Tony Khan has addressed the critiques from fans and industry veterans ahead of AEW surpassing a major milestone.
On April 16th, All Elite Wrestling will air its 289th episode of Dynamite. The number marks a huge achievement for Dynamite as it will surpass WCW Nitro as the longest-running wrestling show on the TNT/TBS networks.
Although Dynamite had a number of standout moments since 2019, not every episode has been a home run. On top of fans taking to social media to let their opinions be known about the more infamous angles and matches, high-profile names in the wrestling business have also been critical on podcasts and interviews over what they have seen.
Tony Khan Responds To The Critics
Aware that the AEW booking can be at times divisive, Khan was asked by Jon Alba of The Takedown on SI about criticisms and how much he takes notice of the feedback:
“I do like to listen to feedback from lots of people across pro wrestling, and especially if it’s constructive, it can be really helpful.”
“I think there’s a lot of times where you hear somebody say something, and they say, ‘oh, why didn’t they do it this way? Or ‘instead of going from point A to point B and then to point C, you know, maybe off in between point and point B, they could have added this,’ and so maybe there’s a good idea there they can use in the future.”
Continuing, Khan also referenced the views of AEW’s biggest critics from the wrestling business and the wider fanbase, adding that he will remain open-minded when seeing the comments:
“I really do love hearing feedback from all kinds of people, from people in wrestling, wrestlers, people who work in wrestling in the production side or both, and fans. Fans that have never been backstage at a show in their lives, but just love wrestling and watch it a lot, and they have great ideas… I had never been backstage at a wrestling show until I was in my 30s. And I just grew up watching it and loving it and following it and, you know, trading tapes and talking about it.”
“So there’s a lot of different places and a lot of different ways that you can get an idea about wrestling or that you can contribute. I just think it’s really neat that there’s people from literally all over the world in hundreds of countries that follow the same sport and can share ideas and talk with each other. It’s really cool.”
Also in the interview, Tony Khan spoke about WCW’s influence on AEW programming.