AEW President Tony Khan made an appearance on the AEW Unrestricted podcast to promote Saturday’s Full Gear pay-per-view event. Here are some of the highlights:
His friendship with Dan Lambert and Dana White:
“To be honest, outside of the shows, Dan and I are good friends and I really like Dan a lot. He’s one of the biggest wrestling fans I’ve ever met. I’m a big wrestling fan so that’s why we’ve become super close. Jacksonville was the home of AEW for a long time in the pandemic. Of course, Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Jake Hager, Santana, and Ortiz, The Inner Circle, were such a huge part of the pandemic era, the Daily’s Place shows, and all the great matches they had. Both of The Stadium Stampede matches and so many great matches in Daily’s Place in Jacksonville through the pandemic. I got to know the UFC fighters and people in the UFC a lot better through the pandemic. I became really good friends with Dana White because the UFC had built their bubble, and their bubble was right next to ours. Dana and I became good friends. I really like their company. I also became good friends through the pandemic with Dan Lambert. I think he’s got a great mind for wrestling. Even though he’s got a huge mouth and he gets so much heat out there, he also has a lot of respect for a lot of people in the locker room because he has such a great appreciation for the wrestling business. Like so many people that listen to Unrestricted, Dan is a student of the wrestling business. If you don’t know, he has one of the great collections of wrestling belts. Before I got to know him, before we became friends, I respected Dan because I’ve seen Dan on television. He used to manage Bobby Lashley in Impact. He was tremendous in that role, and I think he’s tremendous also at managing Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page. He’s been great. They’ve been on a roll, really since they got together as a team. They’ve done very well. They have a great record. I think they’ve reached new heights since they got together with Dan with the wins they have now over Jericho and The Inner Circle.”
Using Tay Conti and some of the WWE talent releases over the last year:
“Tay Conti is another great example of somebody who had been fired by WWE, and I thought was one of the top prospects in wrestling. I was really surprised. You see maybe a good number, and I don’t want to make light of the number, I don’t know the exact number, but on average, every several months, you see maybe 20 people get let go on a mass layoff. On average, 20 or 25 people. Everytime there’s a few great talents that are available. I think we’ve been selective about how we built our roster, but certainly we have a lot more star power on the roster.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
