AEW taping in Rio Rancho gives New Mexico wrestlers national stage

Albuquerque native Tony Davis, who wrestles as Antoine Giovanni, spent 17 years chasing a pro wrestling break and got one of his biggest chances at the Rio Rancho Events Center when All Elite Wrestling taped Dynamite and Collision there June 24 at 5:30 p.m. The show put a Sandoval County venue and a New Mexico wrestler in front of a national audience, with local talent from Off The Ropes Pro Wrestling School also working the production.

Davis said the travel show created openings for wrestlers who might otherwise never get that kind of exposure. Local wrestlers were used as extras, security guards and, depending on the needs of the broadcast, even match participants. For a wrestler trying to move from the independent scene to a larger platform, that kind of assignment can mean more than a night’s pay: it can become footage, contacts and a first step toward future bookings.

AEW framed the Rio Rancho stop as part of the road to Forbidden Door, and the arena itself was built for large productions. The Rio Rancho Events Center says it has 165,000 square feet of floor space and is designed to host concerts, sporting events, family shows, conferences, banquets and cultural programs. The Rio Rancho Convention and Visitors Bureau says the city-owned venue sits in a 160-acre downtown development and includes 26 luxury suites, 500 club seats, a VIP lounge, a club lounge and four club suites.

Rio Rancho has already shown it can draw a wrestling crowd. The Events Center’s database lists AEW Dynamite and Collision there on May 21, 2025, with attendance of 3,120, and local coverage pegged the first Rio Rancho AEW visit at about 3,100 fans. That return booking suggests the promotion saw enough demand to come back, and it gives the city another chance to sell itself as a viable stop for televised wrestling.

The city has already landed another major benchmark. WWE Raw later broadcast from Rio Rancho in November 2025, the first WWE flagship broadcast from New Mexico. For a market that has often lived in the shadow of bigger wrestling destinations, back-to-back national productions made Rio Rancho harder to ignore and gave Albuquerque and Sandoval County performers a bigger stage than most local cards can provide.