Tony Khan Reveals Whether AEW Will Train More Wrestlers From Scratch

AEW

AEW President Tony Khan has explained his stance on training athletes who don’t have prior wrestling experience.

Most of AEW’s roster is comprised of former independent names, or stars that cut their teeth in other top wrestling promotions.

There are several exceptions, including current TBS Champion Jade Cargill, who made her in-ring debut at AEW Dynamite: The Crossroads in March 2021.

Speaking on the Swerve City podcast, Khan noted that Cargill, and former NBA name Satnam Singh, were great athletes that he gambled on when signing them to AEW.

Noting that he doesn’t want AEW to typically train wrestlers from scratch, Khan said:

“First of all, when you look at their body of work coming in, sometimes you get athletes, like Satnam Singh is a great example or Jade Cargill, where they didn’t have prior experience in pro wrestling, but they were great athletes, actually both of them played basketball at a high level. I thought they were worth a gamble.

“We typically don’t take people in who don’t have a lot of prior wrestling experience. We don’t train wrestlers from scratch here. It’s a different business model. There are a lot of great people, but for us, we kind of pick our spots when it comes to that thing, because we’re not as much about centralized training all week long.

“We come together like locusts in a different city every week and then we go our separate ways. I think for us, having a lot of prior wrestling experience is really important.

“So for example Swerve is somebody I’d seen wrestle in different promotions and I really loved your stuff. I had seen a lot of your matches before you came in. Some other people might not have as much experience as you and might not have had as much success, or really might not be as far along or as developed or as good.

“There are other people where it’s hard to track them down.”

Khan also discussed recent booking decisions, admitting that he ‘misread’ the fan reaction to a top AEW act.

Stay up to date with AEW TV win/loss records for 2022 using our tracker at this link.

Quote via Ringside News. 

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• Training
• wrestlers
• tony khan
• AEW

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