3 Backstage AEW things you might not know

All Elite Wrestling is the newest wrestling company in America and fans are very excited about it. AEW sold out their All Out show in Chicago, much like All In was sold out last year.

They sold out their first week of television in October which will take place in Washington and AEW has had more great news recently. They have sold out their second and third week of television tapings in Boston and Philidelphia.

AEW might keep selling out shows until fans aren't shocked anymore and this is a great thing for the wrestling business. Competition should be welcomed and AEW will offer fans an alternative which will be quite different from WWE.

But, AEW much like all wrestling companies out there have some secrets. Some are good ones and some bad ones. The new company will no doubt have more of these in the coming years but the company was only created at the start of this year and so here are three shocking AEW backstage secrets.

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#3 Tony Khan did help with All In

The new kid on the block

All In was the biggest independent wrestling show of all time but it had nothing to do with AEW. It was just a stand-alone event funded and run by Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks. Other companies like Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling took part in the event, which won't happen now and hence All In had pretty much nothing to do with All Elite Wrestling.

Tony Khan is now essentially the Vince McMahon of AEW. He's the boss, he runs the show. But while Tony had an interest in starting a wrestling company, he had nothing to do with the All In show. Yet, that isn't entirely true. While he had no creative or production input on the show, Tony did help a big part of it.

Chris Jericho had a concert that night and needed to fly into the show and out quickly, to not miss either booking. The Young Bucks ask Tony if Jericho could use his private jet and with Tony being a huge wrestling fan he, of course, allowed this to happen to make a great moment for the show. So while All In was a Cody, Matt and Nick show, it was assisted by Tony Khan.

#2 The chair shot

The chairman

Cody Rhodes will face former friend Shawn Spears (formerly Tye Dillenger in WWE) at AEW's All Out show in Chicago on August 31st. Spears attacked Cody with a steel chair at Fyter Fest and it drew serious blood from Cody's head.

Cody received 12 stitches in his head from the chair. People may think that AEW is going down the "blood and guts" route as Vince McMahon would say but the chair shot wasn't intended to be so bad.

The chair shot was actually gimmicked which may sound strange to fans as a gimmicked chair shot hasn't really been heard of before. Doing something like this shows that AEW is trying things that have never been done before but also shows that they won't always work.

The angle did add lots of heat to the storyline though and Spears is now a big-time heel so in a way, it did work. The much-anticipated match is now just two weeks away and fans are excited.

#1 Tony Khan wanted CM Punk first

CM Punk

Tony Khan has been a wrestling fan for many years but he isn't just a casual fan he is a hardcore wrestling fan. Tony has talked about his love for ECW and Mid South Wrestling in the past and last year Tony decided he wanted to start his own wrestling promotion but he couldn't do it alone.

Luckily for him stars like Cody, Kenny Omega, and the Young Bucks deals all came up at the end of 2018 or the start of 2019 and Chris Jericho was a free agent. None of these men was Tony's first choice though. The man he wanted is the Cult of Personality.

Dave Meltzer revealed that Tony Khan wanted CM Punk as his first choice to start a new wrestling promotion. That obviously didn't happen as Punk hasn't come back to wrestling yet but if he does it looks very likely it would be to AEW.

Whether Punk will return or not remains to be seen but AEW probably doesn't want people talking about the fact that Khan wanted Punk before he wanted The Elite.