I think a lot of things that people bitch about
all fall down to the one thing that Khan needs to work on: pivot on a dime.
FTR, Wardlow, Stokley, and the Firm were all scheduled to be the post All Out program along with Punk and MJF. Then MJF has his issues, Punk gets injured and the entire thing has to get pushed back. Punk returns, MJF returns and BrawlOut happens killing that plan dead. To TK's credit he didn't try and shoehorn BCC into the Pinnacle's spot .
Speaking of Brawl Out that cost him the Elite for bit and through his Trios Title plans further off, which were already delayed because of Kenny's injuries. That also screwed around with the PAC/OC AAC stuff.
Thunder Rosa being hurt hampered her reign as she couldn't go all out and screwed the end of it with Toni.
Sammy/Kingston delayed and prolonged that feud which only made the Kingston/JAS stuff drag more.
Sammy being a dick on social media cost TK a top babyface spot as fans turned on him. I don't think TK has quite recovered from that.
Sammy/Andrade cost him the LFI/DO stuff, only now changing that up. Also Andrade is now hurt and out.
This doesn't even get into stuff like Top Flight, Ruby, and Santana all getting hurt and throwing things off or Jeff Hardy's arrest throwing the tag title scene off all off the top of my head, who knows what I've forgotten.
Basically one of his biggest strengths is having a plan and seeing it through but it has exposed he doesn't pivot well.
To me THAT is the Tony Khan special: The inability to adapt. Granted a LOT of it was out of his hands with injuries, and people being off TV for extended periods of time that no one expected, but it happens so much that it's noticeable.
A couple other points I want to address after reading all the responses...
1. I don't like Tony Khan's booking for the most part, but it's not because I want it to be like WWE's booking. Which I've been extremely vocal against for damn near 2 decades. One does not equal the other.
"Oh you just want it to be like WWE" is such an odd take to me. Like, no, maybe we just want good booking, consistent booking.
If anything TK's issue is that he's become TOO MUCH like Vince McMahon in the last year. "My way is the only way" to "oooh look a new toy!" to buying into his own hype.
And I'm trying to be devil's advocate here, if I were him I'd probably have an ego too. But in fairness the things that everyone criticized HHH for when he took over with the "oh he has a low bar to clear by not being Vince McMahon" is the exact same thing TK coasted on for almost 3 years.
Not being Vince. He listened to the fans. Pushed people that fans liked. His 2 year booking plan was pretty solid.
Year 3 is when it started to crack, his Vince-isms started to form, and he seems lost and unable to pivot from "it's gotta be this way, pal!"
Hell you could even say his eerily skillful ability to take someone with a TON of momentum and cool them down in record time is also very Vince-like in how he would handle call ups from NXT.
Tony gets someone (especially women) from WWE and it's like he systematically goes out of his way to make them not matter.
Almost like it's the year 2000 and they used to work for WCW
There are exceptions like The Acclaimed, and Jamie Hayter, so he can still give the fans what they want.
But I think we saw a drastic shift in presence and attitude from Tony when Vince stepped down.
I personally think he knew it wasn't going to be easy anymore, because a HHH run WWE would "seem" to be more fan friendly.
Something he had a lock on for 3 years. He didn't have that market to himself anymore. He could rely on Vince to be a stubborn asshole, but now that wasn't guaranteed with HHH coming in with a lot of NXT cred.
2. "Haz push means must win title"...again makes no sense. That's using extremism to think it proves a point. To me it doesn't.
You can be consistently pushed, and made to be a big deal, and not have to win a belt. I think people like Garcia and Yuta don't need titles to be over.
But them feuding over one could only elevate their status.
Feuds over titles can be big deals. But historically TK is great at booking the chase, but dogshit at booking the champion.
And even without titles TK seems to drop the ball a lot. People were touting Yuta's performance as "Star making" and my response was "no, it's not".
Not because I didn't want it to be, I did, him and Garcia could be the mid-card feud that could carry to the main event if they wanted.
But because I knew that Tony wouldn't know what to do, and that momentum would fizzle, and Yuta would just just another body (another huge issue).
3. "People's complaints on booking is because there hasn't been a big US company for 20 years"
Like..I get what is trying to be said here, and it's true to an extent, but it feels like it wouldn't hold much water if you dig below the surface of the issues with Tony specifically.
In fact I think the statement "people have such blind tribalism to AEW because there hasn't been a big US company for 20 years" is a more appropriate statement.
4. To the OP's statement/title and the notion that people keep bringing up about "oh no booker has ever done this before in the history of ever..." isn't the real point.
The point is that TK is consistently dropping the ball on stuff. As said above a lot of it is out of his hands, but a lot of it is absolutely his fault as well.
It's not that he's the FIRST PERSON ever to do it, it's the rate of occurrence.
AEW has only been around for 3 years or so, and already TK has done booking mistake, after booking mistake, cooling down, after cooling down, inability to pivot after inability to pivot or adapt so much that it feels like he's on fast forward.
It's like how when I complained about TK being a shithead or embarrassment on Twitter/Social Medias and people said "oh because Vince has never said stupid stuff before", and it's like yes he has, but Tony feels like he's done 15 years worth of this stuff in the last 3.
Same with the booking issues. It feels like he's trying to make up for the last 20 years that there was no competition, but in all the wrong ways, and trying to do it in 1/5 of the time.
And again, devil's advocate, the ROH thing isn't easy. I get that. It's surely not helped the roster bloat.
Injuries, and things out of his control have hurt the product as well.
But it honestly feels like for 2 years TK had his vision, and barring the occasional setback, was able to see it through.
I think ever since then it's very apparent that Tony has been exposed, and his flaws are bubbling to the surface.
It feels like he's overwhelmed and doesn't know what to do so he plays it safe, and playing it safe just results in repetition or dragging things out too long that no one cares.
Because he doesn't know WHAT ELSE to do. Because he's severely limited, and it shows.
He needs a writing team/more creative input. He's taken steps to alleviate a lot of the responsibility on his shoulders (which was needed) but I think he needs to go further with it.
He needs people who are good at adapting, and being compelling without doing the same tropes over and over and over and over in the same ways with different people (or the same people if you count MJF currently
There are exceptions (Acclaimed/Hayter) but it kind of proves some of our points that yeah he got it right 2 times out of 10, but that doesn't change the fact he gets it wrong 80% of the time.
For me it has nothing to do with WWE booking, it has nothing to do with the last 20 years, or anything like that.
It has to do with the first 2 years being damn good because he had a plan, and the last year or so not being great because now that 2 years is up, and he's still trying to stick to whatever "firm" plans he can make in his head and adhering to those like his ideas are ride or die.
Some times he can luck into a current, and ride that for a bit, but in the last year it feels like for the most part he's in the deep end, and flailing wildly.
I was hoping the Scrum would be a huge wake up call to him, and give him some humility.
I want AEW to succeed, but I also can't pretend that TK seems really f***ing lost most of the time lately.
Hopefully that changes when ROH gets its own show, and he can have 2 distinct visions.
And it would also behoove him to step back his public presence, and hire a PR person.
He comes off as a thin skinned, coked up weirdo sometimes. (and yes I know HHH is thin skinned too, but dude isn't scanning a crowd of reporters at a scrum like he's Predator)
You can want something to be good, without comparison to anything other than what it COULD be.
AEW could be f***ing amazing. Sometimes it is. But most of the time lately it's not. And that is 100% on Tony Khan.
Sorry for the long winded post.