During a recent interview with Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch, AEW President Tony Khan noted that most of his company’s roster is vaccinated. He also mentioned that the company is hoping to travel Canada or Europe in the future and talent who aren’t vaccinated may have trouble getting across the border.

“I have got, most of the roster in AEW is vaccinated,” Khan said. 

“There have been some places we went where everybody had to be vaccinated. I think when the company starts doing international travel, we’ll see that for say, Canada, for England, places like that, it’ll be very difficult for wrestlers to travel without it,” he continued. 

AEW has not mandated that talent be vaccinated, however. He noted that their situation is similar to the NFL’s.

“I’ve not required it, same with the NFL, same with other wrestling leagues, but it will be a big challenge if you’re not for a lot of circumstances,” he said.  “A great example was the Jericho cruise where all the wrestlers on the Jericho cruise had to be vaccinated.”

According to various reports, vaccination status may have played a role in WWE’s most recent string of roster cuts.

“It was probably a half-dozen or more that did not get vaxxed that were cut,” Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio. “And it was very much part of the reason.”

Tony Khan has reacted to the latest wave of WWE roster cuts and whether or not some names stand out to him.

WWE recently had another string of roster cuts. On the same day the company announced $256 million in revenue this past quarter alone, 18 wrestlers were released. The reported reason was due to “budget cuts.” Among the names released were Keith Lee, Nia Jax, Karrion Kross, Scarlett Bordeaux, Ember Moon, and Franky Monet.

Tony Khan Discusses WWE Roster Cuts

Tony Khan, the AEW boss, spoke to Wade Keller on a new Focus on AEW episode and he talked about the impact that WWE’s latest wave of releases is having.

“Yeah, every time they cut like 20 people let’s just say, it’s terrible because every time somebody loses a job it is affecting them, it’s affecting people around them. Some of these people for all I know they might’ve wanted to leave, but in general, I think most of these people probably did not. So, it’s terrible when anybody loses their work and I feel for them. So, each and everyone counts.

“I’m gonna take a ballpark number and I’m not trying to make light of everything because everyone counts. And I know this is probably not the exact amount of people but every time they let, let’s say as a ballpark, 20 people go, I think there’s in general been one, two, three people in there or so that I am interested in and snatch up because they keep doing these mass layoffs. They let, let’s say 20 people go or more or less, and each time I find a few people and the company gets a little stronger and stronger in my opinion.”

Khan then admitted that there are some names who he’d be interested in doing business with.

“I do see a few in this wave. I don’t wanna say who or when I would be interested in them but there’s a few very interesting people they just let go.”

Please H/T SEScoops with a link if you use any quotes from this article

Tony Khan is opening up about the creative influence of AEW’s Executive Vice Presidents.

Khan recently spoke with Wade Keller of PWTorch earlier this week to promote next weekend’s Full Gear pay-per-view.

During the discussion, Khan addressed the rumors that Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks are less-involved than they used to be. Khan said that he has taken over much more of the writing of the shows, but that the EVPs all contribute their ideas as much as they ever did.

What has changed, however, is that they no longer book the show as a committee.

“They are still very involved in a lot of aspects of the business and a lot of those things have been enhanced,” said Khan.

He spoke about Kenny Omega leading a team to create the AEW console video game and Cody and the Young Bucks being leaders in the locker room.

“I’ve probably gotten a little bit more hands on with the stuff that I do than when we started but that makes perfect sense because I had never worked in a wrestling company,” Khan said.

Drawbacks of a booking committee

Khan continued to say that in the early days, the show was being booked with him and the EVPs all in a room together. Now, most of the show is booked by him at home.

“I was like the head of a committee and I think there are a lot of drawbacks of trying to book a wrestling show with a committee,” he continued.

“Around the start of 2020, the end of 2019, moved more to me writing the show and I think it helped and the show has been better for it.”

“They are still contributing all their ideas, that has never changed,” Khan continued to say of the EVPs.

• Tony Khan talks in-depth about his approach to longterm booking

Visit PWTorch.com to check out the full interview with Tony Khan in their paywalled VIP section.

AEW President Tony Khan recently spoke to Wade Keller of PWTorch. During the discussion, Khan spoke in-depth about his approach to long-term booking.

Keller asked Khan about if he knows who will come out of Full Gear as the AEW World Champion, and if he knows how long the next champion’s reign will be.

“Yes I do, but you never know,” said Khan. “Things have changed. A lot of the plans I had when Jon Moxley beat Chris Jericho, we did do a lot of the things I wanted to do but a lot of the things were not possible because the pandemic hit.”

“I do have plans, you never know how they are going to change. I do have a lot of plans. Kenny is on one of the great runs and I’m not so sure we’re ready to see it end but on the other hand, Hangman is ready and there are a lot of fans behind him.”

“Whatever the result it, it’s not the end for either man,” Khan continued.

1 out of 3 times …

Keller then asked Khan what percentage of the time does he stick with what he has planned and how often do things stray from what he originally had in mind.

“It’s probably 2 out of 3 times,” Khan said. “1 out of 3 times something changes, it’s not what you expected, somebody gets sick, and then you put a replacement in and then that starts going well and you move in another direction. So, I would say it’s probably about 2 out of 3 times if I draw stuff up and map stuff up.”

Khan continued to talk about the supposed “leaked card” for AEW Full Gear. A picture of his notebook from the sidelines of a Jaguars game appeared to show the planned lineup for the event but Khan said those were just ideas and not his final ideas for the show.

“People thought I accidentally leaked the PPV card. They saw my doodle notebook on the sideline but that was just me playing around with different stuff, ideas, I was not even close to done with it,” Khan said.

Tony Khan recently spoke with Wade Keller of PWTorch to promote next weekend’s Full Gear pay-per-view. During the discussion, TK commented on recent additions to the AEW roster.

“It’s so unrecognizable compared to the company that we started with,” Khan said about the current roster. “It’s pretty unthinkable looking around and seeing CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Ruby Soho, Thunder Rosa, all these awesome people that weren’t with us when we started.”

He continued touting more of AEW’s talent signings. “Malakai Black, Andrade El Idolo, new faces, and even the people that came in last year. Sting and FTR, Matt Hardy, and so many people have joined us along the way from when we started.”

CM Punk’s impact on AEW business

Khan also spoke about the impact that bringing in CM Punk has had on AEW’s ratings, merchandise sales, PPV buys, and more.

“Our numbers are so much better than they were going into the last few months and there’s been an unquestionable lift since CM Punk came in,” Khan said. “For some reason, I see some people trying to discredit Punk all the time, that he hasn’t been a huge lift to our business and he has been. And he’s only scratching the surface. I have intentionally in working with him tried to hold back a lot of his biggest marquee things, biggest marquee matches and stories.”

“We’ve been getting Punk reintegrated, building him a winning streak, and I think it’s worked great. Again, when you look at the rating we did for our first Wednesday back, that was a really strong number last week and he was such a huge part of it,” Khan continued.

“He’s just lifted our business so much,” Khan continued. He also noted that All Out, with Punk’s debut match against Darby Allin, did the most PPV buys in company history.

TV execs thrilled with CM Punk

“I was on with TNT yesterday, they’re so excited about the direction we’re going and the future of the business and there’s so many possibilities they see for the AEW franchise and he’s one of the big stars they want to build around,” Khan continued.

“The TNT executives also had a great call with Punk and talked to him and they want him to know he’s a really valued member of the TNT Warner Media family, the TBS family.”

If you use any of the above quotes please credit PWTorch with a H/T to SEScoops for the transcriptions.

Tony Khan recently sat down to talk with Wade Keller for an interview on PW Torch and during the discussion spoke about AEW’s live event schedule. He noted the process the company goes through to determine which cities to visit and how often they do so. Khan also spoke about how AEW’s live events regularly outdraw major sporting events.

“It’s not the most scientific process but it involves picking our best markets and looking where we’ve done good numbers and trying to make sure we cover some new markets,” Khan said of how the company determines which markets to visit.

He would continue to speak about the challenge of booking big arenas, noting that Rampages and PPVs are harder to book than Dynamite because they take place on weekends.

“We try to find the best venues, look at available dates at the big arenas, which is a big challenge,” Khan continued. “Wednesdays are sometimes a little bit easier to get the dates compared to Fridays for Rampage or a weekend for a PPV. Those weekend dates can be really challenging to find if they are booked way in advance at most of the arenas.”

Tony Khan On Visiting Markets Multiple Times

Keller asked Khan about going to markets a 2nd and 3rd time. Khan responded that AEW has had a great response when visiting their biggest markets, such as Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, multiple times.

“We did start to hit some markets twice through [before the pandemic]. In 2019, we were the #1 wrestling company in the world in tickets sold per event. In 2020, we were off to a great start and doing even better numbers before the pandemic hit,” Tony Khan continued.

“We had actually gone in early 2020 to some markets again and done really well coming back to Chicago and also we were coming back to Boston and Philly and had great advances there. So, it looked like it was really very strong. We had done a sellout again in Boston for our 2nd time through, and pretty close to a sellout in Philly.”

“We were seeing even before the pandemic the markets were ready to see us again and then after we spent over a year in Daily’s Place there was so much pent up demand for our shows.”

On Outdrawing Major Sporting Events

The AEW President also noted that they often draw better than major sporting events in leagues such as the NBA and NHL.

“There’s really a lot of top sports leagues right now that we outdraw and people talk about these big hot sports leagues and right now AEW outdraws a lot of major sporting events on a regular basis,” Khan continued.

If you use any of the above quotes please credit PW Torch with a H/T to SEScoops for the transcriptions.

Following last night’s edition of AEW Dynamite, Bryan Danielson and Tony Khan addressed the live crowd. Danielson was already in the ring after confronting Miro, who he will now face at Full Gear in the finals of the AEW Title Eliminator tournament.

With Orange Cassidy and the Best Friends still in the ring as well, Tony Khan addressed the live crowd and said that this week’s episode was the 2nd hardest ever to put together behind the Brodie Lee tribute show. A loud chant for Jon Moxley then rang out throughout the building.

Khan then gave the microphone to Danielson, who spoke about Brodie Lee and having texted with him about how happy he was in AEW. He also wished Moxley to get better soon. Danielson thanked the fans and everyone in the ring before inviting Justin Roberts into the ring. They then mocked the tie-choking spot that once got Danielson fired from WWE.

The YouTube channel “CoolToy” posted video of what went down after the show went off the air:

Next up for AEW will be a live edition of Rampage in St. Louis on Friday night. Adam Cole will face John Silver, The Bunny will face Red Velvet, and CM Punk will come face to face with Eddie Kingston on the show.

Tony Khan was a guest on Wrestling Observer Live this afternoon. During his appearance, he announced a few changes to tonight’s broadcast of AEW Dynamite, commented on Jon Moxley and also gave an update on AEW’s relationship with Impact Wrestling.

“There are some things that are more important than wrestling,” Khan said on the show regarding Moxley. He also noted that he’s known about the situation for a few days now.

“Jon’s at the forefront at everyone’s mind right now,” Khan would later say.

In terms of the semi-finals of tonight’s AEW World Title Eliminator tournament, Khan said Orange Cassidy will compete in the match tonight with a replacement opponent. Khan said he will not announce Orange’s opponent until tonight’s broadcast, but noted that fans will not be disappointed.

“There is a very logical way to resolve this,” Khan would later say of Moxley being out of the tournament.

The AEW President also announced that Kenny Omega will face Alan Angels from the Dark Order on the show tonight. This is a rematch from April 2020 in a match that got Angels hired to AEW.

Khan also announced that he’s found 2 luchadors to answers FTR’s Open Challenge for the AAA titles tonight. Samuray Del Sol and Aerostar will be their opponents.

Khan also commented on the relationship between Impact Wrestling and AEW. He noted that the “Forbidden Door” between the two sides is still open, they just don’t have anything planned at the moment.

“Still open to do stuff. I like those guys a lot and we’ve done a lot of great stuff,” Khan said regarding the relationship with Impact Wrestling. “Scott [D’Amore] and I talk pretty regularly.”

Tony Khan apparently wanted to bring in former WCW star and pro wrestling veteran Ultimo Dragon for an appearance during the early days of All Elite Wrestling.

Both the Japanese wrestling star and his WCW manager Sonny Onoo recently made an appearance on Perched on the Top Rope podcast where they talked about a number of different things.

During the talk, Onoo revealed that the AEW president had inquired about booking Ultimo Dragon for an AEW show before the promotion made its debut on TNT:

“Before the AEW started on Turner network, I did get a call directly from Tony Khan. I spoke with him, and he wanted to have Ultimo Dragon on the show or one of their promotional shows in Florida,

I forget the name of it, but it was a computer convention type of show. He wanted to know what the details were, but briefly, what I can tell; it was a one-time shot,”

• Tony Khan Doesn’t Want To Make These Mistakes Made by WCW

Explaining why the appearance didn’t happen, Sonny Onoo revealed that the former WCW star was getting ready to go back to Japan for Dragon Gate. The AEW appearance conflicted with his schedule.

Tony Khan has brought in a number of former WCW stars for various AEW appearances since the inception of the company. The list includes names such as Juventud Guerrera and more.

H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcribed quotes

Tony Khan has been flaunting the AEW ratings for the past few weeks. Though one thing that fans think AEW should be worried about is the falling ratings of Rampage.

The AEW president recently had an interview with Monaco Streaming Film Festival. He continued talking about these metrics and what they mean for his company.

Discussing the viewership ratings of Rampage, Tony explained that their audience is great relative to the time slot and explained how it took them time to build the current audience of Dynamite:

“It took us two years for Dynamite to hit #1 of the week, and it only took us two [week] for Rampage to do that. Our second episode has hit that. It’s a challenge Friday nights at 10 o’ clock to get good viewership.

We’ve seen great audience though, relative to the time slot. We’re still being top in the slot, and I really believe with our fan base, they follow us.” said Tony Khan, “As long as we promote it and keep delivering great matches, they follow us practically everywhere we go because they really love AEW,”

The AEW owner continued by saying that he wants to keep finding ways to give fans great content without oversaturating. He feels that they are in a sweet spot with the amount of wrestling for everyone.

Tony Khan then mentioned the phrase he recently coined in watch your wrestling. He said that he wants people to find what they like and enjoy that.

AEW President Tony Khan recently appeared at the Monaco Streaming Film Festival. During the event, Khan spoke about growing AEW’s roster and mistakes WCW made in the past that he doesn’t want AEW to replicate. In particular, Khan feels that WCW burned through big matches and often had unsatisfactory match-endings, such as disqualifications or matches ending with run-ins.

“I think WCW built one of the greatest rosters ever in wrestling, and they were competing with WWF in the ’90s. And I thought one of the mistakes they made is they had so many exciting matches in WCW and it was like week, after week, after week they burned through them,” Khan said. “But not only did they burn through them, there were very unsatisfying conclusions. A lot of them ended in disqualification or something that wouldn’t make me that hungry to watch a rematch.”

Khan has also been very complimentary of WCW in the past. He noted during the interview that it is easy to talk about mistakes made with the benefit of hindsight.

“Despite all of this, I can talk with the benefit of hindsight about the business mistakes WCW made. They also rose to incredible heights and proved that it’s possible for a wrestling company to do this.”

Tony Khan and former WCW President Eric Bischoff have had an up-and-down public relationship. Bischoff has appeared on AEW programming and Khan has been complimentary of Bischoff’s contributions to wrestling in the past. Khan seems to have offended Bischoff recently, however, when he Tweeted that Ted Turner didn’t know “1% about wrestling” than he did. Bischoff has since made several comments critical of Khan and AEW.

H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.

AEW boss Tony Khan says he turned down a pitch to have Rampage run in the format of WWE Backstage.

Rampage airs every Friday night on TNT at 10 p.m. ET. It’s a one-hour show that usually features three matches. Typically, the show airs right when WWE SmackDown wraps up.

Tony Khan spoke to Gavin Bridge at the Monaco Streaming Film Festival and revealed that he had been pitched having Rampage in the style of a talk show like WWE Backstage.

“I didn’t agree with [WWE] Backstage at all. I didn’t think it was a good format. I had actually been pitched to do a format like that with AEW and I refused because I don’t think wrestling fans want to see that format. Wrestling fans when they tune in to watch their wrestling show, they want to watch wrestlers wrestle and Backstage, to me, should be like a lower-budget streaming type show.”

Khan added that WWE Backstage had a very talented cast, but the ill-conceived format likely doomed the show.

“I don’t know if it had the legs to carry as a TV show, even though the people involved with it were awesome and a lot of them work for me now and are huge stars.”

AEW’s flagship show is Dynamite. That show will be moving to TBS in Jan. 2022. Rampage will be staying on TNT. Just a couple of months into its existence, Rampage had to compete with the final half-hour of SmackDown. Rampage beat SmackDown in the head-to-head key demo for that half-hour but fell short in overall viewership.

• Tony Khan Shares TNT’s Reaction To Rampage vs. SmackDown

H/T to Fightful for the transcribed quotes

AEW founder Tony Khan has revealed TNT’s reaction to Rampage and WWE SmackDown going head-to-head.

Rampage takes the 10 p.m. ET slot every Friday night. This follows SmackDown, which is typically on from 8 p.m. ET through 10 p.m. ET. Things were a bit different on Oct. 15. That’s because SmackDown was forced to move to FOX Sports 1 due to a scheduling conflict with MLB. WWE decided to add an extra half-hour to SmackDown, competing with Rampage.

As expected, SmackDown had the clear edge in overall viewers. The talk of the town, however, has been the fact that AEW beat WWE in that half-hour in the key demo. It’s been a polarizing discussion as some feel it’s a massive win for AEW, while others believe people are trying to spin things since SmackDown was clearly ahead in overall viewership.

Tony Khan Says TNT Is Thrilled With Rampage’s Numbers

No matter how you feel about the situation, TNT appears to be quite happy with how the head-to-head battle played out. Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan discussed TNT’s positive reaction to the numbers for Rampage.

“I thought it was even more impressive given that I was forced to take a couple breaks. It was really great of TNT to work with us, I thought, on short notice to push our breaks back, so we could have that match uninterrupted. To me, it’s not up to us when the show is on. In this case, somebody moved aggressively into our timeslot and it was really important for us to do a good number and win the night. And we did. I really wanted to rally the fans and put some attention on it. I also really believed we were going to win, and we did. We’ve done really well in the demo, which is the thing advertisers and the TV networks use to rate the shows. I know TNT was over the moon and very excited about what we did.”

The head-to-head madness didn’t stop there. FOX ran an encore presentation of SmackDown against a live episode of Dynamite on Oct. 23. On Oct. 29, WWE will run Talking Smack, which is going head-to-head with Rampage.

H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcribed quotes

Eric Bischoff and Tony Khan have been having a bit of a public back and forth recently. It started earlier this month when Tony Khan sent out a Tweet stating that Ted Turner didn’t know 1% of what he does about wrestling.

Former Turner employee, Eric Bischoff, appears to have taken offense to these comments. He noted on his 83 Weeks podcast that Khan should be quiet about WWE and focus on his own show. Khan then appeared on Busted Open Radio and said that he didn’t ask to go head-to-head with Smackdown on Friday night.

WWE and AEW Are Not Head-to-Head Competition

Recently on his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff noted that AEW and WWE are not in head-to-head competition with each other. He also accused Khan and AEW of “manipulating ratings data” to make AEW appear competitive with WWE.

“AEW is not in head-to-head competition,” Bischoff said. “They are just not. They are in the same industry. Now, you can say, ‘Well they came at us, they extended that half hour into our time slot and that was an aggressive move’, and that would be a fact. But to somehow spin that and try to suggest that you are a more popular product, you are a more successful product, you are winning some kind of a ratings war that only exists in the minds of dirt sheet writers and people that want to try to spin reality, that’s not right.”

Bischoff then continued to say that Khan’s claim that AEW is winning a ratings war because of certain demos is not correct. He referred to it as “data gymnastics.”

“All I’m suggesting is, rather than claiming you’re competing against, and somehow you’re competing favorably because you’re comparing a percentage of your demos on your Wednesday night show to a percentage of the demos on Monday Night RAW, notice they don’t talk about SmackDown too much. But on Monday Night RAW, when they go against Monday Night Football, which probably has the highest concentration of male 18-49 year old than just about anything else on TV in any given week, is a false equivalency. It just isn’t real. It’s data gymnastics.”

Eric Bischoff has been active on Twitter as of late responding to fans commenting on this issue. In some cases, he has been congratulating people for getting blocked by certain wrestling journalists.

H/T to WrestlingNews for transcriptions.

AEW founder Tony Khan has reflected on the time he first pitched teaming up with Darby Allin to Sting.

Sting and Darby have been aligned since late 2020. Many believe the two are a perfect pairing and that Sting’s wealth of knowledge has been a great asset to Darby.

Speaking to Z100 New York, Khan looked back at the time he first told Sting about the idea of pairing him with Darby Allin.

“When he first talked to me, I said, ‘There’s a young kid, please look at him because I think you’d be so great together and it’d be such a great pairing.’ And now, in real life, they’re such close friends, and they’re such a big part of each other’s life. They have so much in common. They’re both these straightedge, gray-hearted people who do all this great work, charitable stuff for kids. Neither of them does drugs, drink, nothing, and they’re both completely straightedge, and they’re both just so cool and have so much in common. But they had never met, and bringing them together and now seeing what it’s become to people around the world, it’s one of my favorite things about wrestling.”

Since making his AEW debut, many have been surprised by Sting’s performances in the ring. After all, he suffered a scary injury in a match against Seth Rollins back in 2015 and it appeared his in-ring career was over. Sting has since had a few matches in AEW and most agree he’s looked better than he has in years.

Not bad for a 62-year-old.

As for Darby, he’s one of the bright young stars of AEW. He’s currently involved in a feud with another young star in MJF. The two are expected to clash at the Full Gear PPV on Nov. 13.

H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcribed quotes

AEW founder Tony Khan has taken a look back at how he first met Dan Lambert and Jorge Masvidal.

Dan Lambert runs the renowned American Top Team MMA gym. Masvidal is a UFC fighter who trains at ATT. As of late, we’ve been seeing both Lambert and Masvidal appear on AEW TV. Masvidal has even landed his famous flying knee on Chris Jericho twice.

Tony Khan Was Introduced To Dan Lambert By Jorge Masvidal

During an interview with Z100 New York, Tony Khan discussed how it was Masvidal who introduced him to Lambert.

“The way it happened is, and I’ve never told the whole story before– about a year and a half, a few months before the pandemic, in the beginning of 2020, I had dinner with [Jorge] Masvidal in Miami and we just talked business,” Khan revealed. “We had a great talk, and then they told me, ‘American Top Team, Dan Lambert, have you heard of him?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, from Impact? He was Bobby Lashley’s manager in Impact. He did a really nice job,’ and they said, ‘He’s a huge fan in real life. And that’s the deal, he’s the biggest wrestling fan.’ I was like, ‘Oh, really? He’s pretty good, with a good personality. I’d love to meet him sometime,’ and they’re like, ‘Do you want to meet him right now?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, have him come over and hang out.’ So he came over to where we were having dinner. Fastest friends ever.”

Khan went on to say that he and Lambert became good friends. The AEW boss praised ATT’s leader for his love and knowledge of the wrestling business.

Lambert currently manages The Men of the Year, Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky. The team has two victories over The Inner Circle and is trying to make it three in a row. The Inner Circle has issued a 10-man tag team match challenge to The Men of The Year and ATT.

H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcribed quotes

AEW head honcho Tony Khan has returned fire on Eric Bischoff.

There was a time when Bischoff was the top mover and shaker outside of Turner executives for WCW. He helped lead the charge that defeated Vince McMahon and WWE for 83 straight weeks in the TV ratings. While his success during that period of time will never be forgotten, neither will WCW’s rapid implosion.

Khan and Bischoff have been both cordial and combative towards one another over the past couple of years. Bischoff recently took issue with Khan saying he won’t repeat WCW’s mistakes. Eric believes that Khan has been creating new problems and should just “shut up and wrestle.”

Tony Khan Hits Back At Eric Bischoff

Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Khan offered the following response to Bischoff.

“I was amused by Eric’s comments. I like Eric when we’re together, but this is the ultimate example of glasshouses, knowing how Eric conducted himself when he was the President of WCW and he did ask for the head-to-head competition, he said publicly I should be going to that, but I don’t decide when these shows are on.

“This time slot, we looked at a couple of different slots and this was one they thought would do well and I was supportive of because it allowed for a good block of wrestling on Friday night and I knew there would be a good amount of people watching on Friday and it was effectively an opportunity for people to watch everything in one night. When we got the head-to-head competition, I thought we need to respond and need to win. We did.”

Khan went on to say that Bischoff’s remarks are “laughable.” He reminded the former WCW President that he was the man who challenged Vince McMahon to a fight on his own show and had himself lowered from the ceiling on a motorcycle. Tony Khan believes Bischoff is simply putting on an act and trying to stir up controversy.

H/T to Fightful for the transcribed quotes

Booker T isn’t a fan of how Tony Khan is approaching the “ratings war.”

AEW went head-to-head with WWE for a half-hour this past Friday (Oct. 15). SmackDown was featured on FOX Sports 1 instead of the main FOX channel due to the MLB playoffs. WWE decided to run the show an extra half-hour, going one-on-one with the first half-hour of Rampage.

As expected, WWE won the overall viewer total. One huge positive for AEW, however, was that Rampage beat SmackDown in the 18-49 demo for that half-hour. Overall, both shows took in a 0.24 rating in the key demo.

While that’s impressive for a company that has only been around for two years, not everyone is happy with Tony Khan taking a victory lap about it on Twitter. Eric Bischoff has expressed his belief that Khan is losing focus.

Booker T Disagrees With Tony Khan’s Approach

Booker T is in agreement with Bischoff. During a new episode of his Hall of Fame podcast, the former five-time WCW Champion and former World Heavyweight Champion had the following to say on Khan’s social media posts.

“I’m of the sentiment that Tony Khan is doing a lot of talking about nothing. Go out and produce a good show. At the end of the day, we’ll know who won if that’s what we’re looking for, if that’s your goal post, if that’s where you’re trying to score in. But all of this talk about what you’re doing, this and that, back and forth, I swear man, it sounds like a little school girl saying how pretty she is over the other girls on the schoolyard.”

AEW and WWE aren’t done going head-to-head. WWE will be airing Talking Smack live on FS1 on Oct. 29. That show will be going up against AEW Rampage.

Tony Khan stepped up his trash talk game ahead of SmackDown’s head-to-head collision with Rampage. Though Eric Bischoff believes that he should ‘shut up’ and focus on his own product.

The former WCW president talked about the recent clash between the shows of WWE and AEW on an episode of his 83 weeks podcast. He also discussed the comments from the AEW president.

Bischoff said that if TK called him for advice; his suggestion would be to shut up and wrestle. Eric explained that Tony should focus on putting out the best product he can:

“If Tony were to call me and ask for any advice, here’s what it would be — shut up and wrestle, dude. Just put out the best product you can and you’ve proven you can. Focus on that. Now this is weird coming from me, right? The guy who challenged Vince McMahon. The guy who gave away their finishes. So people listening to this would go ‘what the hell’.

But here’s the difference. I was actually competing with him.” said Bischoff, “I was going head-to-head. Real head-to-head. Like, my show started the same time his show started each and every week.”

• AEW Rampage Beats WWE SmackDown Head-To-Head in Key Demo

Bischoff: ‘Tony Khan is Inventing New Mistakes’

The former WCW official also responded to the remarks Khan made about the mistakes made by WCW leading to their downfall. Eric Bischoff claimed that Tony Khan is inventing some new mistakes of his own. He also said that AEW is having a cosplay competition with WWE:

“And another thing, Tony comes out and says ‘We’re at the 1996 stage of WCW and going to not make their mistakes.’ Tony, you’re inventing some mistakes, brother, by coming out there and constantly comparing yourself or deriding your competition, but not having the willingness to say, ‘Okay, let’s go head-to-head. Let’s really compete. Let’s see who can get whose market share.’

And by the way, Tony, in 1996 I was kicking WWE’s ass. Every week! In a real head-to-head competition, not a cosplay competition.”

Apart from this, Eric Bischoff said that he is a little disappointed in the rhetoric he is hearing out of the AEW owner and some of the talent. You can check out his comments in the clip below:

AEW lost the overall viewership to WWE but has won the head-to-head key demo.

This past Friday night (Oct. 15), AEW ran its Rampage show while WWE delivered SmackDown. Things were a bit different this time. SmackDown was running on FOX Sports 1 due to a scheduling conflict with MLB. WWE also extended SmackDown to two and a half hours, competing with the first half-hour of AEW TV.

AEW Rampage vs. WWE SmackDown: Inside The Numbers

People were quick to jump on the “leaked” fast nationals as SmackDown had a clear edge over Rampage. That didn’t tell the full story, however. The final Nielsen numbers have been revealed (via Showbuzz Daily).

Overall, SmackDown had 866,000 viewers compared to Rampage’s 578,000 viewers. Both shows took in a 0.24 rating in the 18-49 key demo. During the head-to-head half-hour, it was AEW that won the key demo with 328,000 viewers compared to 285,000 for WWE.

Tony Khan took to his Twitter account to remind Darren Rovell that he failed to get the full scoop.

“Here’s a story nobody leaked to you over the weekend but I’ll give you rn, dog: AEW got a big victory over WWE after WWE aggressively extended their Friday show 30 minutes & loaded it up head-to-head 10-10:30pm vs AEW Rampage, with AEW Rampage winning 328k to 285k (+15% margin).”

When taking a look at how the overall numbers panned out during that half-hour, SmackDown took in 878,000 total viewers, while AEW had 602,000 viewers.

SmackDown ran the final half-hour with no commercials. The show closed with a contract signing featuring Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, and Paul Heyman. Rampage’s opener featuring CM Punk vs. Matt Sydal was also commercial-free.

We haven’t seen the last of AEW and WWE going head-to-head in some capacity. WWE will be airing Talking Smack live on FOX Sports 1 on Oct. 29. That’ll be going up against Rampage.

A photo of Tony Khan holding a notebook while at the Jacksonville Jaguars game was published online earlier this week with fans noticing that he had some interesting writing on it.

Fans zoomed in on it and noticed that it had the possible card for this year’s Full Gear pay-per-view event. 

The AEW President talked about this during an appearance on Friday’s episode of Busted Open Radio. He started off by noting that he was doodling in the notebook and was just walking around while not thinking that someone would take photos of him and captured his notes. 

“I’m glad it wasn’t anything more personal. It’s funny that people run with assumptions on the internet these days. I’ve seen all these people jumping to conclusions that, ‘oh, that must be the Full Gear card.’”

He continued by noting that it is true that he announced the main event of Full Gear, which is Kenny Omega defending the AEW World Heavyweight Title against Hangman Adam Page. 

“I just have notes and have been messing around with different ideas and playing around with stuff. You can even see, it’s scratching around and written in pencil and been erased. I think it’s pretty fortunate because it’s gotten a ton of buzz and has gotten people wondering and people should be wondering. It creates more speculation and now I’ll leave you with more questions than answers.”

The Full Gear pay-per-view event will take place on November 13, 2021 from Minneapolis, MN at the Target Center.

Tony Khan has revealed that he suffered a legitimate injury during a segment at the AEW Rampage: Grand Slam event last month from New York.

The AEW president recently talked to New York post. During the interview, he discussed the monumental AEW show which did some impressive viewership numbers.

Khan also explained how he got his ribs broken on the show. Per him, it happened during his run-in with MMA star dos Santos, in a spot that wasn’t pre-planned:

“He cracked them, I’ll be OK. But he legitimately cracked them. I’ll be OK. It’s been a few weeks, but I’m sleeping on my right side. It felt just right in the moment; it was just kind of improvised. He’s a very strong man. I love the gasp pop it got.”

The AEW Grand slam event saw the American Top Team consisting Jorge Masvidal, Junior dos Santos and Paige VanZant among others, attacking the team of Chris Jericho and Jake Hager after a tag team match.

Tony Khan came out to confront the MMA fighters as they were making their way back to locker room area. Though he was taken off his feet by the 6-foot-4, 238-pound Santos, leading to the injury.

Later in the interview, the AEW owner also revealed that he ‘no sold’ the injury backstage because he didn’t want the doctors pulling him out. Though he didn’t blame Santos for it and Khan claimed that he was ‘asking for it.’

Dos Santos will be making his in ring debut this week. He will be teaming with Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky to face the Inner Circle on this Friday’s episode of Rampage.

AEW President Tony Khan has big respect for Bray Wyatt and could see them working together at some point.

Wrestling fans were stunned upon receiving the news that Wyatt had been released by WWE. After all, Wyatt was in a main event role as The Fiend and is a former WWE Champion and a former two-time WWE Universal Champion.

Khan recently told the folks over at WFAN that he hasn’t spoken to Wyatt yet but he seemingly left the door open.

When speaking to the New York Post, Khan showed more optimism in a conversation with Bray Wyatt (Windham Rotunda) taking place at some point in the future.

“Yeah. I really like Windham,” said Khan. “I know him a little bit and I really enjoy him. The last time I saw him was at Chris Jericho’s birthday party and that was a long time ago.”

Khan continued by heaping praise on the former WWE Superstar and could see them working together in the future.

“I like him as a person very much and he’s a really talented person. At the right time and place, sure I’d be interested to talk to him. I’m interested to talk to him in general because he’s a great person.”

Wyatt competed at WrestleMania 37 earlier this year, losing to Randy Orton. He appeared in a backstage segment on Monday Night Raw the following night. This marked his final appearance on WWE TV.

Many have speculated what kind of role Wyatt can be put in if he ends up signing with AEW. The most popular direction seems to be filling the late Brodie Lee’s shoes and taking over as the leader of The Dark Order.

Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen.

The massive expansion of social media has given people a platform to share their thoughts freely. Though it also means that anyone can say whatever they want, without checking its accuracy. It’s the thing that Tony Khan dislikes the most. The AEW president recently appeared on My Mom’s Basement podcast. He confirmed the main event for the upcoming Full Gear PPV among other things.

Discussing what he doesn’t like about wrestling twitter, Khan said that anyone can spread a lie or make up a rumor and everyone takes it as a fact:

“The biggest thing is, somebody says something on wrestling Twitter that’s a lie or make a rumor up and then everybody takes it as fact as this one person made it up as truth. People run with it and there are a lot of things that have gotten traction. If you, you’re like, ‘that’s not true,’ but one person said it and you can almost track it back. There’s a lot of stuff that isn’t true.”

Tony Khan On Advantage Of Social Media

Though Tony Khan also discussed the flip side of this expansion. He explained how there are cases where obvious lies are easily debunked by people. Tony gave the example of Bruce Prichard claiming he didn’t know Kenny Omega until 2019 during a recent episode of his Something To Wrestle podcast:

“The flip side of it is, the wrestling side is, you have these people who tell these obvious things like I heard the other day Bruce [Prichard] was saying he had never heard of Kenny Omega in 2019. Then literally, they played a clip from 2018 and Bruce is talking very intricately about Kenny. So it’s like, give me a break, man,”

Tony Khan’s AEW will be presenting two big shows in Rampage on Friday and Dynamite on Saturday night this week. The AEW president is hoping to top SmackDown during their expected clash on Friday. He has made some big announcements for the show which you can check out here.

Tony Khan recently discussed the possibility of a streaming service that would feature AEW’s content library. According to comments the AEW President made on the Brandon Walker on Rasslin podcast via Barstool Sports, he has been speaking to WarnerMedia about the possibility.

“I’m talking to great people about WarnerMedia and AEW partnering. I think there are great opportunities. I work with one of the biggest media companies in the world and they have a lot of great ideas. Hopefully, we can make a solution for the fans,” Khan said (transcriptions via Fightful).

Khan continued to say that he is working on building up the AEW content library for just such a purpose. He also mentioned the “House Always Wins” unaired live show which could debut on the service.

“Believe me, I get asked that question every day. I’m trying to build the library up. We’ve done over 100 episodes of Dynamite, pay-per-views, streaming specials, I have something nobody has ever seen before with The House Always Wins, a pay-per-view level card. It’s something I’ve been saving and it’s a great show nobody has ever seen. It’s going to be available.“

The House Always Wins was held on April 9th, 2021 from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida. The main event saw Darby Allin defend the TNT Championship against the winner of a 15-man battle Royale held earlier in the show. In addition to the Dynamite, Rampage, Dark and PPV libraries, AEW also held several events before the launch of Dynamite in 2019. These include Fyter Fest and Fight for the Fallen 2019.