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Mike Johnson: So we've got a lot of different presentations from the company in the next couple of weeks. This Sunday is the first AEW special on bleacherreport.com, which is different from Bleacher Report Live. Thunder Rosa vs Riho, maybe there's some other content on there as well. I wrote about what an interesting opportunity this is in a world where everyone's looking for fresh streaming content and how this a good opportunity for AEW to work with Warner Media, who is your broadcast partner. Talk about putting the women first and forward on an opportunity like this and how you see the Bleacher Report special as part of the overall jigsaw puzzle of AEW and Warner Media's partnership.
Tony Khan: Great question. I am very excited for the special on Sunday. I worked really hard to get Bleacher Report on board. I felt like before we even knew we were doing a women's tournament for sure, I knew I wanted to get a special on Bleacher Report on Sunday. We didn't have a history of running shows on Sunday, so I felt that if we put on a great show and got the fans in the habit of watching AEW on Sunday a week before Revolution, we could establish it and create some new behavior, because I love doing the pay per views on Saturday, and we do these quarterly - Revolution, Double or Nothing, All Out and Full Gear. Now for Double or Nothing and All Out, they come on holiday weekends, Memorial Day and Labor Day so everyone here in America, most people get Monday off, and in England, the same holiday those weekends also. It's a good weekend to do a pay per view, so the Saturday/Sunday thing is not as important there, it's not like people are rushing into work. So we've done them on Saturdays, Double or Nothing and All Out - there I don't think it's that big of a difference, so I'm open to doing them there. This time, it was the right night, I've enjoyed doing them on Saturdays and we can look to do...certainly, Full Gear I would like to do on Saturday because I have no intention of ever competing with the NFL, so Saturday in November makes more sense for Full Gear.
Now first and foremost, the content of the show, the women's tournament. It was really important to showcase these matches and given the amount of time that we had when we started the tournament, I knew we could put some content online and stream it. But I think we put lots of great stuff online and I've been focusing on that recently, trying to build up our streaming audience, and it's been working. If you look at the recent numbers for Dark, it's way up and I've been putting top stars on Dark and that's been the philosophy to build our streaming audience that way. So you've seen PAC and Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy on Dark on the recent and upcoming weeks and that's helped build the audience for that show and get those people out there and get their faces out. In the example of those 3 guys in particular, they have a huge audience for them and people wonder why I would ever have those guys wrestle anywhere but Dynamite. Well, I have Jon Moxley who's one of the biggest stars for us and one of the biggest stars in wrestling, was Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Wrestler of the Year last year, Wrestling Observer Wrestler of the Year, wrestle on Dark because those numbers are really important to us in order to build an audience.
In this case, doing a women's eliminator tournament special on Bleacher Report, I thought was a great idea and a great chance for us to build audience and also introduce some of our top wrestlers to a new audience and give them a show that's going to make them come back and watch more AEW, and like I said, get our hardcore audience in the habit of watching AEW on a Sunday. Riho vs Thunder Rosa is a perfect match for that I think, and then also on the Japan side of the bracket, Yuka Sakazaki vs. Ryo Mizunami is going to be a tremendous final. We've seen them competing on television here and I think whoever wins that match will come over here and it's going to be a great final between them and the winner of the American side of the bracket. We've got Britt Baker vs Nyla on Dynamite tomorrow night and we've got Riho vs Thunder Rosa on Sunday and the winners of those matches are going to wrestle on Monday and I really like that Monday time slot that we've carved out for the tournament, I think it's great and looking to do more programming there with our YouTube channel.
So in putting the streaming special together, I thought it was very important, with Bleacher Report being one of the biggest streaming platforms in the world, and a huge part of the Warner Media portfolio, and as you've said, knowing what's been happening with streaming rights and seeing that AEW is definitely valuable content, this is a great chance for us to partner with a huge streaming platform and put a big show out there. It's going to be a great special on Sunday, like you said we've been super busy.
Tomorrow, we're coming bell to bell with one of the strongest Dynamites I think you'll see - Rey Fenix vs Lance Archer, Britt Baker vs Nyla Rose, Hangman Page vs Kassidy, Pillman and Garrison vs Cage and Starks, Jon Moxley vs Nemeth and Hager vs Cutler also. I really am excited for the card. Then after that we're going Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday again next week. As the company grows it's providing more content on different platforms, it's what we've always wanted.
Mike Johnson: You've been doing the paid ad appearances on Impact Wrestling. It feels like you really enjoy doing these spots with Tony Schiavone. How do you delineate from the Tony Khan you don't want to be on AEW and the Tony Khan that appears on Impact? Is there a pull to bring that Tony Khan to AEW programming? For fans who look at this and say, "This isn't what he said in the beginning," explain the difference and whether you think one will ever bleed to the other.
Tony Khan: At no point did I ever say I would not be on TV or I would not do a character. I just said on Dynamite I was not going to do that, and I have not done that. I am a device on AEW, as the matchmaker, the booker, whatever you want to call it. You need somebody in that position and I am in that position. You don't need to see that person a lot, you don't need to see the general manager or the booker making the matches. I've never wanted to be on screen, I think it's very detrimental at times to the show, so I've never done that on Dynamite. Now on another show, I think it does serve a purpose and in furthering the story between AEW and Impact it definitely serves a purpose, and like you said I enjoy doing them with Tony. It's fun and I enjoy any time I get to spend with Tony, I'm really close with Tony. I really enjoy his work and it's been such a pleasure working with him. We have fun doing the ads. The one that you're going to see me do tonight is going to be a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to it, it'll be different from anything I've done with Tony in these things.
I'm going to have a lot of surprises this week to be honest with you, Mike. It's a busy time but for me, I enjoy doing these and I also like the working relationship. I think Impact is good people, it's run by good people, they have some good talent and it's been mutually beneficial. It's been nice having the Good Brothers in, they've been helpful to us and vice versa, whether it was Kenny Omega or Matt Hardy and Private Party, I think it's been good for Impact too having some of our stars on their shows, When I grew up there were working relationships in wrestling that were similar to this.
The paid ads that I'm doing are a little different than the stuff I grew up watching but it's no secret that almost 30 years ago that Vince was doing a character in Memphis that was not completely dissimilar from what he ended up doing years later and it served a real purpose in the story with what they were doing in Memphis, and it served a purpose later, it was some of the most compelling television of all-time, but he found that in what he was doing in Memphis, he struck gold. I'm not trying to do that [laughs], it's just something we do kind of for fun and to further the story.
Interview continues on Page 3!
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