Tony Khan Announces Full Lineup For The Upcoming AEW Continental Classic Tournament

As announced earlier this month by Tony Khan and Bryan Danielson, the first-ever AEW Continental Classic tournament is set to kick off on tonight's "AEW Dynamite." Ahead of the round-robin tournament's start, Khan and Tony Schiavone unveiled the full lineup, featuring a Blue League and a Gold League.

Bryan Danielson, Andrade El Idolo, Brody King, Claudio Castagnoli, Eddie Kingston, and Daniel Garcia will make up the Blue League, while the Gold League will include Jon Moxley, Swerve Strickland, Rush, Mark Briscoe, Jay Lethal, and "Switchblade" Jay White. It was also announced that tonight's "Dynamite" will include Rush vs. White, Strickland vs. Lethal, and Moxley vs. Briscoe.

The Continental Classic is set to crown the first-ever AEW Continental Champion, with Kingston putting both the Ring of Honor World Championship and the NJPW STRONG Openweight Championship on the line as well. During the media scrum following AEW Full Gear, Khan clarified that the three titles will be united into one Triple Crown championship to be defended in AEW, ROH, and NJPW.

As a standard round-robin tournament, the members of each league will wrestle each other, gaining three points with a win or one point with a draw. The matches will have a 20-minute time limit. Once everyone has faced their entire group, the two top competitors from each block will face again in the league finals. The winners of those two matches will then wrestle in the tournament finals.

There are additional rules in place for Continental Classic matches that should help differentiate the tournament from standard AEW bouts. That includes banning anyone from being at ringside for a match, with more harsh restrictions on interference in place as well. The tournament is set to culminate at the company's next pay-per-view, AEW World's End, on Saturday, December 30, on Long Island, New York.