This Sunday night, AEW will celebrate its fifth anniversary with Double or Nothing on pay-per-view. MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Tony Khan spoke with The Rocker Morning Show (WRKR 107.7) about The Elite’s attack on him. He also discussed many of the positive developments in AEW.
Khan stated, “It’s a great time to be an AEW fan. It’s a great time to jump in. If you haven’t watched AEW and you haven’t watched in a while, there’s a lot of cool stuff happening right now.”
Khan discussed being a huge wrestling fan and how important the show is to him. He said, “Having every Wednesday night on TBS at 8 pm and having every Friday and Saturday on TNT, that’s pretty special. But this 5-year anniversary show is the biggest milestone we’ve ever hit and we’re gonna do it in a very special way. I’ve got a lot of really cool things planned and I promise it’s gonna be a classic show. You’re gonna love it this Sunday.”
Khan on his hopes for the sport of wrestling and what he wants to accomplish with AEW: “It’s a great question. I think it is a very exciting time to be a wrestling fan. I agree with you. I think for us, I want to keep expanding and growing. When we launched and came back, we were only on TNT. It was so cool that we were able to expand and then go to TBS. Then we grew our programming. We started with one show 2 hours a week. Now we do 3 shows [on] Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and we do 5 hours a week. We’ve more than doubled our programming and I want to keep growing and keep expanding. Last year we hit our biggest milestone ever with over 80,000 tickets sold. 81,035 tickets sold to be exact at Wembley Stadium in London. It’s the world record for pro wrestling attendance. It’s one of the biggest crowds ever and it is the biggest paid crowd ever in pro wrestling. It’s pretty amazing and it’s for a company that was not even 5 years old yet.”
Regarding getting Owen Hart’s family involved in wrestling again, Khan stated, “Well they’ve been great supporters of AEW. Dr. Martha Hart and her family, of course, it’s very tragic they lost the beloved Owen Hart. A sad situation. It’s really become a great thing for our company that Owen Hart’s family, Dr. Martha Hart and her kids and the whole Hart family have been really supportive of the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Martha and her family attend that tournament every year. Last year we had the finals in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Owen Hart’s hometown. It’s just a really cool thing to pay tribute to one of wrestling’s greatest fallen legends. Somebody who never had a chance to wrestle in AEW. It’s funny, we were just talking about AEW Wembley Stadium. Owen Hart’s son, Oje Hart, attended the Wembley Stadium show with us last year and they’ve become a really great part of the AEW family. We love to have them at the big events every year. They’re just really nice people. The Hart family and Dr. Martha Hart bring a great energy and I think they’ve obviously had bad experiences in the past with other wrestling promotions but here at AEW it’s a fresh start and we’ve been able to give them a home in pro wrestling. I really feel like that’s true and I love having them at the shows and I say home because it feels like a family. They’re a big part of that family.”
Khan was asked if he thinks the shots fired by WWE and AEW at each other are healthy or if they exacerbate the divide. Khan replied, “Well it’s a good question. In the 90’s certainly do think a lot that helped fuel the wrestling economy but it was a very different time and things weren’t all online all the time. It was a very different time for wrestling and a different time to be a sports fan, I think. It’s changed for sports but I think that those rivalries and those debates in sports are pretty healthy and I think for wrestling too it’s a big part, for better of for worse, of wrestling fandom now. It definitely is a way that people keep up on the shows and for me, I’m a big big fan of that and I love promoting the shows online and I know that our wrestlers are really engaged socially and makes for healthy competition, I think.”
The following are the matches announced for AEW Double or Nothing:
AEW World Championship
Swerve Strickland (Champion) (with Prince Nana) vs. Christian Cage (with Killswitch, Nick Wayne, and Mother Wayne)
Anarchy in the Arena match
The Elite (Kazuchika Okada, Jack Perry, Matthew Jackson, and Nicholas Jackson) vs. Team AEW (Bryan Danielson, Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, and Darby Allin)
AEW Women’s World Championship
Timeless” Toni Storm (Champion) (with Luther and Mariah May) vs. Serena Deeb
AEW TBS Championship
Willow Nightingale (Champion) vs. Mercedes Moné
Barbed Wire Steel Cage match for the AEW TNT Championship
Adam Copeland (Champion) vs. Malakai Black
AEW International Championship
Roderick Strong (Champion) vs. Will Ospreay
IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Eliminator match
Jon Moxley vs. Konosuke Takeshita
Trent Beretta vs. Orange Cassidy
FTW Rules for the FTW Championship
Chris Jericho (Champion) (with Big Bill) vs. FTW Contender Series winner
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
