AEW President and CEO Tony Khan participated in the Worlds End post-show media scrum, where he addressed various topics, including his surprise at the cheers for new AEW Continental Champion Jon Moxley at Worlds End.
Khan said, “Can I be honest with you? I’m not surprised at all, because I think that Jon Moxley is one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. And I think that the fans have always loved Jon Moxley. If you look at some of the great moments in AEW history, he’s been involved from the very first show. He was always a very popular star. And there were elements of the Death Riders to me, and I believed this, that certainly fans didn’t like. And people all have always liked Jon Moxley even though he did things, [such as] the betrayal of Brian Danielson.”
On why he wasn’t surprised:
“Was I surprised to see a positive reaction? No. Because when you eliminate some of the outside interference. When you eliminate some of the elements that really drove fans [against] the Death Riders, whether it was that attack on Brian Danielson and some of the ganging up on people, and taking advantage of situations and the shortcuts of the Death Riders… You know, if you’re a wrestling fan, I think it — I’m a wrestling fan, I love pro wrestling. So to your point, since I love wrestling I was expecting that. Because I believe that if you put Jon Moxley out there against great wrestlers and eliminate some of the shortcuts that made the Death Riders such unpopular villains, but also huge antagonists and great stars throughout what has been such a important year in AEW… I also believe that as a wrestling fan seeing this tournament, if you look at it, knowing Jon Moxley, especially having seen throughout the tournament that Jon Moxley really was getting positive reactions going into tonight, no I wasn’t surprised by that.”
On Moxley’s post-win promo:
“I thought that what Jon Moxley said was so powerful. Because he’s right that the championship represents the 12 people in the tournament. And now he can fight to try to keep it, and go wire-to-wire. We saw Okada hold the championship, defend it many times as they said. And he won the tournament last year. He tried to go wire-to-wire and came so close. And I thought for a great tournament uh to see that response? No, I was not surprised.”
You can check out Khan’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
