Tag: Tony Khan

Tony Khan Talks AEW TV Deal With TNT, Reveals An Upcoming Tag Team Tournament For Their Weekly Show, Women’s Tag Titles

All Elite Wrestling’s founder and president Tony Khan recently appeared on The Steve Austin Show to speak with legendary WWE Hall of Famer, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Among a variety of subjects Austin discussed with Khan, he showed great enthusiasm on tag team wrestling’s role moving forward in AEW.

Khan emphasized how “super-focused” he and the rest of the AEW staff are on the company’s tag team division, and he has plans to establish a tournament to showcase what these teams have to offer audiences.

“When we launch our weekly television show in the Fall, we are going to be doing a tag team tournament that is going to have some of the greatest tag team wrestling matches ever on television,” Khan said. “We are going to be starting that, which is going be one of the main focuses on our TV. There are going to be teams that are going to compete for a first-round bye in that tournament, which is a big deal, and we have got some of the best tag teams in all of pro wrestling competing for our Tag Team Championships coming up in the Fall.”

For now, AEW staff and fans alike have their attention on the persisting feud between The Lucha Bros. and The Young Bucks. Khan reminded listeners that it was back in February when this rivalry between the two teams first began in AEW. He sees parallels between The Lucha Bros./Young Bucks feud and the Eddie Guerrero/Art Barr feud from the AAA World’s Collide event back in 1994.

“What is exciting about the match between The Young Bucks and Lucha Bros is that we have been working on this issue for a long time,” Khan explained. “If you look back to when we first went to Las Vegas for the ticket on-sale party, when we announced the on sale date for the pre-sale code for the Double or Nothing sale, we went to the MGM, which was right after the Super Bowl… The Young Bucks had said that they thought they were the best tag team in the world and the Lucha Bros showed up. They are the AAA Tag Team Champions – that’s cool to me because I am a huge fan of wrestling and I remember When World’s Collide PPV very fondly, with Eddie Guerrero and Art Barr kind of changing the game down in Mexico. I thought that this was more of a modern tag team classic [between Lucha Bros and The Young Bucks], and we have tried to establish this issue in so many ways.”

Khan also touched on some of the details regarding AEW’s premier on TNT this Fall. When it came to making a decision on which television network to pursue, Khan reached out to a friend that could help make everything come together seamlessly.

“[TNT was a good choice for AEW because] my friend, Kevin Reilly, is the president of TNT and TBS. It’s going to start in the Fall,” Khan stated. “There will be specific details on that very soon, and it’s going to be really exciting for pro wrestling to return to TNT in prime time, weeknights, for a 2-hour live wrestling show. I can’t tell you the day of the week, but I think it’s going to be the best pro wrestling show anyone has ever done. All Out is going to be our last pay per view going into it.”

Khan looks forward to seeing everyone’s hard work pay off during the the final show before their TV debut.

“We have set up this issue with Chris Jericho and Hangman Page and we are going to continue setting up these huge issues; And now we have set up another big event with Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley.”

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s podcast finally returned this week with a new episode and AEW President Tony Khan was the featured guest.

During the interview, Khan revealed AEW will have Women’s Tag Team belts down the road to go with the planned Women’s Championship.

“I want to focus on a serious main event picture,” he explained. “Both in the singles and the tag team, and then when we establish the women’s singles — ya know, this may be the first time that it gets announced, but just so you know — eventually we will establish a Women’s Tag Team title and focusing on the Women’s singles and the Women’s Tag Team title.”

“I’m not gonna pretend we’re not gonna do it when we talk about being serious about tag team wrestling,” Khan continued. “As we focus on having the best World Championship in singles and tag team, men and women, that’s gonna be the focus of our promotion when I talk about wins and losses mattering.”

Listen to the interview at the link below.

https://player.fm/series/11715/236348315

Source: The Steve Austin Show via Wrestling Inc.

Tony Khan Talks AEW’s Distribution Strategy

With Double or Nothing in the rear view mirror, AEW can now turn its attention to its upcoming events and its TNT premiere later this year. But in this day and age, broadcasts go beyond just TV as there are also numerous streaming options.

Tony Khan joined Busted Open to discuss some of those options and AEW’s distribution strategy.

“We are going to be doing a live, weekly television show on TNT. It will debut prime this fall. We are also going to be distributing to a number of other top-wrestling markets,” said Khan. “I can’t exactly say where the TV is going to be and then as far as pay per view distribution, I thought that our partners were awesome for this show. Like I said, we had done a great show and we now have that under our belts. The folks at Bleacher Report Live were awesome. The cable and satellite carriers were in demand, working with all the cable carriers, DirectTV and Dish Network; that has been great. I really like the people at FiteTV and ITV Box Office did an amazing job at the show and I think we are really going to be happy when the numbers come in from England from the UK in general because of the support that we received from them was great and we really would like to be partners with them for a long time.

“I can’t say enough great things domestically here in the United States to have wrestling back on the Turner Network or with Warner Media with TNT. They are a wrestling network, for better or for worse. There have been a few channels that have been really successful in our lifetime broadcasting wrestling and TNT is absolutely one of them as much as anyone. I think it is really cool that they are back in business.”

There are numerous content providers out there to provide a streaming option for AEW going forward, but Khan says that’s not his primary focus right now.

“Bleacher Report Live did it for [Double or Nothing], for the over-the-top distribution. It is a little bit of putting it in the cart before the horse a little bit, streaming services and things in that nature. I think there will be a demand for it but right now for 2019 and going forward this year, two big things I am really focusing on is pay per views, which we have done with these traditional shows, and this primetime television product,” stated Khan.

In just about five months, AEW launched, had their inaugural event and landed a TV deal with a major network. He talked about why and how AEW got this far this fast.

“It’s all according to plan. Even last summer I had kind of the idea that this summer it was going to be like this,” revealed Khan. “The stuff we had laid out – I really wanted to do a Memorial Day show. I really wanted to do All Out, which is what we are going to do, something along the lines of what the guys were doing with All In, with the same fans and marketplace, but it’ll be our show and under our banner and with the same spirit of fans and excitement. We have done Double or Nothing, we are going to do All Out. One other show I am really excited about is Fight for the Fallen and all of these things are falling into place. We are doing Fight for the Fallen July 13th in Jacksonville, Florida.”

Khan then talked about wanting to do a show for Jacksonville, which is where he resides, and where AEW’s headquarters are located. Once that July event is out of the way then his focus will be on the new TV show.

“The next step in the plan was to get a TV launch, so everything has gone into plan. I am sure there will be things that won’t work out our plan, but everybody that I wanted we have on our roster,” said Khan. “To me, I can’t believe we did it but we have done it. We got all of the performers essentially that you wanted to get to headline the shows that are going to be the guys that will be there week in and week out for the TV show and we have a deep roster too. I have always talked about not doing a lot of five, six nights a week touring and keeping the wrestlers away from their homes, their families and other things they have going on in their life.”

Khan then brought up AEW wrestler Britt Baker who is also a practicing dentist. He cited her as an example of work/life balance as she may have to reschedule some AEW appearances in order to accommodate her practice.

“She is a really important person to our roster and is a great person and a great headliner. I think we have really helped make that possible for her and I want to keep doing that for people,” revealed Khan. “It’s not just people who are working outside of AEW, there are even people who work full-time for AEW with full-time health benefits. When we are up doing TV, it’s not like we are going to be on the road. Despite doing TV, it’s not like we are going to do 5-6 shows a week, even then a full-time schedule.”

Source: Busted Open via Wrestling Inc.