Tony Khan is claiming that this weekend’s episodes of AEW shows are not about competing with WWE. Instead, it’s about producing the best show they can. The AEW president recently made an appearance on Moose & Maggie on WFAN. Among other things, he discussed the upcoming AEW shows.
The first half-hour of Rampage on Friday this week will be competing against SmackDown. WWE has announced that the final half-hour of their show will be running commercial-free, while AEW has confirmed a buy-in featuring Bryan Danielson for their show. The Dynamite episode will be airing on Saturday instead of Wednesday the next couple weeks to avoid a clash with NHL.
Tony Khan discussed these changes during his interview. He claimed that their shows this weekend are not about competing with the opposing promotion:
“We have Friday night Rampage on TNT at 10:00 and we have Saturday night Dynamite on TNT at 8:00. Right now, we have all this momentum. The number one show on all of cable and satellite TV six straight Wednesdays.
It’s bad timing to be moving off Wednesday when you’re on such a great recent run, but this weekend’s huge for us, and the shows have been so good. It’s not about competing with them. It’s about doing our best show.”
Though while Tony Khan is claiming that their shows are not about competing with WWE, he also isn’t leaving any chance to take shots at the promotion. The AEW president claimed on Twitter that he can’t wait to beat SmackDown when the clash was first confirmed. He also recently took a shot at this Monday’s Raw, saying it sucked.
It’s worth mentioning here that both Dynamite and Rampage suffered big rating drop last week. So it would be really interesting to see how the shows perform with all the announced changes this week.