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Tony Khan took part in a media call earlier today to promote AEW All In: Wembley 2026. Some highlights:
Running a massive venue: "Well, this is the only venue of its size that we've ever run, and this is the third time we've attempted to run it. They happen to be the three biggest successes in AEW history. They're by far the three largest gates in the history of AEW, and they'll be by far the three largest attendances for AEW All In: London 2023, 2024, and 2026. I think it speaks to the strength of the English wrestling community and these incredible supporters of wrestling here around England. They're amazing fans, and the penetration of the AEW television is incredibly strong here. We have an amazing TV partner with ITV, and the viewership is very strong for AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision on ITV and ITV4. They give us great promotion, and it's a tremendous platform. They've been our partner since the very beginning, and that was always my dream for AEW is to work with ITV and have this incredible promotional partner to collaborate with us here in England, as well as having the very best partner in America. The history of wrestling on these channels—TBS based in America and ITV based in England—are both unparalleled within their respective nations. Being able to visit the iconic national stadium, Wembley Stadium, and hold our wrestling events there is very special. London's such a vast and remarkable city, and I think it speaks to the great support that AEW has here in the UK and around London. The top three shows in AEW's history have all come from Wembley Stadium. Also, we set the record at The O2. So, certainly four out of the top five or six gates in AEW's history have all been in London, and by far our top three shows in attendance and in gate will all be in London. We're approaching already a $6 million gate, and then some, for this show. So, it's one of the biggest success stories in professional wrestling history, and it's going to be an amazing event this Sunday."
Potentially doing longer UK tours: "I love the UK fans, and certainly we've held so many of our biggest events ever in the UK. We've had great experiences in England. We've had great pay-per-views in London, and we've brought AEW TV over to the UK—we've run events in Cardiff, Wales, and in Manchester. I definitely think that there are opportunities for AEW to visit more cities in the UK, and that's something we're all really excited about. There's so much support for AEW here in the United Kingdom, and we're very fortunate to have so many great British wrestling fans. We're looking forward to seeing so many of them in person at Wembley Stadium, as well as the fans who travel from all over Europe and all over the world to come to London this Sunday for AEW. I do think that there are a lot more opportunities—it's a great question—for events in England. For the TV, I do enjoy doing live television, and with our slot being in prime time, it's always a great thing to be able to come here and have shows, but also to be able to go back and get in that live groove also. So, I like the opportunities to come here and do TV, and also, you know, be in the Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones to do live shows as well. I love bringing our very best to England because the fans in the UK will always turn out. They've supported us time after time, and the success of AEW All In: London and how well these tickets are moving speaks to how ambitious a project this is, yet how successful of a wrestling project AEW has undertaken in the UK and the results we've had, particularly here in London. "
The AEW Trios bout this weekend: "So, the business outlook for this show is tremendous, and the card is tremendous. We've announced a great card thus far. It's going to be a show that will run at most on pay-per-view for about four hours. I have the show paced out right now—of course, things can always happen, it's live television—but the way it's paced right now, I think fans are really going to like. I expect the show will, of course, go live on pay-per-view at 1:00 PM Eastern / 10:00 AM Pacific. I expect the show to be over by 5:00 PM Eastern / 2:00 PM Pacific. It's going to be one of the best AEW events ever. I'm very excited about that, and there are so many matches I'm looking forward to. We've announced eight matches across that main card. Looking to fill up the show, I think there's huge opportunities. Also, I'm somebody that always really loves giving the fans the opportunity to see things for free. I can't promise that we'll always be able to do it, and who knows how this will start or end, but I will get into it with some of the talk about the Trios. So, it's a very interesting time in professional wrestling right now. The landscape on the media side, the outlook is very, very positive, I think, for the top wrestling promotions right now. There's a lot of excitement around AEW, and we're having a tremendous business year in 2026. Because of the financial strength of the family that owns AEW, and because of the success that AEW's experienced, we've been able to really grow the promotion, make big investments, and get AEW to this big place in a relatively short time. It's funny because when I started putting this show together, and I've got these eight matches, and I've really had this eight-match card in my head for a long time, I think that there is a lot of excitement around the card. It's been pretty well established—the eight matches that we've announced thus far on the show. One thing that I think is really exciting in AEW is all of the trios clamoring for the World Trios Championship. There is a great trio that holds the championship, a very popular trio calling themselves The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and they're three tremendous fan favorites in AEW: Hangman Page, Brody King, and Bandido—Hangman Page and Brodito—the World Trios Champions. Now, there are a lot of trios clamoring for those titles, and a lot of trios that are former champions and have so many great wrestlers that have held that championship and have a claim that they deserve a shot at the title. Knowing that AEW is where the best wrestle, and we've talked a lot about this card—at the very beginning of AEW, we had a huge match that we gave fans for free, and Hangman was within that match as well: it was the original Casino Battle Royale. It came down to Hangman and MJF, and we had some of our top stars in that match. We gave it away for free, and it was the very first match in AEW history, really, because it started out the original Buy-In on the original Double or Nothing. Crazy to think that was over seven years ago, in May of 2019. So much has changed in wrestling since then. As I plan this show, the landscape has changed even more. There's great wrestlers out there, there's free agents, there's all these things happening. But certainly for me, with the focus on AEW, I look at the trios scene, and I see great Trios Champions, but I also see a lineup of challengers out the door of just great wrestlers. You can bring them in three at a time, and I just feel so strong about each of these trios. Knowing that, I look back at one of my all-time favorite episodes of AEW that people don't talk about very much, in a show that you don't see very much. Christmas a few years back, we had the AEW $300,000 Three Kings Christmas Casino Trios Royale, with 21 men competing across seven trios, entering in a Battle Royale setting. Now, with all these great trios, and knowing that people are going to be watching AEW all over the world, and the Buy-In is free to watch and it's a great way to get people to buy into the show, we've had a lot of interest from a lot of top trios—including trios that have held the championship, some of which never got a rematch after they lost the championship, or in some cases, never lost the championship in the ring. I think that it's a very exciting opportunity. I am going to brand it on the Buy-In that we will have at AEW All In 2026, as part of this show, going into the pay-per-view broadcast—and I want to say really that I really do take a lot of pride in those shows as well, and they're very important to show our fans the great wrestling. You have a great opportunity to make new fans and hook people into your product, and we've seen so many great moments on the Buy-In over the years. To have so many great stars clamoring to compete, I think it's a great opportunity to introduce: Trios Roulette Royale. It's a very different match from a Casino Gauntlet. With one sudden-death pin, you'll have trios entering until only one trio or the members of one trio remain, across seven trios. Now, we have the World Champions, and we have five former World Trios Champions. It's an interesting scene, and we'll talk more about this going into AEW Collision. But when you have Hangman and Brodito, The Bang Bang Gang of Jay White and The Guns (who again never lost the Trios Championship in the ring), former World Trios Champions The Dogs (Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, and David Finlay), former World Trios Champions The Demand (Ricochet and The Gates of Agony), former World Trios Champions The Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and PAC), former World Trios Champions The Conglomeration (Kyle O'Reilly, Roderick Strong, and Orange Cassidy)... Now, it wasn't until last night during Dynamite that Kyle O'Reilly and Claudio Castagnoli became available for such a match, but they are part of great trios teams that have been the World Champions. With six trios that currently hold or have held the AEW World Trios Championship, I think that's a tremendous lineup. I'm always out there scouting, talking in the world of wrestling, and these are developing situations. But I think I could field a pretty interesting wildcard team in the seventh spot. So that's what we're going to do. Coming out of last night's show, I've been working on this—and I still am working on this—to bring in a great wildcard team. I think I'll be able to get it done. You have the guarantee that we'll be starting this thing out for free on the Buy-In, and who knows how long it could go—it could be real chaotic! But I think everybody will be excited to tune in, and it should hook in viewers, knowing that you'll have six tremendous trios: 18 great wrestlers that I have so much respect for, fighting for those three championship belts to be the top trio in AEW. So I'll reiterate: you have the World Trios Champions, Hangman Page and Brodito; Jay White and The Guns, The Bang Bang Gang; The Dogs; The Demand; The Death Riders; The Conglomeration; and The Jokers—a wildcard trio that I will introduce at AEW All In: London. I had focused on the eight matches at hand last night, and also when I saw Kyle pretty beat up, I had an idea, but I wanted to make sure he'd be okay to do it, and wanted to do some work on that wildcard trio. But I think it's going to be a great show, and I'm really looking forward to that. I'm officially announcing that here as part of this media call: that we'll have Trios Roulette Royale at AEW All In: London."
Balancing such a big roster: "Well, the hardest thing is always when people get injured and can't travel or aren't able to wrestle for extended periods, and that's a big part of wrestling. But I think that we have the best roster in wrestling, and certainly have been featuring tremendous wrestlers week-in and week-out on Dynamite and Collision. I think the quality of the Dynamite and Collision shows has been very high in 2026. Absolutely, we have a very deep roster, and I think it showcases that there's demand to see AEW wrestlers and that there's a lot of AEW wrestlers that fans still want to see more of on television—that's a great thing. As the media landscape changes for AEW and for Ring of Honor, I think there's going to be more and more opportunities to grow our platforms. We have got great TV with Dynamite and Collision, but I think there are exciting opportunities out there to enhance what we do and to complement the things that we do already, and give our wrestlers more opportunities because we have so many great wrestlers, and also the bandwidth to put on even more excellent wrestling shows, as you've seen. Thanks for asking."
Willow Nightingale: " Willow's hand is injured, and it was a late change. Of course, sometimes when you're going into wrestling tapings and shows, you have ideas and an outline, and when you come in and you have something happen like that with Willow's hand being broken on the day you're filming Dynamite and Collision both shows, that's a major change. The team did a great job in the situations yesterday. I had plans for Willow yesterday that I had to change based on the injury, and it is the case that Willow is injured and will be wrestling with the injury. So, expect to see Willow Nightingale at AEW All In, yes. She's had this hand injury, but she really wants to wrestle Mercedes. She really wants to wrestle at AEW All In and defend that World Championship. I know Willow Nightingale's a fighter. She's proven holding multiple championships in AEW that she's a fighting champion, and I'm really looking forward to Willow versus Mercedes. They've hooked me in and hooked so many of the fans in through their rivalry. Both of them have so much passion for wrestling, and I think they're tremendous foils for each other. As much as I enjoy the rivalry, I enjoy them both very much as individuals, and I think that Willow versus Mercedes is going to be a great match. We did have to change some plans on the day of the show, within hours of the event based on Willow's injury, and that's part of wrestling. I do think that AEW under the circumstances has done very well, and we have a lot of experience with pivoting things. Going back many, many years—the pandemic, of course—every wrestling promoter's had to change things due to injuries, especially anybody who's ever promoted weekly TV shows where you're putting on matches every week. Then especially when it's at the level of AEW, which is to me unprecedented, where the wrestlers wrestle so hard against each other every single week. I am very much looking forward to Willow versus Mercedes, and I give Willow a lot of credit for coming to this pay-per-view and wrestling injured. It was something that took us by surprise yesterday, honestly."
Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay: "Well, it's certainly been penciled in since Kenny Omega defeated MJF at AEW Beach Break for the World Championship. I think it's amazing what Kenny Omega's been able to do this year, and I'll pull back the curtain for a bit and say that, first of all, I think Kenny Omega is so largely responsible for the creation and launch of AEW. He was somebody that I had in mind and really wanted to be a main focus of AEW from the very beginning of the promotion. Kenny Omega's such an incredible wrestler and an amazing person. I think that Kenny Omega is having some of his very best matches this year. I think that he is wrestling at such a high level, and I think he's been so intelligent and so thoughtful in how he's executed this year. Last year, Kenny Omega undertook a very ambitious comeback, and he returned at the Tokyo Dome, came back to America, and we inserted Kenny full blast. He won the AEW International Championship, and he was going so hard and he was doing so well for us. I think that myself and all of us put a lot on Kenny, and last year maybe at first it was even too much, too fast. Coming out of All In last year, Kenny was really beat up, and we needed to give him time to recover. The first six months of the year, he did such a fantastic job for us as the International Champion, and it took a lot out of him. I think he looked back at that and decided, "I'm going to have a bigger 2026. I'm going to accomplish even more in 2026," and he had a plan to get back to the top and stay on top. He's been taking incredibly detailed care of his body, and he's managed his recovery. I think he's been so thoughtful about how he's managed the recovery this year to get from match to match. It's helped him wrestle at his highest level and be the very best Kenny Omega, and he's been very smart about the training. It's very much by design that there have been times where Kenny's been represented in videos and in packages, and I think the AEW team has done a tremendous job putting together some of the best video packages we've ever done regarding Kenny Omega versus Will Ospreay at AEW All In: London this Sunday. Kenny's been training, getting in his very best condition, taking the very best care of his body, and it's been working for him. You have to say, he's gotten through these incredible matches: he defended the championship against Kevin Knight at Redemption in a great match; he wrestled MJF in such a destructive environment in Heatwave at AEW Beach Break, in that outdoor environment, in one of the hardest-hitting, best World Championship matches we've ever had on AEW TV. Kenny beat one of our greatest champions in this big match, and Kenny himself, one of our greatest champions, has been pacing himself so brilliantly. You know that in doing so, he's ensured that he can deliver at his very best, to be in his very best condition for these huge World Championship fights. I'm going out of my way to absolutely accommodate these things because I believe it is what helps Kenny get to his very best. Now, having been through this experience with him and knowing that last year I think I probably pushed Kenny harder than I could have, and now looking at things and seeing that this year he's coming in at a brilliant pace and he is in the very best condition—he knows exactly when to push it himself. Working with him to find the perfect schedule to make sure that Kenny is in the very best condition so that when he walks out to that ring as the AEW World Champion, the fans will get the very best of Kenny Omega, the very top of the profession, the main event man, the Best Bout Machine. With Will Ospreay versus Kenny Omega, it's a match that I've wanted to have in an AEW ring on a purely AEW show and under the circumstance of it being for the AEW World Championship for a really long time. We've had Kenny Omega versus Will Ospreay for the IWGP United States Championship on Forbidden Door, and they wrestled in the Tokyo Dome, but we've never had this match for the AEW World Championship in AEW before. It's something we've looked forward to for a long time. This was the time, and now it's something we can look forward to. Wembley Stadium is the place, and a lot of our fans will be there in person, and now we know that we'll have a record pay-per-view crowd on HBO Max for this event as well. They're going to get a fantastic match: Kenny Omega versus Will Ospreay, and I think they're going to get the very best of both men in this show."
Britt Baker potentially returning: "Well, certainly a very, very intriguing lineup of wrestlers banging at the door to appear on the show. I've announced the eight-match main card, and I think there's going to be great opportunities throughout the evening and throughout the Buy-In to put more on the show. Britt Baker's somebody who is an AEW original and has competed at AEW All In: London previously. So, I know the fans always are excited about Britt and asking about Britt, and the last time we were in Wembley Stadium, Britt was on the show. I would say again, as with all the questions about people returning or debuting, anytime we're getting asked about somebody coming back to AEW TV or debuting, I've always said, "Hey, you should stay tuned," and in this case, I would say that makes sense as well."
Whether the Continental Cup will return: "Well, as I came to Wembley, I knew it was something I really wanted to have: to have a cup final in Wembley. It's something I've always dreamed of being a part of myself as an executive—to be part of a cup final in Wembley. It'll be great for AEW wrestling to have the first-ever Continental Challenge Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. Wembley's a perfect place to have a cup final, and AEW is where the best wrestle. So, I thought this would be a fantastic tournament, and I've really enjoyed the matches. There have been several great matches, and the two men who reached the finals—Nigel McGuinness and John Moxley, who's the reigning AEW Continental Champion—they have both been outstanding and had some classic encounters to get to this point throughout the tournament. I have to say, I'll be really looking forward to that match: Nigel versus John Moxley. We'll hear some comments from them on Collision, and we've already posted their post-fight interviews on social media. That's something I really enjoy, particularly around the Continental matches—we get these great interviews from the competitors. They're one-on-one matches, there's no interference, and I love that sporting aspect of it. These are two great sportsmen, two great athletes, two great wrestlers: Nigel McGuinness and John Moxley. I think it's a tremendous final for the fans coming to AEW All In: Wembley, and for everyone watching on pay-per-view. For me, it's a match I'll really look forward to: Moxley versus McGuinness for the Continental Cup Final. As for the future of the cup, we'll have to see, but the Continental Classic certainly has become a very enduring part of AEW programming, and I've really enjoyed the cup matches. I enjoy the identities of the AEW Championships. I think that we have a great roster of champions, and champions who've built a great reputation and established that these are very prestigious championships that some of the top wrestlers in the world look to hold. With four hours of television and putting on all these great pay-per-view events, having tremendous championships to be contested and fought for has helped us have exciting television. I also really enjoy the Continental wrestling personally—having hard-hitting wrestling matches with nobody running in and interfering, and the very best of, to me, the sport of wrestling. So in that sense, I've really enjoyed the cup, because there have been numerous matches, including both matches last night: O'Reilly versus McGuinness and Claudio versus Mox. I thought those were outstanding matches, but they've both been in several outstanding matches, as well as a bunch of other great matches throughout the tournament on Dynamite and Collision to get to this point. So for me, I've really enjoyed it, and I'll have to look back and reflect and plan for next year."
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