All Elite Wrestling owner and jack-of-all-trades Tony Khan finally visited Moose & Maggie in the WFAN studios on Tuesday, and he broke two huge pieces of news.
The first, on the programming front: Dynamite will move to Saturdays for the next two weeks due to MLB Playoffs on TBS, and with two nights in a row of AEW on TNT, the company will be doing a special live Buy-In event on YouTube this Friday at 9 p.m. ET ahead of AEW Rampage.
Rampage is a huge event, so we’re going to have a Buy-In live from the Knight Center (in Miami) on Friday night, and I’m going to give a couple of tough tests,” Khan said. “We have Bryan Danielson vs. Bobby Fish Saturday on Dynamite, but I’m giving both singles matches on Buy-In ahead of that.”
The other big news? Despite rumors swirling, Khan has not talked to Windham Rotunda, formerly known as Bray Wyatt in WWE, about joining AEW.
“He’s a great wrestler, and I have to be honest, we haven’t talked at all,” Khan said. “I’ve known him in personal life, but in reality, we haven’t talked. But, you never know.”
Beyond that, Khan thanked everyone at WFAN and in the area for coming out to their Dynamite: Grand Slam and Rampage shows at Arthur Ashe Stadium last month, which marked AEW’s biggest event to date.
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“That went incredibly well – a grand slam, pun intended – and two great shows there were huge successes, and we set our all-time attendance record,” Khan revealed. “I’ve always wanted to come to New York and it was great to do it at Arthur Ashe Stadium, which is an incredible venue. We had so many great fans there; we’re hot as a firecracker right now, and our momentum is huge.”
To that point, Khan revealed that AEW’s audience is up more than 30 percent year-over-year, and the All Out pay-per-view on Labor Day Weekend was the biggest non-WWE pay-per-view event since 1999 – but he’s happier about the wrestling than the numbers.
“We’ve seen a big lift in every business metric, but what really made me happy was it was the most critically acclaimed PPV in a long time,” Khan said of All Out. “So many people saw it, and CM Punk and Bryan Danielson have come in and given us a huge lift. Not only are they these hugely recognizable faces, they’re also great wrestlers, and that’s what AEW is about: great matches.”
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That’s why to Khan, the most important thing isn’t competing with WWE, but with themselves.
“The important thing for us is that we put on out best show; it’s not about competing with them,” Khan said. “In some ways, it’s the worst timing that we’re off Wednesdays the next couple weeks, because we need to make a big statement.”
AEW is off Wednesdays for the next couple weeks due to NHL coverage on TNT, so the Turner group has shifted Dynamite to Fridays. Bad timing for Khan because Dynamite was the top-rated show on cable on Wednesday nights for six weeks straight, but he wants to make an impact whenever and wherever AEW is on air, hoping both shows have more chances to be No. 1.
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And that starts with him, as he cleared up another rumor that he only recently became more hands-on in terms of the product.
“It’s true I am booking everything by hand, but I work with each program hands-on, having personal relationships with so many people, and that really started at the end of 2019,” he said. “At the beginning of 2020, I told myself that going into the New Year, I was going to do everything by hand.
We have a great group of people, but I needed to take more ownership. I want to get everyone’s ideas, but you have to organize things into one show.”
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