Tony Khan has talked about his role in AEW and how he was never keen to be an on-air personality on AEW Dynamite.
Over the years, we’ve seen the heads of company’s take a prominent on-screen role within their own promotions. Vince McMahon served as commentator and then the main heel throughout the Attitude Era in WWF, while Eric Bischoff took one of the main spotlights in the NWO in WCW in the latter half of the nineties.
According to Tony Khan in his recent sit-down interview with Renee Paquette on Oral Sessions, he isn’t interested in a role such as this unless something vital needs announcing:
“No it’s not [something I’m interested in] and I came as close to doing it as I will, I made a big exception coming out [for the Brodie Lee Tribute Show] and I thought it was the right thing to do to be there on behalf of the company and everybody for how much Brody meant to us, and I wanted to pay the highest respect to him that I could, and Amanda and Brody and be there for them. But other than that I’ve never come out and done that in that role. Occasionally, because of the story with IMPACT and times where I think it makes sense, but I don’t want to do that. We have a limited amount of TV time and we have a great roster and a lot of other people are going to be featured and frankly the character of the General Manager doesn’t need to be featured on TV a lot. I am the General Manger of a Premier League team, you don’t see me on NBC very much. The job of the General Manager is not to be on TV a lot. There’s a time and a place, if there’s a statement that needs to be made, or you got to say something then you do, and in the case of AEW it’s announcing matches and Fulham can be announcing players or someone is coming in on loan or once every few years saying, ‘guys you need to do a better job’, but for me, the role of the General Manager, there isn’t a need for that person to be on TV consistently. It’s a device that you need and I think of myself more as a device.”
As he mentioned, Tony Khan is the co-owner of British Premier League football team, Fulham, as well as the President of All Elite Wrestling.
Credit for the interview: Oral Sessions