Tony Khan recently revealed that he has made a small but impactful change in his creative process that has helped turn around AEW’s fortunes – swapping a column for a row in his written-out booking grid.
Speaking on Marc Maron’s “Wrestling With Marc” podcast, Khan explained that the change was something he began doing before Full Gear last November, showing Maron and his co-host his notebook with the grid and noting that he simply flipped a row with a column to make the wrestlers’ names appear at the top, with the storyline beats/schedule flowing down.
Though the adjustment was minor, Khan credits it with helping him become more organized and allowing him to create better television. He said:
“I already kind of had a schedule of what I had planned week-to-week in different stories for different wrestlers, different matches or segments. At some point, I just kind of inverted it. I realized I should tip this over (the chart) and instead of looking at the dates and building it out, I kind of flipped what the columns were and what the rows were. I put the columns where the rows were and now I organize everything like this since Full Gear and I feel like I’m more organized even though it’s all the same information. It’s just looking at it differently and it really helps me.”
How Has Tony Khan Improved AEW’s Booking?
Khan also pointed to the stable roster, dedicated fans, and his now-streamlined creative process as contributing factors to the success of AEW, particularly since Full Gear. He said he believes the run of television since then has been the best he’s done since February 2020’s AEW Revolution.
AEW’s television ratings since Full Gear have certainly been displaying an upward trend in recent months, with Dynamite averaging 905,750 viewers an episode in December and 950,750 viewers an episode in January, up from 881,800 in November – which is the month Full Gear took place.
The next pay-per-view on AEW’s schedule is Revolution on March 5th. The card looks set to be headlined by a World Title showdown between champion MJF and Bryan Danielson. The challenger will earn his shot at the gold as long as he keeps winning in the run-up to the show. On the most recent episode of Dynamite, Danielson overcame Timothy Thatcher.
H/t to f4wonline.com