Tony Khan Reveals Which WWE Angle Was The Inspiration For Chris Jericho Vs. Jungleboy Storyline

On the latest episode of AEW Unrestricted, President and CEO of AEW Tony Khan joined Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone. Khan noted how it was his dream to be in the position he is at today but credits the staff at AEW and all the other veteran wrestlers that are part of the company.

"At the end of the day, I'm at the head of a creative committee and the match-maker effectively. Yeah, it's something that I've always wanted to do," Khan said. "It's a life-long dream come true but also to surround myself with so many great minds to work with where you have the greatest staff I think we could have put together."

Taz made an appearance on a past episode of Wrestling Inc. WINCLY and talked about Vince McMahon being in his ear and how he dealt with that while talking. Edwards and Schiavone brought up that Khan is also in the ears of the commentators and refs, but Khan talked about how he did not understand the concept of talking while a commentator is talking at the same time.

"Tony can tell you. You've worked different places. You've worked with me, and you've worked for Vince McMahon. And I am not in your ear as much. And I am in you ear sometimes, but when I am in your ear, I try not to do it when you're talking," Khan said. "Like if Jim and Excalibur are talking, that seems to me the best time to talk to you. If you and Jim are talking, seems like the best time to talk to Excalibur. Definitely, when Jim's talking, I can't really imagine talking to Jim when he's talking. I've heard that's what they do. I don't really understand why they do that."

While there was confusion over whether Jungle Boy's December 18 match against then AEW Champion Chris Jericho was a title match or not, the match received high praise from many fans. Khan went into detail about how the match came to be months in advance at May's Double or Nothing show.

"Recently, we gave Jungle Boy a really great opportunity. He killed it and lasted 10 minutes with the champion. That's something that I've always wanted to do. The story of that match is pretty cool. That was an idea I had years ago. We were laying out plans for Double or Nothing. It was two nights before Double or Nothing, and we were in the hotel room," Khan said. "I was with the Bucks, Cody, Kenny and Dustin, and it was totally unrelated to Double or Nothing. We should have been talking about Double or Nothing.

"Dustin, do you member when you did the 10-minute challenge with Ted DiBiase? I was saying man that's a great angle, and it's been done other places. 'You can't last 10 minutes with me kid.' And I thought for Chris Jericho and for Jungle Boy, Jack, this could be a star-making spot for him the same way it was 30 years ago for Dustin, and I felt like it really helped him connect with the audience. So we really held him back almost for a long time to where that would be the first real thing Jack did."

Khan also revealed that the story of Scorpio Sky filling in unexpectedly for an injured Christoper Daniels that led to SoCal Uncensored to become the first AEW Tag Team Champions was also planned before Double or Nothing. The story of Sky's title match against Jericho was also in the plans as well.

"Have it be C.D. and Frankie so it looks like it's gonna be the more experienced team in Christoper Daniels and Frankie Kazarian. Have C.D. get knocked out with a package piledriver by Pentagon which was the whole idea, and then Sky in street clothes, whose not even supposed to be in this tournament, well he's gonna be the last minute sub. He's gonna come in. He'll win all three matches, get the pins in all three matches, and he's gonna look like a real star," Khan said. "Then wouldn't it be cool after that if he worked with Chris Jericho really got on the map. Literally all that stuff with Chris when he got to All Out and got to TV that we would do programs with Chris and Sky and Chris and Jack. That was stuff in May I really wanted to do."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.