Tony Khan has a lot of faith in the creative mind of The American Dragon Bryan Danielson.
All Elite Wrestling owner Tony Khan recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter. When asked about the decision to run AEW All In and All Out on back-to-back weekends, Khan said —
It’s a fascinating setup that we have coming for fans with All In and All Out,” Tony Khan said. “The opportunity to do AEW All In at Wembley Stadium presented itself. Wembley had the date available, it’s a bank holiday weekend, and it’s been the perfect storm of business success. It was the right date and the perfect location for AEW All In this Sunday at Wembley Stadium.
“That perfect date also happened to be one week before the perfect date to do a pay-per-view in Chicago. It’s a three-day weekend in England for All In, and then it’s a three-day weekend in America for All Out. That’s by design. That is really valuable live-event real estate in Wembley Stadium and that Labor Day weekend at United Center that we have for All Out.
“Both shows, as live events, are wildly profitable to begin with. People have asked if I’m crazy for doing pay-per-views on back-to-back weekends. But when you look at the ticket sales for the two events, we’ve already created huge profit margins for both events purely on ticket sales. And the pay-per-view is going to be the cherry on top of both events because we sold so many tickets to both events.
Tony Khan ran AEW All In and All Out back to back due to 3 day weekend holidays in both countries
“So I believe the live-event real estate for those weekends is so valuable. And because those are such big live events, people are going to want to see them on TV, because those are the shows that sold a lot of tickets. The bank holiday weekend in England and the Labor Day weekend in Chicago, that’s really valuable pro wrestling real estate in terms of the box office that I had no intention of giving up.
“When I booked the Wembley show, I knew that that meant I had to keep All Out in Chicago as well, because we have a great tradition there that I’m going to keep going forever. The business case is really based on the live events. And I believe the pay-per-view sales will also be strong. But frankly, when you’re selling millions of dollars of tickets across two shows, then you’re in a great position to cover your business base.
“The live event can help drive pay-per-view because clearly there’s a lot of interest in both shows – we have had 80,000 tickets distributed in England and over 10,000 tickets distributed in Chicago the following weekend.”
Tony Khan has high praise for Bryan Danielson
When asked who he’d turn to if he were unable to book an episode of Dynamite or Rampage, Khan surprisingly revealed that he would turn to Bryan Danielson.
“He hasn’t been around as much lately, because he’s been recovering from an injury,” Tony Khan began. “But if I got hit by a bus, or if I was ever incapacitated for some reason, the person I told my father that he should turn to is Bryan Danielson.”
READ MORE: Tony Khan: I Won’t Be The One To Pull The Plug On Sting’s Career, He’ll Have To
What do you make of Tony Khan’s comments? Would you like to see what an All Elite Wrestling booked by Bryan Danielson would look like? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
