Tony Khan Comments On If NXT Moving To Tuesdays Changes Anything For AEW

In an interview with PWInsider, Tony Khan spoke about NXT moving to Tuesday nights and if that will change AEW’s approach to how they write episodes of AEW Dynamite. Here are highlights:

On having Mike Tyson come in for Dynamite and not overshadow the rest of the card: “Tony Khan: Well when we have a lot of great in-ring stuff on the show, I think it’s great to be able to bring in a mainstream celebrity, in this case a mainstream athlete, somebody who has a big fan base and hopefully makes new fans. We’ve got a great wrestling product and we’re going to have great wrestling matches – this is a great example of a show with some great matches on paper – very excited about the main event, the Trios match. The first time Jon Moxley has ever teamed with the Young Bucks, it’s the first time the Young Bucks have ever wrestled against Kenny Omega on Dynamite, these are really important things. This is such a big match – Moxley and the Young Bucks versus Omega and the Good Brothers. Then we have Tay Conti wrestling Allie is a tremendous match, they’ve both improved so much during their time in AEW to become two of our top women, very excited for that. We’ve got Darby Allin defending the TNT Title against JD Drake, who’s been a great journeyman wrestler and earned his opportunity in AEW, who’s worked his way up through Dark and Elevation and accepted the open challenge. This is really what the open challenge is all about – giving the top independent wrestlers the opportunity to come prove themselves on Dynamite. We announced the Godzilla vs Kong match with Jurassic Express vs Bear Country, which has been building for some time and in recent weeks this situation has boiled over and it was a great opportunity for Warner to come in and promote Godzilla vs. Kong with these two behemoth tag teams squaring off. And of course, Hangman Page is the #1 ranked wrestler in AEW – the hottest wrestler in AEW right now, aside from Hangman is Max Caster, who is on a real run. He hasn’t been pinned in a singles match all year and has a very strong case in the Top 5 this week. When the rankings come out – this is a scoop – I will be putting Max in the Top 5 after his win over Colt Cabana, which was a really strong win, he’s got 3 straight wins over members of the Dark Order – 10, Alex Reynolds and now Colt Cabana and with Hangman being close friends with the Dark Order it’s a very interesting match. We have the return of the Inner Circle, Chris says they have a revelation they’re going to make, Inner Circle versus Pinnacle is very exciting. You mentioned Cody and QT, I think we’re going to learn more about QT and these young wrestlers that he’s been training. So I’m very excited for the show and I think Mike coming in is a great chance to give some more mainstream publicity and hopefully make some new fans. I’m not sure how many but anytime you can make new fans is always great, maybe some people will watch the show this week that have never seen it before and in the coming weeks I want to make some new fans out of these first time viewers.”

On if NXT moving to Tuesdays changes anything for AEW: “That’s a great question. I have a stacked show planned for this week and I have another stacked show planned for next week when we’re unopposed by a wrestling competition. We’ll have some stories this week that are going to be very interesting and are going to lead people, my hope is, wanting to come back and watch next week’s show. I believe there might be some wrestling fans who might have not watched the show before and are going to want to come check it out in the next couple of weeks. So I think having Mike Tyson on the show this week is a great way to bring some attention to the wrestlers and our big matches and big stories this week and we’re going to have a really, really strong card the next couple of weeks. We have a great roster and there’s no reason we shouldn’t have great cards every week. We’ve consistently been doing big matches every Wednesday and I think now’s a great time to pour some gasoline on the whole situation and create a blaze.”

On the criticism of blood in the Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker match: “That was a story that was building for 5 months and a 5 month build lights out match, and it’s a match where we’ve seen with Moxley and Kenny at Full Gear 2019 that people hold nothing back in these matches, there are no rules, and there’s an expectation that it’s going to get very physical and there could be some pretty ugly fighting with some weapons and potentially some blood, and I felt like they more than lived up to the reputation of the lights out match, and I don’t think that anything that Britt and Thunder Rosa did was out of the expectations of a lights out match and I thought everything they did was great. The blood is not what I was worried about, there were some moments in the match, like the finish, that I had to get talked into, [laughs] but the match was my idea, doing a very physical match was my idea, and the finish itself was all very consistent with my ideas. But the final spot, they had to talk me into doing that through the table, other than that, I thought everything else was very much in line with the expectations fans would have for lights out matches. It’s a big main event. So I didn’t think they did anything that crossed the line and furthermore, in that situation, Britt is clearly a doctor so there are very few people that I would trust more in a situation to do the right thing than her.”

On if Friday’s house show opens the door for more: “I am open to doing more house shows. This is an experiment, it felt like a great week for us to do it where we have the whole crew available to us and we got a really good house for Dynamite this week, we have a great crowd, and with the recent sales of Dynamite, tickets have trended really well, Revolution did very well, the weather’s been great, the fans have been great, we wanted to do something special for our fans here in Jacksonville. The fans in Jacksonville have been heard around the world and what they’ve done through the pandemic has been really special because we started doing shows here in August, and week in and week out the fans here are so supportive and not only have they have they helped the wrestlers and the matches and AEW, us, our show, but fans around the world have enjoyed the show more because of the people in Jacksonville. There’s people all over America, Canada, England, Europe, TNT Africa, and all the great places we’re at, in South America, it’s like…we’ve been able to take advantage of the great support we’ve had from the fans in Jacksonville. There’s moments like when Darby won the TNT Title from Cody at Full Gear, when the Young Bucks won the tag team titles that night at Full Gear from FTR, at Winter Is Coming when Kenny won the title in not the cleanest fashion at all from Mox and when Sting debuted the crowd being there was such a huge, important part of it, having well over 1,000 fans. Of course, the Brodie Lee memorial show. Thank you so much to all the fans who were there who were heard around the world and the chants for Brodie, the support all night, we had over 1,000 people again for that. They’re a real wrestling crowd and they’ve helped through the pandemic and nobody else in America had that. Nobody else in America consistently had that support of 1,000 people give or take, recently with vaccines we’ve expanded to 20% capacity outdoor shows to 25%, done close to 1,300 people for Revolution and the Brodie memorial and shows like that, it’s just been great support and I knew these fans would support a house show and the economics of wrestling really changed and the cost of putting on shows is higher than it used to be and we have a lot of top talent that already work their asses off on Dynamite, Elevation and Dark for us, but this is a week where we have a really big crew in town, we were going to do a really good number for Dynamite and it felt like we could just stay here in our base and there would be a lot of fans that would want to come here and see the show. So it made a lot of sense and we’re on pace to do a great house and again have over 1,000 people at Daily’s Place on Friday. For some of the young wrestlers, in particular to me, this is a great chance for them, some of them haven’t had a chance to wrestle in front of a crowd before the pandemic and really through the pandemic the opportunity to do so has been very limited, so it’s a great chance for some of our young wrestlers – Jade Cargill, Dante Martin, Cesar Bononi, among others, to get experience in front of live crowds. For many of our veterans, they love doing it, it’s fun, it’s a big perk of the job for them.”

On if the house show will be taped: “Yeah as part of our library. I am going to tape it and it’s going to be part of our video library. And the matches will count on the record with the AEW show.”

On Chris Jericho’s claim that TNT told AEW not to have new signings just show up like Sting did: “It’s a mixed bag..I wouldn’t say that’s exactly how it happened. Some of that, maybe through different..point being, I don’t think that’s exactly how the conversation…I know, because I was the one who had it, that’s not exactly how the conversation with TNT went but there’s a balance between announcing things in advance like we’ve done with Mike Tyson coming in for this week or with Paul Wight coming in, telling fans in advance when something’s coming or surprises that came out of nowhere like when Sting showed up. And I think that’s a great balance to have and I think we’ll be doing both. So with Mike we announced in advance but I would never, and let me make it clear, TNT never said, “Don’t do surprises.” They thought that was great and they’ve had a huge reaction to Sting and in doing the announcement with Paul they were excited to do one with a press release and it was a great strategy, we did a great number and it was a huge interest and it built huge search traffic and it built a lot of buzz and now Paul is a big part of our family and for everybody that’s been involved in Elevation, he’s brought a lot more eyeballs on Elevation, it’s been a huge, huge success for us. We just did by far our best month ever on YouTube, the views for Elevation have been a huge success but also, that’s only one part of what Paul does here, on screen is that. Behind the scenes, he’s been a huge, huge presence, mentoring young talent, giving notes to all the wrestlers on Elevation on their matches, on what he thinks they can improve or what he thinks they should keep doing and where their strong points are. And also, I don’t want people to think…Paul’s going to, Paul’s going to wrestle [laughs]. I really think this was a great way for Paul to come in because you’re going to get…there’s a little bit of that mob mentality in all things now, and wrestling is no exception, and for Paul to come in this way – Elevation, he’s elevating young talent, he’s added tons of value for the young wrestlers, he’s put thousands and thousands of new eyeballs on young wrestlers that are going to be making new fans and it’s a great opportunity for them, he’s mentoring them on the show, he’s not taking anybody’s spot, he’s adding value to the young wrestlers. If anybody says that Paul Wight came in and took some young guy’s spot and is holding back the young wrestlers, that is crap. That is the opposite of what is happening, that is not the case and that would be an example of that backwards mentality that some people have. You have to actually look at how people are being utilized and in Paul’s case, he’s helping elevate the talent. Now there will come a time when it’ll make a lot of sense for Paul to get involved in a wrestling storyline. He’s one of the most recognizable athletes in the world, he’s one of the most recognizable big men in the world and he’s going to have a huge, huge, huge presence here but the way he’s come in, the way he’s helped elevate the talent, and the way that young wrestlers are benefiting from Paul being here, nobody can deny.”

On AEW’s goals for 2021: “Well thanks for saying that. I guess I would like to see us make some new wrestling fans. I think there are a lot of wrestling fans who like AEW, and I think among the world of wrestling fans, we have a chance to continue building an audience and getting fans to check out the show now because we won’t be opposed by another wrestling show next week. I think we’ll have some new fans coming in then I really hope, checking us out, and I hope to make some new wrestling fans in general, fans of AEW and then they can check out other companies and find what they like in wrestling, and find the wrestlers and the moves and the stories they like, and I just want to make new fans of wrestling. I think there are a lot of fans of wrestling and we can still make AEW fans watching our show, so I think I’ve always been focused on getting a bigger piece of the wrestling pie and I hope we can also make some new fans of wrestling and I have a feeling that anyone’s that made it this deep into this interview is probably a really big wrestling fan, probably might have checked the show out already and that’s why I like to do interviews with you, Mike, and with the wrestling journalists, to talk to the hardcore wrestling fans and tell them I really think about you, I really care about your opinion and I really care about what you think about wrestling and your opinions. We all are the same and your ideas matter and to the people that aren’t listening to this, there’s people that might not know most wrestling sites like PWInsider or they’ve never watched wrestling, those are the people I also want to get to.”