AEW President and CEO Tony Khan spoke with Q101 about various topics, including what motivated Darby Allin to defend the AEW World Title multiple times each week.
Khan said, “Yes, Darby Allin, when he was the TNT champion, fought at the same standard. And as a world champion, he was taking on even bigger challengers. And you know, when he was the TNT champion, Darby would fight great fights every single week. And uh in particular, when he recaptured the championship, he beat one of the greatest champions ever, Samoa Joe. And he was fighting defending the title every week. And eventually, Samoa Joe got back in the ring with Derby. His body had broken down, and he had collapsed, but he had delivered so many great fights in that time and it was a great moment when he won the TNT championship, and it was a great moment when Samoa Joe recaptured it, and Darby had accomplished a lot in between. This was different. These were all world title fights. It wasn’t necessarily so much the open challenges. These were all really top challengers that had won huge fights to get into the main event picture. It was similar in that again, he’s fighting an incredible world champion and he captured the world title from one of the great champions and then his body started to break down through a number of defenses instead of them being open challenges against different challengers for the TNT title, these were the number one top world title challengers just like he beat one of the greatest TNT champions ever. So he’s also been one of the great world champions in AEW and Samoa Joe. And then later, Samoa Joe was able to recapture the championship after Darby had put up all these great fights and his body had started to collapse.”
On the standard Darby Allin delivered as champion:
“I felt like this was at an even higher level. But the standard that Darby delivered championship fights. It’s the same standard that Darby would deliver under any circumstance as a champion. And Darby had never been the world champion. But if he was, wouldn’t he fight just as hard to defend the championship every week as a fighting champion as he had in the past when he had been the TNT champion? Absolutely, he would. And so Darby had never been the world champion, but it was something that was so glorious because, for the first time, we got to see how he would behave as the world champion, fighting the top challengers every week, sometimes multiple times a week, as much as he could, fighting every chance he had on TV, defending the title. That’s what Darby’s all about.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
