Tony Khan says AEW is under constant attack, as the company is constantly the target of negativity.
Speaking at the ROH Final battle post-show scrum, Tony Khan addressed the negativity and “bad faith posting” AEW often faces on social media. (H/t Neal Flanagan of POST Wrestling for the transcription)
“For AEW, and I think Ring of Honor because it falls under my ownership, to be AEW is to be under constant attack,” Tony Khan said. “You do a great show and the next day somebody’s saying something negative. You do five great shows in a row.
“Somebody says something negative. You break the ticket record for the most tickets ever sold for any wrestling show in the history of the world, and somebody has something bad to say about it. I just, at this point, I don’t worry about it. We just need to go out and do great shows week after week, like we did.”
Khan also pointed to AEW’s strong ratings, coming off a week where Dynamite was the top show on cable on Wednesday.
“We were the number-one show on cable this week,” Khan said. “On Wednesday, we beat every single show on TV on Wednesday out of hundreds and hundreds of shows across hundreds of networks. And we’ll continue doing it, and everybody who works here is gonna be in good position.”
Tony Khan Talks Discourse On Social Media
Tony Khan went on to discuss the challenge of facing wrestling discourse on social media. Khan stated that he sees a lot of bad faith on social media.
“I think it’s challenging because I’ve never seen anything quite like wrestling when it comes to such a large percentage of the business spending such a large percentage of their time on one platform, which is X, formerly Twitter,” Tony Khan said. “It’s amazing how many people in the wrestling business are on Twitter all the time. And to be honest, I understand it because it’s a good reason; because it’s engagement; because there’s such a large percentage of the wrestling fans and you, the wrestling media, and opinion makers, and the wrestlers themselves — and the companies, so many people are on this one platform. It’s pretty unique, because in other sports, it’s more evenly distributed. What I’ve seen is sometimes is a bit of an echo chamber. And also there’s a lot of bad faith.
“There’s a lot of bad faith posting on it. And you can have a great day in the business, like do the number one show and people try and tell you you didn’t do something great. Or you can break the world record for the most tickets ever sold to any wrestling show ever and have this massive, huge success on pay-per-view. And just hit a home run and the wrestling’s great and everything’s great. And still people are trying to tell you there’s some problem with it or something detrimental.”
Tony Khan Won’t Give Up The Fight
Tony Khan also addressed AEW’s place as the main challenger brand to WWE, as he noted that his predecessors had gone out of business. He stated that competing is a fight, and while it’s hard, he will never give up.
“There’s a reason that every single person who stepped into my position until now has gone out of business,” Tony Khan said. “I’m the only one left. Everybody who has stepped up and put millions of dollars into this and done it week after week, and there’s no off-season, you do it 52 weeks a year. It’s a fight, and that’s a credit to the fans. I know what it is to be a wrestling fan 52 weeks a year, it’s hard. But it’s also the most rewarding thing. That’s why you can’t get away from it for too long. That’s why we always come back to it. We’re addicted.
“It’s worth the fight, and I love the fight. I’m never gonna stop fighting, no matter what happens. No matter how things change, it’s worth it. It’s the fight Jim Crockett fought and Verne Gagne and Ted Turner and so many other people that have tried. And God bless them all, and I’m doing this for all of you. And I know all of you are here in spirit, so thank you very much.”
The full scrum can be seen here:
Catch up on our coverage of the December 16 episode of AEW Collision here.
