Exclusive: Tony Khan Has No Desire To Move AEW To Mondays, Or Off Wednesdays

Don’t count on AEW moving to Mondays.

Cody Rhodes caused a bit of a stir on a recent media call, when he noted that in five years he wouldn’t mind being off Wednesdays for All Elite Wrestling Dynamite. He said that if a situation occurred that forced them to Mondays, he thinks they’d perform well there, too.

Fightful has learned that AEW founder Tony Khan has no plans to move from Wednesdays, and would never move to Mondays if he could help it. We’re told that has more to do with an NFL conflict than anything, considering the Khan family has a substantial interest with them owning the entirety of the Jacksonville Jaguars team and it would effectively be “competing against themselves.” Tuesdays were originally considered, but with NBA airing Tuesdays and Thursdays on TNT it eliminated that possibility.

Fightful would also ask Khan about this at the post-show scrum following AEW Revolution.

“First of all, what Cody brings to the company is amazing. He’s like one of my best friends and someone I collaborate real closely on a daily basis and on an hourly. When he does those media calls, it’s great and I was listening to it. At times, I am usually smiling or laughing but that would have been one of the times I wished I could have jumped in. That may be his view for five years as his personal view and that might be his view as the Executive Vice President, but as the President, CEO and the owner of AEW, I’m telling you I want to be on Wednesday nights. The most important thing in the world to me is this show and that we got a chance to do it through 2023, we’re on Wednesday nights for four years. I have no intentions of moving for a variety of reasons. I’m really happy with where we are, the relationship that we have with TNT. It’s a night that works great for them and their programming slot and we have been a top performer for them in the night and through the week as an original series. We have been competing with the top programs on cable on Wednesdays. Also, I said from the beginning, I never want to compete with Monday Night Football. I think they’re the greatest franchise on cable, so I don’t want to do it, plus my family and I own 100 percent of the Jaguars, so we are as big a partner with the NFL as anyone. We have this great cable series and franchise and we don’t want to compete with that, but also it doesn’t make sense for AEW. I don’t want to be on Mondays at all,” Khan said.

This story first ran on our Fightful Select premium service. Subscribe today to directly support us and get access to exclusive news and dozens of podcasts monthly.