Tony Khan Thinks Homegrown Stars Would’ve Defeated New Stars If AEW Talent Went To NXT

The final AEW Dynamite on TNT closed with Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, and Bobby Fish defeating Orange Cassidy, Chuckie T, and Trent.

Cole, O’Reilly, and Fish were staples of the Wednesday Night Wars as Undisputed ERA in NXT before all three came to AEW in the final quarter of 2021.

Appearing on Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan discussed the surreal moment of having those three headline the final AEW Dynamite on TNT.

“We battled so much of the Wednesday Night Wars in Daily’s Place. It was the last show on TNT and Daily’s Place was the perfect place for the show. I thought it was a symbolic match of the Wednesday Night Wars and thought it was cool that was how we ended it,” he said.

Khan praised WWE for creating surreal moments as well, noting the One Night Stand events. He then said that he believed Undisputed ERA vs. Best Friends was a dream match for many during the Wednesday Night Wars.

The former Undisputed ERA was victorious in the bout, which Tony wasn’t sure would have happened had the shoe been on the other foot.

“I also think, had it been done the other way, in the other place, they would have been more likely to have their own homegrown stars go over. We’ve seen that in the past with Sting at WrestleMania, the Invasion, generally there was a feeling that they wanted to protect their homegrown people even though these people that came in, they are now your people too. There is a very short-sighted element to the booking I’ve seen of the new in-bound people when they are the people you were fighting against in the war. My perspective is totally different. Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, and now Kyle O’Reilly were a game planning nightmare. When you were laying out the game plan, how we were going to win this week. What do they have, what do we have, how we were going to stack up the show and do better ratings, thankfully we were able to do and keep the lights on, but it was tough sledding. Every week was a fight, that’s why it was a war. Those guys were a match up nightmare. Now that they are on our team, it makes me want to utilize them more than ever,” he said.

The Wednesday Night Wars started when Dynamite premiered on TNT on October 2, 2019 and ended on April 7, 2021 with NXT airing its final episode on Wednesday before moving to Tuesdays.

Tony previously joked that he should do a Wednesday Night Wars documentary. You can find his full comments by clicking here.

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