AEW Planning Clash Of The Champions Style Television Special

AEW will continue to pay homage to the legacy of professional wrestling with an upcoming special television event. A “Clash of the Champions”-style Saturday night tv broadcast is being planned by Tony Khan’s promotion. The working title of the show is “Battle of the Belts,” which is a throwback to a name used for special events by the NWA and CWF in the mid-1980s. AEW has something special panned on January 8th.

Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Pro Wrestling Podcast broke the news on Twitter this morning. The return of the old-school event is vague on details at the moment. The only thing we know is that the show will air on TNT.

“Per Source: AEW is planning a TNT Special on Jan 8th. They’re obviously not able to use the name “Clash of the Champions” due to WWE owning the rights… However, I’m hearing the possible name for this show will be “Battle of the Belts” A throwback to NWA/CFW…”

AEW loves to brand their television shows as special events. The second episode of Rampage was subtitled “The First Dance” to coincide with the debut of CM Punk. The company also ran “Grand Slam” – a combined Dynamite and Rampage taping at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City.

The length of the show and its contents haven’t been announced. Given the name, it can be assumed that all or most of the championships in AEW will be on the line. AEW’s main program, Dynamite, will jump from TNT to TBS on January 5.

The original 1985 Battle of the Belts was headlined by a two-out-of-three falls match between NWA World Heavyweight champion Ric Flair and Wahoo McDaniel. The show also included NWA championship matches from Florida involving Rick Rude and Kendall Windham and an AWA Tag championship bout between The Road Warriors and the team of Harley Race and Stan Hansen.