During a recent appearance on “The Wrestling Perspectives Podcast”, AEW President Tony Khan critiqued “other shows” that often go on “forever” and feature “17 rematches with the same two people.” You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On what he controls for the wrestlers with the AEW product: “It’s a great question. I think we’ve found a really good balance. I have a lot of trust in them and they have a lot of trust in me. What it entails is, I put together formats, matches, and stories and where their ideas are going to go, stories are going to go, who’s going to wrestle who, and one really important element of this is how much time they are going to get. Also, I have to be very concerned about commercial breaks and where they go. In terms of who goes when, who gets to wrestle who, and when it happens, there’s a lot to that. But in terms of what you’re going to wear, what your presentation is going to be, what you’re going to say exactly [that’s on talent].”
On his approach to the AEW product: “Sure, you need to say I’m wrestling person x at this venue next week on this show this night on TNT or I’m wrestling person ABC at Full Gear on Saturday on pay per view. These are important things and as long as you get those things across and do it in a way that makes sense, I’m okay not handing somebody a paper script and telling them ‘You’re going to say this, this and this in this order and every word of it you can’t change a word of it.’ That doesn’t make any sense to me and it would come across very fake which is why I think the promos in AEW are very authentic and it feels very real.”
On how other shows seem to go on forever with 17 rematches of the same two people: “The flip side of that is you also sometimes see when you’re watching not AEW but other shows, like it goes on forever. It’s like 17 rematches with the same two people. So there’s no happy medium between what you’re saying.”
(h/t – Wrestling Inc)
