Tony Khan Reflects On How The Pandemic ‘Leveled the Odds’ Between AEW & WWE

Tony Khan credits the COVID lockdown era for helping AEW as it tried in its second year to compete with WWE. 2020 and early 2021 saw both AEW and WWE continuing to run shows, with WWE running at the PC and in the ThunderDome while AEW held their shows at Daily’s Place.

Khan spoke on Brian Sozzi on Power Players about how he began with AEW’s creative and during that portion of the conversation, he said that the era put AEW and WWE on a “level playing field.” You can see the highlights below:

On Being In Charge of Creative:

“I was very involved in the ideas from the very beginning. And got more and more involved until, you know, we ramped up. And I think people backstage saw that I had a mind for it and had good ideas. And then as we went into our second year when the pandemic happened, I went from being very hands-on to being the only person backstage, a one-man backstage crew.”

On What That Was Like For Him:

“That was the best experience I ever had. That’s the best thing that ever happened to the company. It really leveled the odds for the two wrestling promotions. And so many people around the world to this day talk about the quality of wrestling and say that ‘Wow, when you put it back like that, and put it on a level playing field, so many people saw that AEW is the best wrestling.’

“So, for me, that was the best experience, and those are the shows I’m most proud of, with a skeleton crew. We were putting on wrestling shows [that] people all over the world still talk about, during the pandemic with AEW.”

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