Dean Malenko Talks The Challenges AEW Will Face As It Gets Set To Premiere On TNT

Dean Malenko had a successful career in pro wrestling, however, Malenko now uses his knowledge of the business to produce wrestling shows. Malenko was recently hired as a producer for All Elite Wrestling, and he explained to Wrestling Inc. that his time in WCW has shown him that it's important to stay focused on your own product.

"What I can bring [from my experience with WCW] is to get talent not to worry about it," Malenko said. "Just go out there and work the best you can, put on a great show. If you do that, you'll always be fine. You don't always have to worry about somebody behind you or your competitor all the time. You don't worry about somebody else more than you worry about your own, so I think I can help guide them in that direction."

Dean noted that the product AEW is trying to produce, that focuses on the sports qualities of pro wrestling and win/loss records, is in line with his style. He looks at this as a clean slate after so many years affiliated with the WWE.

"I think it's closer to what I do and what I'm known for. And I love challenges put in front of me, and I feel like it's a fresh start after so many years," Dean explained. "Being 59 years old – 59 young years old – and it gives me an opportunity to work with a whole new crew of guys that are ready to make a name for themselves and be a part of history."

Dean believes that his most useful guidance will be from his experience working on TV shows. He pointed out how commercials and trying to take the show off the air at a specific time will be new challenges that he expects to help with.

"A lot of my experience will be to help Cody out, and help these young guys out in getting adjusted to TV," Dean said. "TV is a whole different animal than it is if you were doing a live event that's not television. You have a little bit more of a luxury where you don't have commercials built into it, where TV, you do so the matches are chopped up a little bit. Just having a guy in there dealing with time because you have commercials and you have a time span that you've got to reach when you're doing an 8-10 show. You've got to be off the air at a certain time, so, I'm here to kind of help these guys learn how to do that."

The full audio from Dean Malenko's Starrcast III media scrum was released as part of Thursday's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded player at the bottom of this post, or via the video player at the top.

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