The competition between All Elite Wrestling and WWE continues to heat up, and in many ways, Tony Khan is one of its faces.
As the President, CEO and General Manager of AEW, Tony Khan remains at the forefront of the ongoing revolution in which his promotion has pushed to challenge WWE for its spot as the leading company in the wrestling industry.
This battle for supremacy reminds many fans of the Monday Night Wars, a heated struggle between WWE (then WWF) and WCW that primarily played out in the latter half of the 90s. Plenty of skeptics remain convinced that Khan and AEW will fall, the same way that Eric Bischoff’s WCW ultimately crumbled in its fight with Vince McMahon.
During a recent appearance on My Mom’s Basement, Khan reiterated some of his previous comments in which he has explained how he’s determined to learn from WCW’s failures and avoid their mistakes. He also compared the current stage of AEW’s competition with WWE to the “’96 phase” of the Monday Night Wars, when many top free agents jumped ship and signed with WCW. These moves generated buzz and growth for the company, and Khan shared his belief that WCW could have succeeded in the long run if the promotion didn’t burn through a lot of its high-profile matches.
“What’s happening right now is similar to what happened as the 90s went on, and right now I’d say we’re in the ’96 phase, where like big free agent moves have started to happen,” said Khan. “Like WCW started to get a lot of traction in ’94 when Hulk Hogan and then Randy Savage later that year came over and WCW built, they already a nice foundation of stars, and then Nitro happened in 95 and I think what’s happening right now in many ways is similar. Because in ’96, there was a huge wave of free agency again, and even though not every business metric turned, you saw big growth for WCW and it continued and continued.
“But I think they would have had a much better chance to sustain and succeed and be around a long time had they not burned through a lot of matches, which is something I’m very conscious of.”
Khan pointed to this outcome as a downfall he’s trying to avoid, and he described how it’s one reason that he has prioritized building a roster that has plenty of depth. Likewise, he named WCW’s failure to develop new stars as another mistake he has firmly tried to avoid with his own roster-building practices. He recalled how buzzworthy talents like Chris Jericho and Eddie Guerrero left WCW and went on to blossom in WWE before they could fully shine in Eric Bischoff’s promotion. Khan subsequently explained that AEW currently features home-grown names like MJF and Britt Baker in the present, as he knows they’ll continue to be major stars moving forward.
“It’s why I try to have a really deep roster, but do different matches that are exciting for the fans each week,” said Khan. “But [we] know that we’re not gonna burn through every combination of matches because I think first of all maybe more young stars that we develop and I think one of the mistakes WCW made in hindsight was they never got to see through the growth of their young stars.
“For me, I think the young equivalent of [Jericho and Guerrero], say like MJF, Darby Allin, Britt Baker, Jungle Boy, these people are really important, and they’re part of AEW long-term, both in my plans and literally under contract.”
In addition to acknowledging these specific failures, the AEW president emphasized the importance of respecting the fans, rather than taking them for granted the way WCW sometimes did. With this in mind, Khan stated that he values consistently putting on good shows, delivering fresh matches and constantly improving as a few crucial ways to maintain (and ideally grow) the company’s audience.
“The shows, I just really believe, as long as we keep doing good shows that the fans want to see, then we’re gonna keep our audience,” said Khan. “And that’s one of the things that I think, I really believe 20-plus years ago, WCW took their fans for granted a bunch of times, and I don’t ever take you guys for granted. And that’s one of the reasons I try to keep a lot up my sleeve, fresh matches, fresh stars, and constantly trying to make the show better.”
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