Tony Khan Comments On AEW Signing 16-Year-Old Indie Star

Prior to announcing he had purchased Ring of Honor on the latest episode of AEW Dynamite, AEW owner and CEO Tony Khan sat down with The Megacast podcast to promote Dynamite, Friday's AEW Rampage, and AEW Revolution this Sunday on PPV.

Khan briefly touched upon how, as a promoter, there is more feedback from fans available to him than there's ever been for any promoter.

"Absolutely," Khan said. "There's more feedback available right now for a wrestling promoter than there's ever been, which is great. It's a great tool."

Tony Khan also touched upon the recent signing of 16-year-old independent wrestling star Nick Wayne, with Khan giving full credit to AEW star Darby Allin for bringing Wayne to Khan's attention. Khan talked up the history Wayne and Allin have together, and also gave his opinion that AEW had the two top Pacific Northwest wrestlers in the world right now between Allin and Bryan Danielson.

"Darby and I are very close," Khan said. "I think we're like twin sides of the same coin. There's probably nobody I have less in common with that I have a better connection with than Darby. He is absolutely the person that brought Nick to my attention. He's trained with Nick since he was a very young kid and I told him 'I think when he's 18, I would love to have him.' I really took Darby's word for it. So that's my guy, Nick Wayne, when he's 18 years old, I can't wait for him to step into the ring for us.

"And I give all the credit to Darby for spotting him. Obviously, you know, firsthand, they trained together for a long time. And Darby is a fixture in Seattle. I believe we have the two most popular wrestlers out of Seattle in recent memory, or I should say out of the Washington area, with Darby Allin and Bryan Danielson. I would imagine they're the two most popular wrestlers in the area, and they're both very adept at scouting wrestlers."

To quote this article, please credit The Megacast and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription