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AEW President Tony Khan sat down last week with PWInsider.com to discuss a number of topics, including the forthcoming TBS Championship tournament. In advance of the brackets being announced this Friday on Rampage, Khan commented on the tournament and the promotion's women's roster:
"I do want to mostly focus on our own roster because the AEW women's roster has gotten so much better. Much as we had a lot of improvement in the first year of AEW and that's when I launched the TNT title, because I thought our roster on the men's side had gotten so much better we could sustain a second title and really it would flourish and it would help. I think that's where we're at now. We built in year two the women's roster up so much that it's time, and it's going to enhance the division and really, I expect everyone to flourish and we built some great stars in that time.
Some came through free agency, Ruby Soho from the competition and Thunder Rosa, a top star from the independents we signed and then some other young wrestlers we signed it that time. Red Velvet is somebody who worked her way up from AEW Dark and has made an important reputation for herself. Anna Jay is somebody who came in through the pandemic and earned this spot.
Tay Conti, again, somebody that had worked on the other side before, and I've always really admired and thought would be a great wrestling personality, but she's also become a great wrestler. The first time I saw Tay Conti five years ago she was a manager and she's become such a tremendous wrestler. And with her credentials there, with her fighting background and her athleticism, she really, I think, always had that potential and then she's broken through and had some great matches lately.
So we've had a lot of success in the women's division. And recently also we've had Jade Cargill come in and be a dominant, dominant star and also perform really well at the box office. She's been a TV draw, she's drawn massive search traffic, and there's a lot of metrics that say Jade's got a future star written all over hers.
We have some former women's World champions, Hikaru Shida and Nyla Rose are in the mix for that title, but also in the mix potentially for the TBS title. Of course, when I say Shida, she was going for a 50th win, what a classic match she had with Serena Deeb and I think it shows the strengths of our division. [If] you look across women's wrestling, there's so much great women's wrestling in the world right now, but I don't know if anybody in recent weeks has put on a match that could touch that what Serena and Shida had on Dynamite when Shida was going for her 50th win and Serena broke the streak. It was a classic match. And on a night where the wrestling was excellent, I think a lot of people felt like they were great matches on Dynamite this past week, and that was one of the really great matches, I think."
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