AEW Pays Emotional Tribute to Ted Turner With 10 Bell Salute

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) opened its Wednesday (May 6) broadcast with a special tribute to Ted Turner, the media mogul who revolutionized cable television, who died on Wednesday at 87.

“Ted Turner believed in pro wrestling,” AEW commentator Tony Schiavone said at the top of the double Dynamite and Collision episode. “He believed in you, the fans, and he believed that pro wrestling belonged on national television.”

Turner, who helped launch TNT and TBS, purchased World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the late 1980s and gave it a primetime slot on his cable networks. This move changed pro-wrestling forever, leading to the competitive “Monday Night Wars” between the WWE (then WWF) and WCW.

“Because of his passion, because of his vision, it found a home on TBS and then later in the ’90s, on TNT,” added Schiavone, who worked as a commentator for WCW. “And, therefore, generations of fans around the world knew that we were destination viewing.”

“I knew that firsthand,” he continued. “I began in the studio in TBS in 1985. Decades later, because of the foundation that was laid by Ted Turner, we still survive today through the leadership of Tony Khan in AEW, through the leadership of Warner Discovery, wrestling still survives.”

AEW president Tony Khan shared his own tribute ahead of Wednesday’s show. “It’s a very sad day in the world of television and certainly in the world of professional wrestling,” Khan said in an X livestream. “The man who gave us this platform, the man who created TBS and TNT and so many great television channels and so many great concepts in the field of television, the late great Mr. Ted Turner has passed.”

After Schiavone finished his on-air speech, he introduced pro wrestling icon Sting, one of the faces of WCW and later AEW, where he finished out his legendary career.

“Can you imagine having an all-in billionaire who absolutely loved pro wrestling?” Sting asked the crowd in Charleston, South Carolina. “I can’t believe what [Turner] did for us. He was completely committed to us, devoted to us in every conceivable way.”

Sting then told a story about how some of the “trop brass up there in CNN Towers” would tell Turner, ‘We don’t know about this whole pro wrestling thing… I think it’s time to cut them off because we’re always in the red.'” Ted would tell us that story and say, ‘I’d look at all of them and say, You wrestlers just keep on doing what you’re doing because I got some deep pockets.'”

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“There wouldn’t be a TNT title, there wouldn’t be a Sting. There wouldn’t be a Darby Allin. There wouldn’t be a Tony Schiavone here tonight. You wouldn’t be here tonight. So, thank you, once again, Ted,” Sting concluded.

A 10 bell salute then rang out throughout the arena.

AEW honors Turner’s legacy with its TNT and TBS championships, both named after the cable networks. The current TNT Champion, Kevin Knight, faced off against AEW World Champion Darby Allin in the main event of Wednesday’s Dynamite, which airs on TBS.

AEW Dynamite, Wednesdays, 8/7c, TBS & HBO Max

AEW Collision, Saturdays, 8/7c, TNT & HBO Max