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Tony Khan was a topic on the show I did today with TJ Parsons. We talked about statements that he made to The Ringer in advance of Full Gear. Khan talked in-depth about his fandom as a kid and how it led him to the creation of AEW. He also mentioned that he has been booking Dynamite since 1995 and Rampage since 2011. That is not a typo.
As I said on the show, I didn't believe that Khan really said this stuff when an Elite first told me about it. He sent the link to the article. I won't comment here as to what I think about what he said. We did that on the show. But I will say this, it sure does explain a lot about Khan and AEW to me.
Here’s what Khan said about his booking career. I swear, I am not making this up. A few Elites asked me to post the comments and the link to the article so here you go.
In 1995, I started doing an e-wrestling show called Saturday Night Dynamite, and then it moved around over the next many years. At one point in time it was on Monday night, but at one point it was also Wednesday Night Dynamite. Then I used that name Dynamite for many years, and it had always been a steady thing. I relaunched the promotion with a new territory, new wrestlers, and new stories every several years. I wanted to try something different. The one thing that was always the same was that the weekly show was always called Dynamite.
It was probably around 2011 when I wanted to do more great wrestling matches every week, so in my fantasy wrestling league I created a second show. Incredibly, that was Rampage. I actually had a third show that never came to fruition, but it was kind of fun, and it was called Tuesday Night Tag Team Fights. I had these different shows, but Dynamite and Rampage were always the primary shows. I have done Dynamite since 1995 and Rampage since 2011.
In e-wrestling, you get ideas and try stuff out. I was a really young kid; I’m not saying it was impactful, or that you can jump straight from that into the wrestling business, but it was definitely a fun way to get your reps in.
There was a guy who passed away years later who was in the fantasy wrestling league I was in with my regular e-wrestling friend, and I remember him saying this so well. He said that we were writing for an audience of just each other, but in a way we were writing for 10,000 fans or 5,000 fans that were in the arenas of these imaginary shows. Somehow you can still tell when stuff is over or not over with the fans, which is funny because they’re not real! But he was right! My other friend and I had never articulated it like that before, but he was right. That spoke to me.”
Again, I am not making this up. I wish I was. There's more from Khan and you can read it at this link: The Ringer
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