Tony Khan Says ECW “One Night Stand” Inspired His Booking Of ROH SuperCard
AEW President Tony Khan recently spoke to Rasslin' where he gave his thoughts on FTR facing The Bricoes. He admitted that after purchasing Ring Of Honor, he decided to throw all his chips on that match. Khan then talked about the success of the event generally, which he thinks in large part is down to that.
"When I had purchased Ring Of Honor, and made the agreement with Ring Of Honor to purchase the company, I really felt like now was the right time to throw all my chips in on FTR vs. The Briscoes. What a success the event was," he said. "I don't have all the cable and satellite numbers yet.
"But it looks like it was at least one of Ring Of Honor's biggest events in the 20-year history of the company. Which is saying a lot, because recently, they hadn't been doing those kinds of numbers and I think we really drove a lot of business. And a huge part of it was The Briscoes vs. FTR."
Tony Khen then reflected on ROH's Final Battle. He sent several AEW stars to that event, including FTR, but at that point, he had no idea he would be purchasing the company. He simply wanted to work with a promotion he had done nothing with before originally.
"FTR vs. The Briscoes, we had helped them set up at Final Battle. I had no idea I was going to be signing a deal to buy Ring Of Honor," he revealed. "At the time, I was trying to work with a company that I had never really done anything with before. I had worked with so many companies over the past several years. But had never done anything with Ring Of Honor.
"I had probably, honestly, I have done more with WWE because Jericho did that thing with Steve Austin. So, I don't remember doing anything with Ring Of Honor. We sent FTR early, but then they also had a thing with Bandido, who's a great wrestler, and was their champion at the time, had gotten COVID and had to miss their Final Battle PPV. So, I sent Jay Lethal as a replacement. He has so much history with Jonathan Gresham, and I thought it would be a great match."
When it comes to Tony Khan's first show as the Ring Of Honor owner, he wanted to start hot. For him, it was important to strike immediately, and he also wanted it to be different from an AEW event.
"I felt like I wanted to strike while the iron was hot with Ring Of Honor, not do like cold tribute matches. But on the other hand, One Night Stand is one of the greatest PPVs, because they captured the spirit of ECW, and there was a lot of exciting stuff on the show. Apples and oranges, they're totally different shows," Tony Khan said. "I thought, 'hey, we can do a show that captures the spirit of AEW. I don't want to do an AEW show.' That is what was great about One Night Stand, it was not a WWE show.
"Ring Of Honor Supercard was a Ring Of Honor show. With Ian and Caprice announcing, with Bobby ring announcing. Bringing in some stars from AEW, really only FTR were the only outside stars that hadn't been primarily in Ring Of Honor. Other than, I guess, Swerve. But ironically, Ring Of Honor had booked Swerve before I did. So, Swerve was already committed to that before he had come to AEW."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Rasslin' with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.