Recap of Tony Khan on the AEW Unrestricted Podcast

All Elite Wrestling President Tony Khan was the special guest on this week’s edition of the AEW Unrestricted podcast.

Here are some highlights of Khan’s discussion with Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards:

In the early stages of creating the wrestling promotion that would be come AEW, the first idea he had for the company’s name was, Worlds Best Wrestling.

Tony met TNT President Kevin Reilly at a party back on April 6, 2018. He learned that TNT was considering bidding for the TV rights for WWE Raw and SmackDown. He remembers telling Reilly that the wrestling TV industry had changed a lot since TNT aired WCW programming. He told Reilly that acquiring WWE programming would be way too expensive, but there was still enough fan interest to warrant a second major league product. Reilly was intrigued, especially when Tony Khan told him that were a lot of talent free agents and WWE wrestlers with contracts expiring in the near future.

The first names Tony Khan had in mind for starting a new promotion were Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Chris Jericho and CM Punk. Jon Moxley was not under consideration at the beginning, because he was a WWE guy and they were pleasantly surprised when he became a free agent.

He is very hands-on with the AEW product, as it relates to the creative direction and overall business operations. He’s communicating with referees during the matches about time cues and with the announcers about what to put over. However, he is careful to not be in the announcers’ ears too much.

AEW executives are happy with the Dynamite product and took a dig at ‘other companies’ taping 5 weeks of shows at theme parks.

MJF recently signed a new contract extension with AEW. He will be with the company through at least 2024.

It was Tony Khan’s idea to have young stars like Jungle Boy and Scorpio Sky have TV matches with (former) AEW World Champion Chris Jericho. He thought both matches showcased the challengers in a big way.

His appearance on Steve Austin’s podcast shortly after Double or Nothing, and Austin’s praise for the show, was one of the proudest moments during his time in wrestling.

His first exposure to pro wrestling was seeing Hulk Hogan on the A-Team in the early 1980’s.

AEW Of all the names that Tony had been thinking of to sign early on, Jon Moxley’s name was never one of them, because him leaving was a big surprise.

The people in AEW do not feel like they are in a war with WWE. They are trying to present a strong alternative product and compete with themselves.

Tony spoke about wanting to avoid insulting fans’ intelligence and the need to present things logically. He called out the “invisible camera” technique that other companies have used, where you see someone hatching a plan in secret and everyone else is supposed to act like it didn’t just air on television for the world to see.

Overall, it was a fun chat that is definitely worth checking out.