Tony Khan addresses his critics, including Eric Bischoff.
AEW President Tony Khan recently appeared on Grapsody to discuss a number of topics in the pro wrestling world. During the conversation, Khan addressed criticism he’s received over booking certain matches that either are or are not story-driven.
“Before you were like, ‘Why is this match happening? They shouldn’t do this match.’ Maybe it’s the start of something? How would you know? When we announced there’s going to be a Casino Trios Royale, and [Jon] Moxley and Darius [Martin] are going to have a match—well, first of all, they’re both going to be involved in this match. Maybe there’s going to be something there on Friday. We’ve already told you they’re going to be doing something else,” Khan said as an example.
He continued to explain that he adopted the booking from WCW. “I think it’s something that I grew up with and went away for a long time and something we brought back, but there’s so many people in those two decades-plus that never saw that. They weren’t familiar with the concept of wrestling matches where two people are fighting for the win, fighting for a place of intention. Nitro was the number one show on cable, and so much of it was two wrestlers going out, and it wasn’t even announced.”
Khan and the Grapsody hosts reminisced on Nitro matches that used to take place during the first hour of the program that involved the likes of luchadores, talent from Japan, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Jericho.
“It was fun,” Khan said. “Then the person who produced these shows has gone and worked other places, and it’s like he forgot all the stuff he did. And then he’s like, ‘Why would anybody do this? Nobody wants to see that on TBS and TNT,’ Khan said in a different voice to mock Eric Bischoff. “You’re the one that did it! You did it, and it was cool, and now you say it’s not a way that people can watch TV anymore because every match has to have some kind of story to get into it. Well, what about a story where everyone just wants to be the best?”
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