorial Day weekend. All Out has mostly been Labor Day weekend. The All In shows at Wembley were timed to a U.K. bank holiday. They do Christmas- or New Year’s-themed shows every year.

It’s fitting that AEW’s promotion for this year’s Thanksgiving eve show has focused on Chris Jericho, who remains arguably the company’s biggest mainstream name. He passes the mom test – if you showed a picture of AEW’s roster to my mother, he might be the only one she’d recognize.

He was the company’s World Champion when AEW’s Thanksgiving eve tradition started. This year, he’s the Ring of Honor champion, and it still means something even though he’s not the draw or wrestler he was six years ago.

Time never stops moving. It will soon leave Chris Jericho behind, and there will be a new wrestler carrying around a title and issuing challenges for the Thanksgiving Eve Dynamite in Chicago.

AEW is not a plucky upstart anymore. It’s an established company with its own unique history. And my favorite AEW tradition is a special episode of Dynamite to kick off a long Thanksgiving weekend.

Here’s to six(ty) more years. 

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