Tony Khan Promises a Great ‘Forbidden Door’ Moment Tonight, Addresses AEW Contract Expirations

– Speaking to TV Insider’s Scott Fishman ahead of tonight’s AEW Dynamite, Tony Khan addressed upcoming contract expirations for current AEW roster members, tonight’s big “Forbidden Door” surprise and debut on Dynamite, and more. Below are some highlights:

His thoughts on tonight’s new AEW signing: “I’m going to promise the fans we’ll have a great ‘Forbidden Door’ moment in the show for an episode that also includes Hangman Page defending the world title against Lance Archer in a Texas Deathmatch. It’s a huge night. One of the headline moments and one of the most anticipated moments will be the reveal—who signed a contract with AEW. There has been a lot of speculation. People are anticipating the big reveal. I’m looking forward to it.”

On who currently knows about the signing: “Only a handful of people. Very few. I think it’s best kept that way until Wednesday night to let that anticipation continue to build. We have more surprises and fun moments along the way. It’s going to be a lot of great things Wednesday on Dynamite.”

Tony Khan on AEW talents whose contracts are expiring soon: “When we started a lot of people had contracts that were a couple of years long and a lot of them are coming up. I have really tried hard to be very considerate of the people on the roster, especially going through the pandemic. That encompassed a long period of time where we were still in our first year of television and going into our second. I kept a lot of people under contract even though I wasn’t necessarily using them on television because I wanted them to still have paying work, which was hard to come by for wrestling during the pandemic where there weren’t any independent shows. Really only two places were running and the other place was cutting people left and right. I did want to give some job security to people. Now with so many wrestlers coming in, I can’t renew all the contracts. I’ve had to make some tough choices based on ability, fan response, or both. I try to maintain the best roster I can for the company and fans.”

Tonight’s AEW Dynamite is being held at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The show will be broadcast live on TBS at 8:00 pm ET.