All Elite Wrestling will bring its WrestleDream pay-per-view event to Addition Financial Arena on Oct. 17, AEW officials told the Orlando Sentinel exclusively.
Tickets will go on sale to the general public Aug. 10, with some presales and premium seats available beginning Tuesday at 10 a.m.
The show marks AEW’s first pay-per-view in Orlando since December 2024’s Worlds End, where Jon Moxley retained his world championship and Kazuchika Okada won the Continental Classic. Moxley and Okada are still among the biggest stars of the roster, which is led by current world champion and Orlando resident Kenny Omega.
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AEW, based in Jacksonville, has grown into one of the world’s top pro-wrestling brands since its founding in 2019, with weekly shows on TBS and TNT and successful events in London, Mexico and locations all over the world.
AEW owner/CEO Tony Khan conceived the original WrestleDream in 2023 as a tribute to a legendary Japanese wrestler. It has since become an annual traveling event.
“I was inspired by pro wrestling’s greatest dreamer, Antonio Inoki,” Khan told the Sentinel last week. “One year after he passed, I founded the show and it’s one of my favorite times of the year. It’s featured some of my favorite moments in AEW.”
For Khan, the son of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan, operating a pro-wrestling brand has been his dream since childhood. He has always been a diehard fan, watching promotions around the country and the world before getting the chance to run his own promotion at age 36.
As Khan noted, AEW has presented more events in Florida than anywhere else, including the AEW Dark streaming show at Universal Orlando from 2021 to 2023. But pro wrestling in Florida has its own long history, dating back to the days of the Eddie Graham Sports Complex on North Econlockhatchee Trail in east Orlando.
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Khan said his greatest Florida wrestling memory was a 1986 match in that now-demolished building.
“One of the matches that I was so excited to see as a young fan trading tapes of wrestling on the internet, when I was in junior high, was Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham from the Battle of the Belts in Orlando,” Khan said. “That’s just one of so many great matches and rivalries in Florida, and we’re glad to add to that history.”
Premium seating for AEW WrestleDream at UCF’s Addition Financial Arena goes on sale Tuesday at 10 a.m., with other presales Aug. 6-9. For more access to presale tickets, visit allelitewrestling.com/aew-insider.
jreddick@orlandosentinel.com