People have asked if I’m crazy for doing pay-per-views on back-to-back weekends. Both shows, as live events, are wildly profitable to begin with. That is really valuable live-event real estate in Wembley Stadium and that Labor Day weekend at United Center that we have for All Out. It’s a three-day weekend in England for All In, and then it’s a three-day weekend in America for All Out. That perfect date also happened to be one week before the perfect date to do a pay-per-view in Chicago. It was the right date and the perfect location for AEW All In this Sunday at Wembley Stadium. Wembley had the date available, it’s a bank holiday weekend, and it’s been the perfect storm of business success. The opportunity to do AEW All In at Wembley Stadium presented itself. It’s a fascinating setup that we have coming for fans with All In and All Out. Why did you decide to do two big back-to-back pay-per-views? You have had a lot of storylines, feuds, and other balls to juggle on AEW TV shows as of late given that you have All In coming up in London this Sunday, followed a week later by All Out in Chicago. When AEW launched in 2019, our first episode introduced MJF to millions of people around the world, and now he is one of the top names in pro wrestling. It’s been amazing to see how far the AEW world champion MJF has come from when we started. It is a connected, passionate, massive worldwide fan base that really can make the rise of a star meteoric. Having this great roster of wrestlers has meant we have had so many great matches and so many great stories for fans. Britt Baker DMD, Hikaru Shida, The Acclaimed, and many others who became big wrestling names in AEW and, after working in smaller promotions, now are known as top worldwide wrestling stars. These are names like MJF, Orange Cassidy, Dr. Then there are people who had come from independent wrestling and had built their names there but didn’t have national or international star power recognition when we launched AEW.

One of the things I wanted to do when AEW launched was help bring Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Hangman Page, and many others into the domestic spotlight and in turn make them international wrestling stars.

There are also people we’ve signed in more recent years, like Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Claudio Castagnoli, and many other top names.Īnd then we had a number of wrestling stars who established themselves as great names with a big reputation overseas, say in Japan, but hadn’t grown that fan base here yet. In many cases, stars here in AEW have built a massive reputation around the world as top wrestlers and arrived as household names, such as Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley. There are a few different ways that stars come into a wrestling promotion. Pro wrestling is a very star-driven business, and wrestling fans love to see the big stars involved in big matches and big stories. How much do stars or other factors still drive the pro wrestling business and how key has it been for AEW to bring in established stars and make its own stars? In Part 2, below, Khan addresses the importance of star power, AEW’s financial outlook, his thoughts on a possible IPO, how he became a wrestling fan, and how his father’s view on AEW as a business has changed.Įven people who don’t follow wrestling have often heard of some of its biggest stars, such as Hulk Hogan, The Rock or Chris Jericho. Steve McQueen Fuses Wartime Amsterdam and Modern-Day Extremism in 'Occupied City' Trailer In Part 1 of an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Khan discussed the state of the pro wrestling business, dealing with backstage conflicts and positioning the company as a “challenger brand.”

All Elite Wrestling (AEW), a privately held rival of sports entertainment powerhouse WWE, is putting on its first international pay-per-view event on Sunday, All In at London’s Wembley Stadium, the biggest wrestling in Europe based on ticket sales and ticket revenue.ĬEO and head of creative Tony Khan founded AEW in 2019 and has expanded its weekly TV schedule to currently three shows on Warner Bros.

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