The first four world champions in All Elite Wrestling history have been planned out from the start.
AEW President Tony Khan confirmed this after talking about “Hangman” Adam Page finally capturing the richest prize in the promotion by defeating Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship in the main event of Saturday night’s AEW Full Gear 2021 pay-per-view at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Following the show, the AEW boss man spoke with members of the media on hand about this and many other subjects during his official post-show media scrum, which we have shared several highlights from already here on the website.
Featured below are some more highlights from Tony Khan’s post-AEW Full Gear 2021 media scrum.
On AEW setting up their first four champions long-term: “Chris Jericho. And then Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page. No, honestly, and if you look back, they all set up. Chris wrestled Kenny and then it built to Kenny coming back later to wrestle for the title, teaming with Hangman. Hangman also wrestled Chris. Then it built to Chris and Jon. Jon won the title and while that was happening, Kenny and Hangman had their partnership, their story, and Jon made all those great defenses through the pandemic and was such a great pandemic champion. Last winter we did Kenny versus Hangman at this event, which was a very different thing, it wasn’t at this great arena with over 10,000 fans packed in this awesome arena. We were in a great venue at Daily’s Place and it felt like a big PPV.”
On how Hangman’s win comes full circle and how this all planned in advance: “Last year, Kenny and Hangman had that great match in the Eliminator final and then we came full circle to this and I think it all made sense. Kenny won the title and had an amazing reign. He was close to one year as champion, and it was a question, ‘Is Kenny going to make it to one year as champion or is Hangman going to be crowned tonight?’ People clearly wanted to see Hangman be crowned, but when Bryan Danielson won the Eliminator Tournament, you had to ask yourself, ‘Are Kenny and Bryan Danielson going to wrestle again?’ I know everybody was thinking in the back of their heads that there has to be a chance. Even when Bryan Danielson won, I knew it was going to make you all think, ‘Wait a second,’ and it clearly did based on the reaction I’m getting in the room. Yeah, these things are all pretty well thought out in advance, so yeah, the first four I would have told you all in advance would be Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, and Hangman Page.”
H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes.
