Tony Khan Reveals Booker T Told Him He Missed The Boat With AEW Star Years Ago

During the post-ROH Supercard Of Honor show media scrum, Tony Khan spoke about Mercedes Martinez. He recalled how she originally worked with the company, and then ended up signing for WWE. This led to Booker T telling him he'd missed the boat on her. However, it was all down to the company not having the budget before the television deal.

"Obviously I like Mercedes a lot," Tony Khan said. "And I had worked in putting a match order and a card together for All Out, she was a very prominently featured at All Out, and I actually was coaching then, and worked with you a lot. We got along really well. But, it was before the TV renewal, and I went on the Jericho cruise pre-pandemic, and it was a very eventful cruise, a lot of stuff happened. A lot of stuff that weekend. And Booker T was on the cruise, and he brought up to me how I had really missed the boat on Mercedes.

"I told him, Mercedes is really the kind of person I would like to have in AEW, I was looking and using her on a non-contract basis. Basically building up to when I had the budget to sign her, because, before the TV deal, our revenue stream totally changed. You saw me bring in dozens of free agents since then, dozens. And she absolutely would have been one of them. But she signed with the competition before I got the contract. And it was probably within weeks.

Tony Khan then went into more detail about the conversation he had with Booker T on the cruise. He pointed out they worked together, and that he was going to sign more talent. The AEW President mentioned a run of free agents he then brought in after the television deal.

"So, Booker, it was a funny conversation. I was trying to explain to him, 'I worked with her, we worked on the battle royal together, I thought she was awesome, and now we are going to go out and start signing people.' After that, we signed a bunch of big names like Brodie Lee, Matt Hardy," he said. "And the next year FTR, Sting, and many others and built up a lot of names. And she would absolutely have been a name that I was really interested in. So that was a conversation I had with Booker T on the cruise."

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