Tony Khan was recently a guest on Busted Open Radio. During the discussion, he mentioned that he sometimes likes to compare AEW’s roster to the one WCW had in 1997.
“I like to compare our roster sometimes to what I think was the hallmark great roster, which was 1997 WCW,” Khan said on the show (transcriptions via Fightful).
While WCW in 1997 had many top names including Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Hollywood Hogan, Sting, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash, Khan feels it was the young and underutilized talent that really could have helped the company in the long run.
“They had a lot of young talent that they didn’t realize and they could have built for the future to help make it a profitable company that they never want to shut down. They could have made it a money-printing machine if they developed the young talent in-house that they had like Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio.”
Khan would continue to say that those young names didn’t get an opportunity in WCW. In AEW, however, Khan says he’s proud of the young homegrown stars the company has been able to produce thus far.
“I do try to build stars for the future and that’s why you have so many great homegrown stars that are being featured at All Out. There are great opportunities here and I don’t think Jericho, Mysterio, and Guerrero got those same opportunities when they were on a roster with the all-time names like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Randy Savage, and Roddy Piper.”
Chris Jericho was on the roster in WCW in 1997 and is currently a member of the AEW roster. The role he is in has swapped, however. Back in 1997, Jericho was one of those young and underutilized guys. In AEW today, Jericho is an established name and the company’s first-ever world champion.
“What a great TV business they built with that roster that unfortunately didn’t last, but I think would have lasted longer if they had built the young stars the way I try to do,” he said.