AEW CEO Tony Khan Talks Comparisons To WCW And ECW

AEW is hoping to create competition in pro wrestling, but Tony Khan doesn’t want them compared to other promotions from the past. 

With AEW likely to land on TV later this year, the company will draw parallels in the mind of wrestling fans to WCW — WWE’s last significant competition. While the AEW CEO Tony Khan wants that era of wrestling to return in some respects, he’s looking to learn from the mistakes of predecessors. 

“I don’t want to compare us to any other wrestling company. We’re AEW and we’re doing something very different. What’s great is what we will offer, which will bring people back to 20 years ago, and there will be a major alternative. There will be a second company with great production values and great exposure, it’ll be easy to watch and give you shows with the top wrestlers and the best matches on a regular basis. That’s something that hasn’t been readily available to people outside of WWE in a long time, almost 20 years,” Khan told Chris Van Vliet of WSVN-TV during an interview. 

Another involved in the “Monday Night War” era of wrestling was that of ECW, who provided a much different on-screen product than that of the much bigger WWE and WCW. As far as following the pattern of the out of the box ECW, Khan is open to some aspects, but doesn’t want to scare away potential revenue, either. 

“I think we are doing some very edgy things and I think what you see on our social media is not necessarily what you will see in our television product which I do expect to be much more advertiser friendly than ECW. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t push the envelope sometimes, that doesn’t mean that you won’t see really exciting high spots. A lot of what made ECW great was the work and we’re going to have the best caliber in ring stuff in the world,” said Khan.

You can see the full interview from Chris Van Vliet with Khan above.