To promote this weekend’s ALL OUT pay-per-view in Chicago AEW President Tony Khan spoke with the media about a wide range of topics, including why he didn’t give Thunder Rosa the same amount of time as CM Punk when announcing her injury and interim champion replacement, and why he is no longer optimistic about collaboration with WWE following Vince McMahon’s retirement. Highlights can be found below.
-Khan addressed the backlash he received for only giving Thunder Rosa a short segment to announce her injury and interim championship replacement when he gave CM Punk 8-minutes back at the beginning of the summer. He says that the main reason was due to him finding out about Rosa’s injury hours before Dynamite aired, whereas with Punk he had a few days to plan.
-Regarding the women’s division Khan says that the four-way interim women’s match is drawing more attention and interest than the originally planned bout between Rosa and Toni Storm.
-Khan was asked about collaborating with WWE now that Triple H is in charge and Vince McMahon has retired. He says that he was optimistic at one point, but isn’t much anymore considering “how they have treated him.” There were no additional comments on that question so it is not certain what he meant by that.
-When talking about the recent talent meeting Khan stated that one of the major points was WWE tampering with contracted AEW talents, a claim that was reported everywhere over the last few weeks. It was never mentioned exactly which talents were contacted, nor did Khan reveal any names on the call.