Tony Khan On What Surprised Him The Most When Starting AEW

Tony Khan On What Surprised Him The Most When Starting AEW AEW

Tony Khan has revealed what surprised him most after starting AEW.

Khan notably founded AEW along with Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson and Cody Rhodes. While Cody Rhodes has since returned to WWE, Omega and the Bucks remain with the company as Executive Vice-Presidents.

Khan currently serves as the President, CEO and Head of Creative of AEW.

Speaking with The Athletic, Khan recalled having to produce shows during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting:

“It was a very interesting time to launch a promotion, right before the global pandemic and lockdown.

“It took live events out of the equation, and we were able to quickly pivot and reformat and find a way to do compelling shows through the lockdown. That was not something anybody could have anticipated going into it.

It had to be a plus to have a space to work with in Jacksonville, which allowed you to put on shows and eventually use wrestlers as “fans.”

Absolutely, we were very fortunate to have access to such a great venue as Daily’s Place (the amphitheater connected to TIAA Bank Field), which looks tremendous on television but also made a great home for AEW for over a year.

“I was also really pleased to have an outdoor accessible venue so that when we did find a way to safely bring fans back a few months later, we brought back fans physically distanced at 25 percent capacity.

“We had zero known transmissions of COVID because we did it safely, but we didn’t wait a year to bring fans back. We were the first wrestling company to do it, but we did it safely.

“For the first few months with no fans and we were still learning, it was a big advantage to have Daily’s Place. I got the idea for that because I was trying to find ways we were going to format a wrestling show and was thinking about this a lot.

“The lockdown stuff really hit hard the night the NBA was shut down, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, and we were actually in Salt Lake City for ‘Dynamite’ that night, and really everything shut down after that show.

“I had the better of the week to think over what we were going to do and how we would present “Dynamite” on Wednesday at Daily’s Place.”

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1 year ago by Sanchez Taylor

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