AEW President Tony Khan was the latest guest on Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast to discuss a variety of subjects, including how Khan put together the Brodie Lee tribute show shortly after Lee’s tragic passing. Highlights are below.
Says people knew for a long time that Lee was sick:
People knew for along time Jon was sick, we told every wrestler. Amanda went out an told people that Jon is not doing well and he needs your prayers and your thoughts but also he needs you not to tell anybody. And a lot of us were worried when she told the entire crew at once. But everybody kept it secret and supported them. And we did everything we could, and then when it came time all the wrestlers wanted to do something really nice for him. And I knew the tributes were going to be genuine and from the heart.
Changing the order of Dynamite to feature the Dark Order:
I had a missed call from Dave Meltzer. And I called Dave back. And he asked me what we were going to do, and I told him ‘I actually don’t know’. And this was like, at this point 2/3 in the morning. And I put the pencil to paper after I got off the phone with Dave and that’s when I came up with the idea that The Dark Order [will be] represented in all the matches. Teaming with babyfaces in every match. To make it clear that we’re painting them in a brighter light, in a heroic light. And the story of the night would be, can The Dark Order get the clean sweep? Can they sweep all these matches?
On putting together the tribute video:
We knew that the tributes would be from the heart. And I knew that there would be great videos. And I had gotten the rights to the song in advance, hoping that Brodie was going to kick out, but knowing that the doctor said it was not a high percent chance. And I wanted to make sure that we weren’t behind the 8 Ball as far as getting him the greatest tribute video possible.
Full interview can be found here. (H/T and transcribed by Inside the Ropes
)