Tony Khan on AEW creative process, input from others

[Chris]

Source: f4wonline.com

Tony Khan discussed the creative process in AEW during a recent interview with Forbes.

Khan said that while he has the final say, he takes input from many others when writing shows. When AEW first began, however, he feels he was leaning too much on others.

"When we started AEW Dynamite in October 2019, I had never officially written a wrestling TV show," Khan said. "All of my experience writing TV shows and wrestling had been exclusively imaginary and all the episodes of Dynamite and Rampage, for that matter, were shows that I had been creating at home for fun as a hobby."

Khan continued to say that it was his lack of experience that led to him leaning too much on others in the early days of AEW.

"I did lean more on people around me and I would try to trust my instincts but it's hard when you don't have as much experience and I do take a lot of pride in the booking."

The AEW President continue to say he receives creative input from many within the company.

"I work with a lot of really smart people. What I think I do a good job of is being organized dealing with a lot of different people," he continued.

"I have a lot of great creative minds that are in the company that I can have full time access to like Chris Jericho and Christian Cage, and Jon Moxley has great ideas. And now CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole have come in with great ideas."

Although he has lots of people contributing ideas, however, Khan writes the shows himself.

"I don't understand the idea of having a lot of different people write the show and then a person would go in the day of and rip it to pieces and try to come up with new ideas. To be honest, when I hear about somebody going in and they have a TV show on Monday that they rip up, my first thought is, 'What were you doing all weekend?' Because I work my ass off on the weekends."

"So, I don't do everything myself but I do make the final decision on everything. I put the format together, I put an outline of what the show is going to be for Dynamite and Rampage. I write it by hand."

"I really just want people to go out and make the points and keep the stories going but I'm not so autocratic that I want to control every word somebody says on television. And I think that's also why some of our interviews, our storytelling, and promos are really strong, I believe."

 

[Hidden Blaze]

Taking ideas is always a good thing, well not always as we seen sometimes… but it’s good he listens to others input.

 

[Chris]

Reading between the lines that part seemed to me like he was saying "I wasn't sure that my fantasy booking would work irl until it was better than the stuff I was being pushed to do by talent"

 

[Cwalker]

It’s good to listen to other people when you have 0 experience in the field like he did initially.

One thing you need to do as the person in charge is not let those people giving you ideas pitch things that’ll benefit them over the product. We saw that with WCW.

As far as we know, that never happened so good on TK. But I will say, I think there was a period of time where all the EVPs were Champion at the same time(could be wrong) and while I don’t think there was collusion there, I don’t think that was a good look.

 

[Chris]

It’s good to listen to other people when you have 0 experience in the field like he did initially.

One thing you need to do as the person in charge is not let those people giving you ideas pitch things that’ll benefit them over the product. We saw that with WCW.

As far as we know, that never happened so good on TK. But I will say, I think there was a period of time where all the EVPs were Champion at the same time(could be wrong) and while I don’t think there was collusion there, I don’t think that was a good look.

I actually think that was way later bc I remember thinking for awhile that it was crazy Kenny and the Bucks hadn't been champs (Kenny as world champ, not the tag run) and thought they were hurting themselves by not giving them belts bc they were scared of that connotation lol

 

[Chris]

I don't think it was ever all 3 men's belts being with VPs tho but it was real close once, I think Cody lost the TNT title to Darby the night the Bucks won the belts and Omega won his like a couple weeks later

 

[Hidden Blaze]

I don't think it was ever all 3 men's belts being with VPs tho but it was real close once, I think Cody lost the TNT title to Darby the night the Bucks won the belts and Omega won his like a couple weeks later

I think this is accurate for sure.

 

[Cwalker]

I don't think it was ever all 3 men's belts being with VPs tho but it was real close once, I think Cody lost the TNT title to Darby the night the Bucks won the belts and Omega won his like a couple weeks later

Ok if that’s the case then I rescind that arguement.

I definitely remember Omega and the Bucks being Champs but wasn’t sure if Cody was in the middle of his TNT run

 

[Chris]

Ok if that’s the case then I rescind that arguement.

I definitely remember Omega and the Bucks being Champs but wasn’t sure if Cody was in the middle of his TNT run

Yeah it was a good 6 months of Bucks/Kenny and it was also heel dominance so that probably sticks out more for people

 

[Chris]

Actually even longer, Lucha Bros won at All Out so Bucks went November-August as champs

 

[Cwalker]

Anyway, I’ll say TK has been doing an ok job so far.

There have been some hits and there have been some misses.

Hangman’s chase to the title was a hit.

That shit with the House of Black and the Varsity Blondes was a miss.

As long as you have more hits than misses and you learn from your mistakes then he’ll be fine

 

[Chris]

Anyway, I’ll say TK has been doing an ok job so far.

There have been some hits and there have been some misses.

Hangman’s chase to the title was a hit.

That shit with the House of Black and the Varsity Blondes was a miss.

As long as you have more hits than misses and you learn from your mistakes then he’ll be fine

Not even necessarily more, if your misses are mid to lower card and your hits are main event that's what people are gonna remember. It's why the Attitude Era is still looked so much more fondly than WCW's peak era bc Attitude Era has shitty undercard nonsense but a hype main event, WCW had like the best lower card output in history but dumbass main events

 

[Cwalker]

Not even necessarily more, if your misses are mid to lower card and your hits are main event that's what people are gonna remember. It's why the Attitude Era is still looked so much more fondly than WCW's peak era bc Attitude Era has shitty undercard nonsense but a hype main event, WCW had like the best lower card output in history but dumbass main events

Very good point

 

[Chris]

Like what was that Brandi stable that was so panned at the beginning lol i wasn't even watching AEW much then so I didn't see it but all I remember is people talking about how shitty it was for awhile and it's like it never happened to me but it's this black stain on AEW apparently

 

[Moon Bird]

Not even necessarily more, if your misses are mid to lower card and your hits are main event that's what people are gonna remember. It's why the Attitude Era is still looked so much more fondly than WCW's peak era bc Attitude Era has shitty undercard nonsense but a hype main event, WCW had like the best lower card output in history but dumbass main events

This 100%