Tony Khan on the importance of having big matches on AEW Dynamite
Before the "Winter is Coming" AEW Dynamite special tomorrow night, Tony Khan sat down to do a media call earlier this afternoon and covered a variety of topics.
When asked about AEW choosing to put big matches on AEW Dynamite instead of waiting for pay-per-view, Khan had a lot to say.
Tony Khan says there is no bigger platform for AEW than Dynamite
During today's AEW media call, Khan went in-depth about why big matches belong on AEW Dynamite and just how much TNT is paying AEW for their television contract.
"There's more that went into it. I mean, the timing of the pay per views is by design. Like, I think it's really a great duration to have, you know, a few months between the big pay per view shows to reinforce that Dynamite is our core product. And the reason I want to put big matches on Dynamite is because Dynamite is the flagship product, the flagship revenue stream of AEW it's the lifeblood of AEW, and there wouldn't be an AEW without Dynamite. And I want people to feel like Wednesday night, they're going to get huge matches, and that really when the revenue model in wrestling changed what made me get into the wrestling business. The reason I started AEW was when the revenue model of wrestling changed. I've always loved wrestling, my dream was to start a wrestling company but I'm also not a sucker and I'm not going to put a ton of money into a bottomless pit.
"But when the revenue stream for television weekly wrestling became so large, potentially, when I saw the TV contracts that were going to be coming out, you know, it was 2018 and I saw what was what was ahead for TV contracts and it was hundreds of millions of dollars. Now we've signed a 175 million dollar four-year contract and you know that the business plan of this company was to get that contract, build the relationship we have with TNT and put on huge made events and huge shows. So we've got a lot of huge matches on Dynamite we've got a lot of big things on Dynamite.
"This is the biggest match we've ever done on Dynamite. We have our champion and our No. 1 contender. Mox has made other defenses on Dynamite against great wrestlers and great stars, but Kenny's the biggest star that Mox has defended against. We've seen Jon between TV and pay per view take on Hager, Brodie Lee, Darby Allin, MJF, and many other top stars here in AEW. Eddie Kingston on this past pay per view and Eddie Kingston on Dynamite and Lance Archer too. Through all these great matches, whether on pay per view or Dynamite, Jon has continued to be this flagship, great champion for our company.
"Kenny, since we started, has been established as one of our top stars. You know, we did the eliminator tournament to build to a huge Main Event match that I wanted to put out on Dynamite and build this show Winter is Coming tomorrow night. That is kind of a flagship episode of Dynamite we're building, special events. I mean Fyter Fest, there was a lot of anticipation for Fyter Fest this year. And then we did Fight for the Fallen and people are excited. This is year two, but we're already establishing new traditions in wrestling. And I think, you know, putting huge main events on Dynamite, I want people to believe that it's the norm of what you're going to see on the show. I thought that when the TV contracts in wrestling became so large, frankly, you should be putting the biggest matches on the TV really if you think about it.
"And so that's why this is no exception. I've tried to put a lot of the biggest matches on Dynamite. And I want people to feel like a spot on Dynamite sometimes is as good as a big pay per view spot, even though the pay per view cards we build are epic. I only want to do these big four because I think that you oversaturate if you do once a month or even more than one a month. Especially, you know, maybe it's not as special and I think you can do big cards, but if I'm going to charge 50 bucks a pop, I really want people to feel like those are the biggest collection of matches you can put on a card. This match we're gonna have tomorrow with Kenny and Mox would be as big as anything we put on pay per view and the card is a great pay per view card. It's a little bit shorter with a two-hour show, especially with some breaks, compared to what we do with a pay per view but that's the idea.
"So, my long-winded answer to your question is that I will keep putting big matches on Dynamite like this, and that's been the spirit of doing big stuff like the Santana Ortiz and Best Friends parking lot fight. I didn't put them on All Out because I was building to a huge match on Dynamite. Starks and Darby, I didn't put that match on All Out again. So it is building to something really big on Dynamite. I just want people to watch Dynamite. It's really important we have, again, the Big Four pay per views. Revolution's our next big pay per view and Revolution 2 is going to be stacked. We're all up to the challenge of trying to live up to the original Revolution. But, now is the time to do this match and it's going to be awesome on Dynamite because, frankly, I don't have a bigger platform to put something than Dynamite. It's the most important thing to us."
AEW Dynamite "Winter is Coming" airs Wednesday, December 2nd at 8 PM EST on TNT. The episode will be headlined by the AEW World Championship match between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit us with a h/t to Sportskeeda for the transcription.