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AEW President Tony Khan was recently interviewed by Sporting News, where he talked about multiple different topics, including how AEW Dark has become one of the most important parts of their programming.
Tony Khan on how AEW Dark has become vital
Tony Khan talked about how the need for AEW Dark had become more important to All Elite Wrestling. He said that the idea of AEW Dark had changed during the pandemic and it was continuously evolving.
"Dark" has become a lot of things to us, and one of those things is our developmental show. It's very important — it's changed a lot since the beginning of the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, we would do a "Dark" match before "Dynamite" started, and then we would do a couple of dark matches after "Dynamite," and then "Dark" would be a few matches — lengthy competitive matches.
During the pandemic, I started seeing all these independent wrestlers out of work, and also a lot of my roster was not available to me. So I started to bring in a lot of them, and I would use them as the extras in the crowd, sitting in the babyface or heel section, depending on their personality, and fill those areas up with wrestlers who we COVID tested, and they would be effectively the audience before we started letting in an audience months later. I wanted to give those guys a chance, and I thought I would find some stars out of that group, and I think we have found some stars out of the group.
Tony Khan revealed that there had been times that he had to convince people that putting independent stars on AEW Dark was a good idea. He pointed out that AEW Dark was all about the future stars of AEW.
"I told people, "Look, more people watch 'Dark' with what it is now than they used to when it was main-roster people." Clearly, there's a lot of interest in the independent talent — who's going to make it? — and there are competitive matches on the show. I think we put some big matches on the show but, really, it's about showcasing the future AEW stars."
AEW Dark certainly makes for compelling viewing every week with new talent regularly featured.
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