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The AEW President, Tony Khan, recently spoke to Sporting News and talked about the manner in which the company had not shied away from talking about their competitors on the air.
Tony Khan on why AEW features and names other promotions
Tony Khan talked about AEW's strategy when it came to other promotions and why AEW fans enjoyed the fact that other promotions were tied up in regular programming.
"A lot of AEW fans might watch other wrestling, but they definitely make a point to watch AEW and that's what ties them together: whether they're fans of Lucha Libre or Japanese wrestling/puroresu, or they watch smaller independent shows or maybe they watch WWE. I think a love of wrestling ties a lot of our fans together, and a love of a lot of our big stars."
Tony Khan on how he changed the ideas behind AEW creative
Tony Khan went on to elaborate on his thought process and the ideas that went into the creative.
"Before I was working with Billy (Corgan) and before we booked Thunder Rosa as the NWA Women's Champion, and then before Serena won the title from her and before one of my wrestlers carried the NWA title, we'd worked with other companies. I'd worked out a deal with Dorian (Roldan) and AAA, and utilized their tag-team titles, and the Young Bucks and the Lucha Brothers had a great program over those belts and the AAA belts have been defended on our shows. Kenny Omega has defended the AAA heavyweight title, the Mega title. Before I was working with Billy when Ricky Starks came in, he said he was the NWA TV Champion in a promo, and I thought it was great. Our production team asked me if I wanted to cut it and said, "No, it's great. Keep it — I love it." And they were surprised, but I love stuff like that. What I told them was: Remember when we did Hangman and Kenny vs. Matt and Nick, and Matt, Nick, and the sit down interview, told Hangman, he was nothing before they found him, he was just a jobber in Ring of Honor? And that sucked the life out of the arena that we were in. People gasped at that line — I knew that was gonna work, but it worked even better than I thought.
"So I think that when you touch on reality, it makes people want to watch AEW more, no matter what wrestling companies you're a fan of. We all just love wrestling."
Since AEW has begun broadcasting Dynamite, not only have other companies like Ring Of Honor been mentioned, but stars of the companies have even competed on AEW. Over the last few weeks, AEW has seen the NWA Women's Championship become a regular fixture on their show with Thunder Rosa and Serena Deeb wrestling for it. For the moment, Serena Deeb is the NWA Women's Champion.
Also recently, at AEW: Full Gear, Don Callis, one of the biggest names of IMPACT Wrestling commentated during Kenny Omega's match with 'Hangman' Adam Page.
