Tony Khan Full Gear Media Call notes

[Chris]

Tony Khan AEW media call: Grand Slam Australia updates, WWE ID, new event strategy

Ahead of Saturday’s AEW Full Gear, AEW & ROH head Tony Khan spoke with the media for an hour, hitting on the WWE ID program, a ticket update for February’s Grand Slam event in Australia…

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Ahead of Saturday’s AEW Full Gear, AEW & ROH head Tony Khan spoke with the media for an hour, hitting on the WWE ID program, a ticket update for February’s Grand Slam event in Australia, and their new event strategy.

The full audio from the call can be found below.

Khan said they have sold “thousands” of tickets for their debut in Australia which is also taking place in a stadium. Asked about how fans will be able to watch, Khan was reluctant to commit to it being a pay-per-view due to the time zone difference between Brisbane and the U.S. In the same answer, he mentioned Max and how his key shows will be simulcast there, perhaps a strong hint that is how it will be made available.

Asked about how the WWE ID program will affect their recruitment of talent on the indies, Khan was unsure as he still isn’t clear about all the parameters but did hear something about matching rights. He said it will be interesting to see how it goes the first time they have a WWE ID talent they want to bring in. As such, he will reserve his thoughts until he “tests such a mechanism.” It hasn’t been a conflict yet, but he’s interested to see how that goes when it does.

Khan said with running smaller venues, he hopes to recapture some of the atmosphere of some of the early AEW shows, specifically putting over venues in Cedar Park, Texas, and Austin, Texas, that he loves running. Khan said the instances of Dynamite/Collision tapings on the same night will be rare and only in cases where they have international travel planned or some other circumstance that necessitates it.

Other notes:

• Khan said he’s learned a lot about marketing and entrepreneurship from Big Boom A.J. and Big Justice of the Costco Guys fame. He will appear on Fox Business Friday with A.J. to promote Full Gear.
• He said they are having active negotiations about Ring of Honor and/or other AEW programming.
• He said news of Toni Storm’s retirement and her demise has been “greatly exaggerated” and hopes to have her back soon.
• Khan said he would also like to get Kenny Omega back soon and that it “would help them a lot and would be a great thing for AEW.”
• Khan said it would be months before they announce anything regarding the PPV buying capability on Max.

Click here to listen