The much-anticipated interview with AEW’s Tony Khan is up now on Fightful’s YouTube channel. The interview was done by the Grapsody team of Will Washington, Philip Lindsey, and Righteous Reg.
Here are some transcribed highlights and scroll down for the full interview.
Tony Khan was asked why he thinks some people compare AEW to WCW:
“I think the reason people want to compare the two companies most of all is we are the only two wrestling companies to air on TBS and TNT and we both aired on TBS and TNT. There are some people that have worked in both companies. I think Sting is an important face for both companies. Tony Schiavone in particular and Jim Ross have been voices for both of the companies. The TBS and TNT names are so synonymous with wrestling. That is a utility that we have been able to provide to the fans is bringing wrestling back to TBS and TNT, so that is really why people are making comparisons, but they are very different. A lot of the reasons why WCW would go away or go out of business don’t really exist or aren’t really realistic business concerns for AEW is because it’s not a company owned by a network or even a media property. It’s a family business owned and operated by me. I love wrestling and I’m not going anywhere.”
On ROH:
“Without doing anything to upset the apple cart, without going outside our relationships and really, I haven’t shopped anything outside of Warner Brothers Discovery. Ring of Honor, taking that pay-per-view business, growing it, having the best pay-per-view year Ring of Honor has ever had doing three shows, and with just the three shows, I think we’ve done more buys than Ring of Honor with a full pay-per-view calendar had ever done. I can tell you now, The Honor Club, with really just the historical library relaunch, without putting new content up every week yet, based on people watching the archive library, we’ve already hit the all-time high in subscribers to the Honor Club in just weeks. I’ll be announcing the weekly Ring of Honor series, so I think there’ll be a lot more reason to drive people there.”
On the status of Paige VanZant:
“Paige VanZant makes a lot of money. She is very talented and commands a big dollar figure, but I’m also very interested in that. I would like at some point for her to come back. I really like Paige VanZant. She’s awesome and I love Dan Lambert. I’m open to doing more stuff with Paige VanZant. I think at some point it’s something I would definitely be open to down the road.”
On the status of Miro and others complaining on Twitter:
“There are dozens of wrestlers featured throughout Dynamite and Rampage every week, and throughout those hours, you see a lot of names, but there’s also dozens of names in AEW you’re not seeing every week and sometimes they are silent about it. Sometimes there’s a reason for that, somebody’s hurt, somebody’s working on a project, somebody’s being repackaged, or frankly, there’s just not enough slots in three hours. On other sports teams, you don’t really see it as much. It’s not really common in the NFL for the backup quarterback to blame the coach because he’s not playing. It’s not really common in the NBA for the backup point guard to blame the coach because he’s not getting minutes. I take it and I take it with a smile and I’ll keep taking it with a smile. It’s okay. I understand. Everybody wants to wrestle and everybody wants to do things and everybody is coming from a different perspective. So I don’t want to compare one person’s situation to another because it’s apples and oranges, but we have a lot of great wrestlers here and when they’re here and when we can get everybody involved, I love that.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Fightful with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
