AEW President Tony Khan has provided some interesting insight about All Elite Wrestling’s creative process.
Khan spoke with Johnny Christ this week on a special Youtube edition of the Drinks With Johnny podcast. They spoke a wide variety topics, including the recent NFL draft. Of course there was also a lot of wrestling talk.
Interestingly, Khan revealed that he has taken inspiration from late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon when formulating AEW’s “no audience” programming. He also shed some light on the importance of letting wrestlers be themselves without over-scripting.
Christ said one of the things he likes about AEW is the wrestlers speak from the heart. He feels like the talent has taken control of their characters, which gives them and the product a more organic feel.
Tony Khan Lets AEW Talent Get Creative
Tony Khan said there needs to be an overall structure to AEW’s story telling. However, he does not want to write dialogue that is not believable for a specific wrestler. He would never hand a wrestler a piece of paper and tell them to memorize 6 paragraphs to recite.
Khan singled out Darby Allin as a prime example of a talented performer that needs to speak in his own words. “I can’t speak for Darby Allin, nobody can but Darby,” Khan said.
Darby Allin’s character development in AEW has been fueled by his ominous vignettes. He puts those together himself. “That’s the genius of Darby,” Khan said. He reiterated that AEW needs an overall structure and he loves that side of the creative process. But the talent needs leeway to flourish creatively.
Johny Christ said promos are what sold him on wrestling as a kid. When you see a wrestler who is fired up and speaking passionately, you have no choice but to get invested. Christ said he’s seeing cooler promos in AEW than “elsewhere.”
Tony Khan wrapped up by saying, “we have some really creative people” in AEW. In recent weeks, they have been working with a skeleton crew. Everybody stepped up and that has made him proud. He gave another example of Chris Jericho coming up with the Bubbly Bunch series. Jericho was given a chance to get creative and it’s working.
You can check out the full episode of Drinks With Johnny Live below: