Tony Khan Talks MJF, Possibility Of Live Rampage & More

Tony Khan recently spoke with Ariel Helwani, where he was asked about the possibility of AEW Rampage going live every week.

“I don't know what it will do permanently, but I know going forward for the next month, really through Full Gear, most Rampages are live. That's the idea. We're going to step it up going into Full Gear and step it up for Rampage. So we have Rampage live this week. We're doing a separate Rampage show, it's actually a standalone show, but we are doing it on a Thursday in Canada, to be honest, because it makes a lot of sense with the traveling crew and with everybody up there for a lot of reasons to do it over the Wednesday-Thursday, rather than keep everybody up there the extra day. But there's also great opportunities with keeping that venue for two days and the business deal we made was a really good deal.”

On how it felt to have MJF call him a mark on his own show:

“This is one of those things that I don't want to talk about. But I do think I agree with everything you lead off with. I think he's one of the best wrestlers in the world. It's amazing how much he's accomplished already at such a young age. He's a great talent.”

On his contract situation:

“Yeah, but I don't see how going into detail about it other than talking about his wrestling and what he brings to the show, and of course, you know, everything he brings, his great promos, his great ideas, there's a lot there. But you know, I think if you want to get into the contracts and that aspect of it with me, same as my other jobs. If you wanted to talk about the contracts at Fulham, I would probably be kind of vague. I would say I really liked the player. I think it's good business we're doing and I think it's a great transfer that we're making and we're doing a smart move for the club, but getting into the numbers and stuff, rarely will I do that.”

On the regime changes in WWE:

“I've been open to say that I think there's been a lot of improvements there and I definitely think for us, we've had a lot of big improvements in recent weeks. I think both are very competitive and had been very competitive in the past, obviously. I think in this case, now hopefully going to be good for everybody. There's probably a bit more similarity in what we're looking for in terms of the profile of a free agent, which I think is already going to start being a thing. So we'll see how that goes. I think we're looking at more similar people. There was definitely something happening this year where there were wrestlers being released from there that came here that I definitely believe belong on national television, worldwide television that are huge stars in AEW. Some of those people I think would have made sense, and I don't think if there hadn't been a switch in the person who makes that call, I'm not sure any of those people or at least many of those people would have been released. I think we were the benefit. The benefit of that was for AEW."

Khan spoke about competition in wrestling:

"I've said before I think all wrestling is competition. I don't know if you've heard me say this before. Some people asked me why I'll talk about other wrestling companies, especially WWE and I'll tell you, there was literally a book handed to me over three years ago before the launch of Dynamite by Warner media at the time before it was Warner Brothers Discovery. It was telling me what our place was already, because Dynamite hadn't launched, but we had carved out a space in the Pay Per View business where it was clear we weren't a niche business because we had already outperformed every company other than WWE for 20 years. So we were already not just number two, but the biggest number two in the Pay Per View market in 20 years because the numbers we did for our first Pay Per Views were bigger than the numbers WCW was doing in their last 18 months of business. Since then we've posted numbers that nobody's done since the 90s other than WWE literally. So you know 1999, we were talking before we started very briefly before we jumped on about WCW, and I think it was mid to late '99 was the last time they saw those kinds of numbers and then never again. So we carved out a space and they handed me a book and it was how to be a challenger brand. This is what you are. A challenger brand I learned, then, three years ago, a challenger brand is not the industry leader but it is also not a niche brand. It is not that. It is a big company. It is Pepsi. It is Burger King. It is maybe Arizona iced tea, but it is a challenger brand. It's a big company, but many people don't know that they're not the industry leader, but people like them, and many people prefer them, and that's why they have a very big base. That's Pepsi. That's Burger King. That's maybe Arizona iced tea. Like I said, I think that's AEW. It's a challenger brand.”

Finally, Khan was asked if he had anything in AEW's history he wishes he could go back and redo:

"No. I also don't like looking backward. You can't really do that unless you're going to look at how you're going to look forward off of it. I don't think it serves well. Also, like you said, I'm pretty busy. I don't necessarily have the time to do that. So it's pretty important to me, to make sure that we're surrounded by really great people, and most importantly, I want to make sure that everybody comes to work and feels like it's a good place to work and I want to make sure that everybody gets opportunities. But really, at the end of the day, everybody who's come to AEW knows coming in there's a sense of security here that they haven't necessarily had at other wrestling promotions. A lot of the people I've brought in were part of layoffs and cost cutting, and not like desperate cost cutting times are tight cost cutting, it's like record profits cost cutting. If I was making record profits, I probably wouldn't be laying off dozens of people. So that's some of what I'm talking about when I talk about compassion and being a good boss, and frankly, when I talk about, you know, I'm not necessarily the same guy as some person who shares a surname."