AEW President and CEO Tony Khan spoke with Adrian Hernandez from Unlikely about various topics, including the moment he decided to creatively revamp the company.
Khan said, “Yes. It was around the holidays, and it was the 5-year anniversary of the last time, and it was one of those things where I had told myself at the end of 2019, just a New Year’s resolution. I want to be more focused. I’ve been trying really hard, but I know I can do better. And also, like you said, maybe instead of having tons of different people collaborate to put an outline together, I’m just going to do the outline myself, and I’ll come in with a direction every single week of what I want to do on the show. And I made some real changes at the start of the year. And in January, I thought we made a real turn, and it kept momentum that went throughout the year. In February, we hit a home run with Grand Slam Australia, which was one of the biggest Collision shows, and I think one of the best Collision episodes of all time. Best crowds, too. Yeah. And then, to your point, Adrian, what a fantastic crowd. And then we had the first-ever AEW Revolution in the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, another one of my five home cities. And uh, it was just a great, great show and a real honor to be there, and we’ll be going back for Revolution, which again was voted as ESPN’s best wrestling show of the year in 2025, which is a real honor. We rode that momentum throughout the year, had all these great events, Double or Nothing, then, which was voted by Sports Illustrated as the best wrestling show of the year, and rode this momentum then for All in Texas and Forbidden Door, and had all these great events.”
On AEW Worlds End 2025 being the company’s biggest PPV ever on HBO Max:
“We started doing pay-per-views on HBO Max, starting with All Out, and we just ended the year on such a — … And so this all led us to World’s End. And we ended the year with a fantastic event. Like you mentioned, the Continental Classic, which I love, but I would be remiss if I didn’t bring this up. Also, that AEW World’s End, we’ve been told by HBO, is the most buys yet for any AEW pay-per-view on HBO Max. So, we’re continuing to grow. This is probably going to end up being one of the biggest World’s End events ever. And so far, it’s our biggest pay-per-view yet on HBO Max. So, that’s even more momentum.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
