Tony Khan On Booking The Casino Battle Royal To Benefit Eddie Kingston

In an interview with PWInsider, AEW President Tony Khan spoke about enjoying Eddie Kingston’s work and deciding to book the Casino Battle Royal at Double or Nothing to showcase him more. Here are highlights:

On Eddie Kingston’s role in AEW: “Well I knew there was a good chance Eddie would be in this position because I booked the Casino Battle Royale for Eddie to be very strongly positioned. He came in and had a great debut against Cody and I was looking for the right spotlight after that because I wanted to bring Eddie back, and I told him as soon as he walked back through the curtain, “I want you to come back and I want you to stay here.” I didn’t have the idea for him right away and then it occured to me the next week that, the Lucha Brothers and the Butcher and the Blade had this great 8 man tag at Fyter Fest and we had kind of built them into a juggernaut where they’ve beaten The Young Bucks and FTR, the top two teams, they had come together in an eight-man match and beaten them, so I really felt like we need a mouthpiece for these four guys and also The Death Triangle was not fully operational with Pac being overseas… so many reasons why this is logical for Eddie to come in and be the leader of this group and establish himself both in the ring, he’s a great wrestler, and out of the ring he’s a great manager, and it’s worked out great.

Then Eddie was immediately, he came in and I was booking the Casino Battle Royale, so I started it where there’s kind of the three heel major factions that are all kind of butting heads where you have Archer and Jake the Snake butting heads with Team Taz butting heads with Eddie Kingston and his group and what’s going to happen when all these big names collide in the Battle Royale and all that, and it was by design it was supposed to come down to Eddie and Lance Archer so that both of them would be positioned as great challengers for Moxley. We knew Lance was going to be the first up and the crowd responded to Eddie very positively, as I expected. I was doing a little bit of an experiment because I did wanna see with Lance and Eddie as the last two guys, you know, clearly two guys were positioned as top challengers, I wanted to see what the crowd thought and they’re both huge important heels in this company but I saw that Eddie had this connection with this crowd and it was really interesting.

So Lance was a great winner for the Battle Royale and had a great title match with Mox at the anniversary show but Eddie has continuously stepped up since he arrived and when Lance was not available to work the six-man tag with Mox, Darby and Will Hobbs against Lance, Brian Cage and Ricky Starks, I pivoted late and I decided to go with Mox versus Eddie for the title. Mox thought it was a great idea and Eddie obviously, he’s very game to get this title shot, again stepped up and delivered and it felt like there was a lot more meat on his bone. I wasn’t expecting to go to Jon and Eddie as quickly as I did but coming out of it I felt like it was more to do and we really found a hot story. I was really proud of that and I originally thought maybe we’d go to Jon versus Eddie after Full Gear but I didn’t expect to go to it on TV as soon as I did and it ended up working out for the best and now the story’s been established. They’ve done some of the best promos in wrestling and inflicted some damage on each other, really had a great war on TV, and then we’ve done some great follow-up stuff to get some heat on the champ and I think it’s going to be a great match. For Eddie to be in this position, main eventing a pay per view, I’m really happy for him but I have to say he deserves it. If you watched All Out you wouldn’t be surprised to see Eddie in such a strong position.”

On the build to Chris Jericho vs. MJF: “It takes place in the wrestling ring, you know, does that make sense? I think the Town Hall…and the Town Hall did a great number, it was the highest rated segment last Wednesday in all of wrestling and I think that it shows that there’s a lot of interest in the match, because they came out with Dinner Debonair and the Town Hall posted a huge number and it was probably more what a conventional wrestling fan is looking for because look, not all wrestling is just wrestling, talking in the ring about wrestling as long as it’s not somebody just stroking their own ego talking about themselves for 20 minutes, wrestlers talking in the ring talking to each other about wrestling is some of the best stuff about wrestling, and when you get MJF and Chris Jericho in the ring – these 2 great wrestlers, talking about a wrestling match, that is great wrestling.

So Dinner Debonair was a variety segment, it got people talking, absolutely as we expected, and Dinner Debonair was sandwiched in a show with so much in-ring action. Dinner Debonair took place on a show where you had Penta versus Phoenix and Wardlow versus Jungle Boy and the tag match and all these great in-ring matches, so I think that for me, they’re very different segments, so it’s almost like comparing apples and oranges to compare the Dinner Debonair to the Town Hall because the Town Hall I think was a pretty conventional wrestling segment in a lot of ways – wrestlers in the ring talking about wrestling and other wrestlers asking questions. And I’m not surprised that the Town Hall came back and did a good number because clearly, not only do Max and Chris traditionally move ratings in a major way, they’re 2 of our biggest needle movers when it comes to ratings particularly in the demo, but to put them back in that context, where it’s not the Dinner, they’re back in the ring, in live action, and anything can happen and there’s potential for physicality, I see that as more of what people have come to expect from a talking segment in a wrestling ring, if that makes sense.”

On the reaction to Le Dinner Debonair: “I expected it to be a very polarizing segment and it was very polarizing and I expected it would create a lot of conversation and then the next week, those guys would pull a big number and that’s what happened. I think it worked out well to do the Town Hall segment coming off it because the Town Hall segment was probably more in the context of what people have come to expect from Max and Chris. so I thought the Town Hall was more conventional and probably that’s why I thought it was, you know…obviously it did a really strong number but also made more sense to go closer to the pay per view for the next show.”

On the importance of AEW Dark: “Yeah I think it’s our developmental system. Not everyone who is on the show is working in developmental but they might be working to bring up somebody in developmental and that’s why I think Dark is so important to us. I think that it’s a good thought and it’s a thought I’ve shared and have considered in the past and am still considering about is there ways to maybe split it into more shows and that has nothing to do with a third hour on TNT. I mean, our main roster of Dynamite performers, we have enough depth to easily put together three very strong hours of TV week to week without dipping into a lot of the performers that you see on Dark wrestling each week.

So what’s exciting to me is that we have a lot of young talent on Dark and it’s a great way to develop people, it’s a great way to get people more ring time that we want to push, it’s a great way to get people exposure because Dark does very good viewership. Many episodes have done half a million viewers or better. This past week’s episode is I think at 400,000 or more and it’s a great way to get your name out there but it’s really for us also a great way to put people in a position for a tryout. It’s a great way to try a new gimmick with somebody, it’s a great way to repackage somebody. There’s just so many great things we’ve been able to do with the Dark tapings and I’m just really happy that we have so many great young women and men that are working with us and plying their trade on Dark and I think it’s like you said, a lot of people have become very important in this company working their way up through Dark, which to me is like, you know, it’s effectively our developmental show. But it’s a lot more than that too because a lot of our big stars go and work on the show and they work with the younger people and help them. I think I’ve said like eight times in one answer, to help them develop.”