Tony Khan Talks AEW TV Deal With TNT, Reveals An Upcoming Tag Team Tournament For Their Weekly Show
All Elite Wrestling's founder and president Tony Khan recently appeared on The Steve Austin Show to speak with legendary WWE Hall of Famer, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Among a variety of subjects Austin discussed with Khan, he showed great enthusiasm on tag team wrestling's role moving forward in AEW.
Khan emphasized how "super-focused" he and the rest of the AEW staff are on the company's tag team division, and he has plans to establish a tournament to showcase what these teams have to offer audiences.
"When we launch our weekly television show in the Fall, we are going to be doing a tag team tournament that is going to have some of the greatest tag team wrestling matches ever on television," Khan said. "We are going to be starting that, which is going be one of the main focuses on our TV. There are going to be teams that are going to compete for a first-round bye in that tournament, which is a big deal, and we have got some of the best tag teams in all of pro wrestling competing for our Tag Team Championships coming up in the Fall."
For now, AEW staff and fans alike have their attention on the persisting feud between The Lucha Bros. and The Young Bucks. Khan reminded listeners that it was back in February when this rivalry between the two teams first began in AEW. He sees parallels between The Lucha Bros./Young Bucks feud and the Eddie Guerrero/Art Barr feud from the AAA World's Collide event back in 1994.
"What is exciting about the match between The Young Bucks and Lucha Bros is that we have been working on this issue for a long time," Khan explained. "If you look back to when we first went to Las Vegas for the ticket on-sale party, when we announced the on sale date for the pre-sale code for the Double or Nothing sale, we went to the MGM, which was right after the Super Bowl... The Young Bucks had said that they thought they were the best tag team in the world and the Lucha Bros showed up. They are the AAA Tag Team Champions – that's cool to me because I am a huge fan of wrestling and I remember When World's Collide PPV very fondly, with Eddie Guerrero and Art Barr kind of changing the game down in Mexico. I thought that this was more of a modern tag team classic [between Lucha Bros and The Young Bucks], and we have tried to establish this issue in so many ways."
Khan also touched on some of the details regarding AEW's premier on TNT this Fall. When it came to making a decision on which television network to pursue, Khan reached out to a friend that could help make everything come together seamlessly.
"[TNT was a good choice for AEW because] my friend, Kevin Reilly, is the president of TNT and TBS. It's going to start in the Fall," Khan stated. "There will be specific details on that very soon, and it's going to be really exciting for pro wrestling to return to TNT in prime time, weeknights, for a 2-hour live wrestling show. I can't tell you the day of the week, but I think it's going to be the best pro wrestling show anyone has ever done. All Out is going to be our last pay per view going into it."
Khan looks forward to seeing everyone's hard work pay off during the the final show before their TV debut.
"We have set up this issue with Chris Jericho and Hangman Page and we are going to continue setting up these huge issues; And now we have set up another big event with Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Steve Austin Show with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.