A major shake-up may be happening behind the scenes in All Elite Wrestling — and it’s affecting the people responsible for its merchandise.
A Reddit post from user KatoMacabre noted that AEW is moving on from its long-time partnership with Pro Wrestling Tees — and as a result, the group of designers who handled AEW’s merch has been let go.
Before getting into the details, the key thing here is how the setup worked. The artists designed AEW merch seen on ShopAEW, but they were actually employed through PWTees — meaning once that relationship ended, so did their roles.
The post goes further, naming several designers and claiming the layoffs happened quickly, without much warning, as part of what’s being described as an imminent split between AEW and PWTees.
“In what seems to be an imminent split between AEW and ProWrestlingTees, the whole merch design team (Jacob C. Paul, Erik Veszelka, Mel Coleman and probably a few others but I don’t have confirmation) got laid off today.”
It also explains why the impact hit so directly, pointing out that even though the team worked exclusively on AEW projects, their employment structure left them exposed once the partnership changed.
“The team designed exclusively for AEW, and everything released on ShopAEW was designed by them, but they worked for PWTees, so them being laid off is a direct consequence of AEW ending their partnership with PWTees.”
The tone of the post shifts from reporting to personal, with the user claiming to have worked alongside the team and reacting strongly to how things went down.
“I had the pleasure to be in the AEW merch design team and work alongside them, and they genuinely are in my opinion the best artists you can find in the pro wrestling world, and I’m very shocked, sad and a bit angry that they were just cut one day to another.”
There’s also a bit of uncertainty about what comes next. The same post suggests AEW could still bring some of those designers in-house — but as of now, nothing points to that happening.
“Of course things might change and they might be hired by AEW themselves at some point soon, but so far it’s not looking like it.”
Bottom line — AEW didn’t just switch merch partners, it wiped out the team behind a lot of its designs in the process. No official word yet, but it’s the kind of move that could reshape how AEW handles merch going forward.
So what do you think — smart business move, or did AEW just lose a key part of its brand? Drop your thoughts below.