Tony Khan Says AEW Is The #1 Promotion In The U.K.

AEW President Tony Khan was a recent guest on the Swerve City podcast where he reflected on originally pushing to start AEW. He admitted that it led to a tense family Christmas between him and his father. Initially, Tony's dad doubted AEW, but he has since admitted he was wrong.

"I happened to be someone who loved the wrestling business, but had worked in sports," he said. "And I was very fortunate my dad came over from Pakistan when he was 16 to go to college at the University of Illinois. That's where he met my mom, then I was born there in Illinois. He started a business and it took off, but he kind of came here with nothing. And he is the big success, he is the reason this all happened. He's said it, we had a really ugly Christmas, 2018. Because I had already frankly told Jericho and other people, 'we are going to do this.'

"I pretty much had a bunch of people verbally ready to go, and a bunch of contracts were set to expire at the start of 2019. I had a business plan ready to go, which is AEW now. He was like, 'this isn't going to work, we are going to lose millions, you have no guarantee.' I had no TV deal at that point for it, and it was a huge gamble. He has gone into Forbes, and a couple of times on the record, and said he was completely wrong."

Tony Khan then pointed out that there had been no promotion like WCW since it went away. He felt like Impact and ROH came from WCW and ECW, but they ended up lasting longer than both of those.

"There was nothing really since WCW went down that felt that way," he said. "Even at the end of WCW, they always had it. Until the day they actually pulled the plug, none of us believed that could ever happen. It was unthinkable when it happened. Since then, there's Impact, which is great, but it's like the zombie WCW.

"The guys that were leftover from WCW, some of them went and started another wrestling company. There's Ring Of Honor kind of, in some ways came up from the skeleton of what was ECW. Those companies built legacies that ironically lasted longer than the original companies."

Tony Khan admitted that neither ROH or Impact were able to reach the level of AEW. While he knows the company has more to do before hitting WCW's peak, he did claim they are the number one company in the United Kingdom.

"These companies like we are talking about, Ring Of Honor is a great example. Other companies I just mentioned, got really affected I think by free agency," he said. "But they also have never reached the heights where AEW has reached. I think it's the first time since WCW, and I am not trying to say we have reached the same peaks as WCW. I don't want to get misquoted or misconstrued. Because at one point WCW was the number one wrestling company all around the world overall. There are parts of the world where we are number one which is amazing, like the United Kingdom."

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