Excalibur on His Initial Uncertainty About AEW, Being Convinced By Tony Khan And All In Being a Hectic Weekend For Him

Excalibur spoke with Chris Van Vliet and discussed how hectic of a weekend All In was for him and initially being uncertain about AEW until he met with Tony Khan. The AEW announcer has been a part of AEW since before there was AEW, doing commentary for All In which was a very chaotic weekend because it was the same weekend as his sister-in-law’s wedding. Speaking with Van Vliet, the PWG co-owner talked about how when he got word from Matt Jackson that “there’s something coming,” he spoke with his fiancee and they were both a little unsure because of the history of other wrestling companies failing. You can check out highlights from his comments, as well as the full video, below:

On doing All In the same weekend as a wedding: “All In was actually the same weekend as my sister-in-law’s wedding. And so I had to get like, a very serious permission slip because the wedding was on Sunday, All In was on Saturday. So I missed the rehearsal dinner, I missed the — and I had to tell my fiancee that — you know, it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m never gonna have a chance to do something like this. This means a lot to me, all these guys are here. I’ve seen them come up.’ And she’s just like ‘Okay, but if you miss that wedding, I’m gonna kill you.’ It was in San Diego. So I was on a 5 AM flight from Chicago to San Diego. And so I ended up making it to the wedding in time. I was dog tired, but then when I got there she was like, ‘You need to keep your energy level up until at least 10 PM’ … So I did my part, I stayed up until 11 and then I just crashed in a heap.’ After that, I watched the show back, and I watched it with her. And I was like, ‘Wow, I’m really glad I got to do that.’ And she was like, ‘I’m happy for you.'”

On being told that AEW was coming: “And then a couple — maybe a month or so later, Matt texted me and he was like, ‘Hey, there’s something coming. And we’ll let you know that there’s something coming.’ And so you know, she and I talked. Because I had a job away from wrestling, I had a day job and everything. And there was a lot of, you know, because the details about AEW at that point — even after it was announced, all we had was the PPV. The TV deal and everything wasn’t around … It was six months. And then the TV deal wasn’t even announced until I think, right before the PPV? It was at the upfronts, right? So maybe in June.

“But anyway, you know, I was saying to her, ‘Can I make a career out of this? Is this possible?’ And she’s like, ‘I don’t know.’ It wasn’t that she [wasn’t] supportive, but she was trying to be realistic. And I was trying to be realistic too, because there’s been so many failed pro wrestling promotions. And so it’s like, obviously I knew to have a healthy dose of skepticism. But once I met Tony, Tony Khan and talked with him, saw the infrastructure that they had set up from January 1st to May 25th and all this stuff. And all these people that were taking a chance on AEW, both she and I agreed that yeah, this was something that — it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and I couldn’t pass it up.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.