Talk is Jericho 2/13 - Tony Khan

[salz4life]

Has anyone listened to this yet? Tony Khan comes off as a real fan and sounds like a likeable guy. It makes me want AEW to succeed even more.

[Zone Was Wrong]

The dude has been into wrestling forever. Really cool stuff, hopefully he can draw a line between marking out for the business and being a business man. Sounds promising though

[Deleted]

Haven't listened yet, but thanks for the heads up. It'll be the next podcast I listen to.

[Pushed to the Moon]

I just listened. He seems like he really loves wrestling. Also didn't seem delusional and talk about running WWE out of business or whatever. Just seems like a real passion project for him.

[Deleted]

Hopefully this is better than his Observer interview where its an hour of him saying “we’re gonna be awesome but I can’t give you any info now listen to me name every wrestling promotion I’ve ever heard of”.

[Macho Pichu]

Feb 13, 2019 12:16:14 GMT -5 Zone Was Wrong said:

The dude has been into wrestling forever. Really cool stuff, hopefully he can draw a line between marking out for the business and being a business man. Sounds promising though

The experience he has running football (both kinds) teams should come in handy when it comes down to the business side. The skills necessary are there, all he has to do is utilize them appropriately.

[kingoftheindies]

just listened. Pretty cool interview. They talked a lot about Tony's background in analytics as well as how his first live show was Chris Jericho's last 2 ECW shows (also worth it to hear how Tony's dad reacted to being at an ECW show)

[toodarkmark]

One of the best interviews I can remember. I came away super impressed by him and his vision. He also mentioned Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Bobby Eaton, Mid South and his admiration of a Chris Jericho - 2 Cold Scorpio match.

Hes not a money mark who just wants to have fun. He is a fan who loves wrestling. Imagine a wealthy owner who tape traded SMW and Japan tapes. Who actually cares about wrestling fans. Hard to believe.

[Fade]

Feb 13, 2019 22:54:01 GMT -5 toodarkmark said:

One of the best interviews I can remember. I came away super impressed by him and his vision. He also mentioned Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Bobby Eaton, Mid South and his admiration of a Chris Jericho - 2 Cold Scorpio match.

Hes not a money mark who just wants to have fun. He is a fan who loves wrestling. Imagine a wealthy owner who tape traded SMW and Japan tapes. Who actually cares about wrestling fans. Hard to believe.

He is the anti-Vince.

[Deleted]

Haven't listened yet, but I heard his interview on Meltzer's podcast and you can turn how often he says "workrate" into a drinking game. He really is an example of "what if a smart mark on the internet had a billion dollars to start a wrestling promotion."

[Glitch]

I listened to it, and Khan seems to really know the business side of things. This doesn't sound like a guy who's gonna throw money at something and expect it to be successful. No, he has every detail carefully planned out. He knows exactly what he's doing. It's almost scary.

Plus he truly understands wrestling. He doesn't just like the sport, he knows why certain things work and fail in the squared circle.

This is absolutely the guy you want backing a wrestling company. I think AEW is in good hands.

[Deleted]

This interview was way better than the observer one where it was just dave sucking up to Tony and Tony saying have can’t give any details.

There are some red flags in this to me I definitely get vibes of him being Dixie Carter if she was a man & a smart mark and having a rich daddy doesn’t make you a good candidate to run a wrestling promotion even if your a big fan.

The fact that he admits its his dad thats funding the promotion and not him worries me as its easy to spend someone elses money and not your own the history of pro wrestling is littered with that and it pretty much always ends poorly.

The fact that he gives out Executive Vice President titles like Oprah gives out cars.

The fact that he has so many other things going on its like its another shiny toy that his daddy bought him to go along with all his other shiny toys.Starting a pro wrestling company looking for a big tv deal from scratch is a major undertaking and it requires 100% of ones focus it can’t be a side job.

The fact that its a bunch of people doing it that have zero experience is very concerning it easy to say the right things at the beginning but actually executing is another thing.

I hope they do well but there’s alot to be concerned about.

[Steveweiser]

I can vouch for him loving wrestling - he was at the RevPro show on Friday. Yes, PAC and MJF were on the show, but someone in his position doesn't often just go to shows and mix with fans as he did.

[Feargus McReddit]

Feb 17, 2019 7:56:25 GMT -5 Steveweiser said:

I can vouch for him loving wrestling - he was at the RevPro show on Friday. Yes, PAC and MJF were on the show, but someone in his position doesn't often just go to shows and mix with fans as he did.

That makes me super curious to see if he’ll be at OTT tonight...

[Guacamole Anderson]

"If you can't spot the mark in the room, it's you."

Enjoy the carnival, Tony.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Feb 14, 2019 4:14:37 GMT -5 Fade said:

Feb 13, 2019 22:54:01 GMT -5 toodarkmark said:

One of the best interviews I can remember. I came away super impressed by him and his vision. He also mentioned Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Bobby Eaton, Mid South and his admiration of a Chris Jericho - 2 Cold Scorpio match.

Hes not a money mark who just wants to have fun. He is a fan who loves wrestling. Imagine a wealthy owner who tape traded SMW and Japan tapes. Who actually cares about wrestling fans. Hard to believe.

He is the anti-Vince.

If Vince is Mr. Burns, this guy is Arthur Fortune.

[corndog]

Feb 16, 2019 23:06:09 GMT -5 @mrbonezone said:

This interview was way better than the observer one where it was just dave sucking up to Tony and Tony saying have can’t give any details.

There are some red flags in this to me I definitely get vibes of him being Dixie Carter if she was a man & a smart mark and having a rich daddy doesn’t make you a good candidate to run a wrestling promotion even if your a big fan.

The fact that he admits its his dad thats funding the promotion and not him worries me as its easy to spend someone elses money and not your own the history of pro wrestling is littered with that and it pretty much always ends poorly.

The fact that he gives out Executive Vice President titles like Oprah gives out cars.

The fact that he has so many other things going on its like its another shiny toy that his daddy bought him to go along with all his other shiny toys.Starting a pro wrestling company looking for a big tv deal from scratch is a major undertaking and it requires 100% of ones focus it can’t be a side job.

The fact that its a bunch of people doing it that have zero experience is very concerning it easy to say the right things at the beginning but actually executing is another thing.

I hope they do well but there’s alot to be concerned about.

I enjoyed listening to the beginning, because he is the same age as me and we had similar experiences. When he starts naming off getting wrestling videos from Phar Mor, Family Video and Blockbuster it took me back. Also being on the early dial up internet wrestling boards, were something I remember as well. Granted, while I watched and loved original ECW, I was not as hardcore of a fan as him, since I did not get into tape trading at that point. Although, I did get ECW TV tapes, since watching it on dial up internet was awful with constant buffering and Sportschannel Chicago stopped airing the show in late '97.

While I want Tony to succeed, you make some damn good points.

I don't think I would quite compare him to Dixie, as he is clearly much more intelligent not only in wrestling, but life and business in general. Dixie on the other hand was not even trusted to have an important position in her families business. Also, the fact that she had a marketing degree, yet didn't even correctly market TNA/Impact, despite having top stars, shows how truly incompetent she was, amongst many other things.

However, I think being a mark/smark, whatever you want to call it, can be a harmful thing as a wrestling promoter. On one side, he does know what fans want to see, but on the other, the wrestlers themselves will most likely try to work him. We have seen wealthy and successful people be taken down by this in wrestling many times before.

For me, the red flag is putting Cody and Kenny Omega in such levels of power. Personally, I think the Bucks will be the biggest asset, as they have proven in the past they can utilize social media and garner interest in themselves while helping those around them. Also, while the Bucks know how to get over, they also don't have a problem with letting other wrestlers shine and help them get over. Basically, of the four "executive vice presidents", I feel like ego will be less of an issue for them than the others.

Cody has great ideas, but he seems a lot like his father in a bad way. Cody surrounds himself with more popular wrestlers and clings to them for his own gain, while proving time and time again that he is mark for himself by trying to win every meaningless wrestling title he can. It's very obvious Cody has an ego and I think it could an issue, where he tries to force himself as the "face" of the company or at the very least, put himself in top positions despite better talent.


Kenny is another ego that really worries me, especially in a position of power. Unlike Cody, I do believe he is one of the best wrestlers in the world and truly has the talent to be "the guy". However, his championship run showed some worrisome qualities. Kenny will want to do things on his terms and that isn't always what is best for business, for lack of a better term. You could say that New Japan's booking of him as champion was to show that Kenny's "Change the World" mentality wasn't to change the world/wrestling in a better way, but to change it for Kenny in a way that served him the best. But do you think New Japan would purposely not book one of their top stars on tours and it was completely their idea to do the Cody and Ibushi three way title match? At the end of the day, New Japan made it work as the gaijins that didn't care about New Japan with Tanahashi once again saving the company. Although it truly seemed to upset Kenny that they made it that narrative. With the massive deal from WWE, while New Japan most likely offered over a million dollars per year(his last deal was at least $1 million per year)as his "bad deal", I'm sure his ego has only gotten larger.

So the real question is can Tony stop being a fan and be a boss when he needs to? Time will tell.