Ricky Starks Discusses His Relationship With Tony Khan, Being In The AEW ‘White House’

Less than a year into his AEW run, Ricky Starks has already made a big impact on the company. Starks is often pegged as one of the future stars of the business, with Cody Rhodes recently saying that Starks will be champion one day.

Tony Khan is very complimentary towards Starks in his interviews, often naming him and Darby Allin as two guys who he sees big things for as the company progresses.

Speaking to Renee Paquette on Oral Sessions, Starks discussed his relationship with the head honcho of AEW.

“I still operate as if he’s not supposed to be so accessible to me. I’ve heard stories of how Vince (McMahon) and other CEOs are and it’s kind of been tapped into my brain and that’s how I approach Tony, under the pretense of that’s how he is, and it isn’t. There’s times where I go up to him and I’m like, ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’ ‘You’re not bothering me, it’s fine.’ I’m still trying to figure out the boundaries because I’m so in my head of how I think a CEO is and it’s not the case with Tony,” said Starks.

Starks continued, revealing he has a cabinet position in AEW along with three others who are thought to be the future of AEW.

“There are people who make jokes because there’s a group of us that they call The White House. In the White House it’s me, Britt (Baker), [Jungle Boy], [MJF]. Those are like the four. The joke, they call us The White House, because we don’t get shit done. We seem to make it worse for ourselves. You can’t count on us to get something approved. Don’t ask us to pitch anything because it probably won’t go the way we want it to. Terrible at pitching anything or bringing up ideas. We don’t even pitch things. People see us talking to Tony and I think they get an idea. If you even knew what we were talking about, we’re talking about Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bon Jovi. There’s nothing wrestling,” he said.

When discussing his art of pitching, Starks said that halfway through he would think “this is a stupid idea, don’t worry about it” before walking off.

Starks is currently sidelined with a slightly fractured neck and will reportedly miss up to three months of in-ring time, but is expected to remain on television in some capacity.

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