wrestling / News

Tony Khan On Fan Capacity For Tonight’s Blood & Guts, Live Touring Plans

May 5, 2021 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Tony Khan AEW Image Credit: AEW

Tony Khan has Blood & Guts set for tonight’s AEW Dynamite, and he discussed the fan capacity for the show and plans for the company’s live touring to resume in a new interview. Khan appeared on Busted Open Radio hyping tonight’s show and weighed in on a few topics; you can check out highlights below (per Wrestling Inc):

On having a wider audience for tonight’s show: “This is a match (Blood & Guts) near and dear to a lot of our hearts. And we wanted to do this for the fans last year, but at the beginning of the pandemic, when we didn’t have fans around, there was no way to do this. Tonight we’ve got our biggest crowd since we closed down for the pandemic, and I’m really, really excited about it. There’s going to be over 1500 hundred people here tonight. It’s going to be really, really great. We’ve opened it up closer to 40% capacity, and now I’m planning, as we get closer to Double or Nothing, to start loosening it up, and I expect to be at full capacity, outdoors, for Double or Nothing, based on what a lot of other sports have done. I think it’s going to be great.”

On his hope to get on the road again soon: “Really I’m just excited to get back to a sense of normalcy. AEW’s had a great run during the pandemic, it’s crazy how much has happened. A lot of our biggest stars have never wrestled in front of a full crowd at 100% capacity. It’s insane when you think about how many big people in AEW that applies to. Brodie Lee, his entire career in AEW was in Daily’s Place, effectively. Which I appreciate. The fans saw some of the great matches and some of the great matches in his career. Then at the end of his life, the fans came together and celebrated his life with us. I’ll always really appreciate the Jacksonville fans here, and that’s why I’m glad we’re able to do Blood & Guts here. Because these great fans, here in Jacksonville, have really been the home town team for our fans over the world watching AEW. I like the virtual fans, I think the virtual fans are awesome. But there’s no substitute for the real fans and the excitement of live fans. And we’ve been able to provide that through the pandemic, safely, this entire time. So I’m really excited about that to. It’s going to be a great crowd tonight.”

On plans for the company’s live touring return: “We’ve got great fans here (in Jacksonville), we’ve got great fans all over the world. And that’s why I’m glad we’ve been able to offer great shows here as we kind of close out this run before we start touring again. And when we do start touring again it’s not like we’re going to forget about Jacksonville. But we’re also going to hit New York, and go back to Boston and Philly and Chicago and Dallas and Miami and all these other great places we’ve been. I can’t wait to go back to all of those places. It’s going to be sooner than you think, we’ll be on the road. But I think we’re going to still have a great run in Jacksonville before we go. And I can promise Double or Nothing will be a great show and I can promise tonight, on Dynamite, will be one of the most special things we’ve done on this run.”