Tony Khan opened up about competition between the major companies in wrestling.
AEW President Tony Khan hasn’t been shy about taking shots at WWE in recent weeks, from his heavily-criticized decision to show footage of CM Punk’s altercation with Jack Perry at All In to allowing Will Ospreay to reference Triple H in a fiery promo.
Speaking in a new interview with IndieWire, Khan opened up about the recent resurgence in the popularity of professional wrestling, saying that competition between companies plays a huge factor.
“There’s a number of big factors that would play into why wrestling has seen such a great renaissance in recent years. I think it comes from the great competition in wrestling right now, and the fact that there are so many great stars competing right now.
Everyone knows that the most real thing in wrestling is the competition between the companies. The companies hate each other, and it will be a natural resource that powers the industry. They want to beat each other and take everybody’s free agents, and that makes it interesting for everybody else.”
Why Did Tony Khan Air Footage From AEW All In?
While Dave Meltzer and others have been critical of Tony Khan’s decision to air backstage footage from All In, Khan himself defended the decision ahead of the April 10th episode of Dynamite. Speaking to Uproxx, the AEW President had this to say:
“For us, this is a decision based on the timing of our upcoming pay-per-view, AEW Dynasty, and given where the Young Bucks stand going into the World Tag Team Championship Tournament finals at AEW Dynasty. This was the right time and place for them to play this footage and talk about why it’s relevant to them and AEW going forward and what this means going into AEW Dynasty.”
In a new interview, Tony Khan explained why it was the right decision to air the All In footage.