Tony Khan Admits He Might Have Gotten Too Collaborative In AEW Creative Process, Explains How He Changed The Process

Tony Khan has always been the top decision-maker when it comes to what appears on AEW television, but the process has changed over the years, with voices added or removed to the equation.

Speaking to Jon Alba of Sports Illustrated, Khan explained his mindset for AEW creative in 2025, and how it may have changed from past years.

“Since you asked about the focus and some of the stories and putting the TV shows together, yeah, I definitely felt like I had had a good approach that I’d refined in 2020, and trying to be good, trying to listen and be collaborative. I think I had gotten too collaborative, and it was kind of the same mistake I made at the beginning,” Khan said. “It really helped in the end of 2024, going into 2025, I just said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put the outline for everything together myself. I’m gonna eliminate the meetings between shows, and I will put everything together myself between shows. Then, I’ll come in with the outline of what I want, rather than have a lot of collaborative meetings where everybody chimes in what they think we should be doing.'”

He continued, “I thought that helped us at the beginning, and I think it probably helped us this year, having that focus where I’m focused and not having four or five, six, seven, 10 people in a meeting contributing great ideas. They’re all good ideas in their own way. I still like to hear ideas, but instead of doing it as I put the outline together, I would rather do it looking ahead to next week, and take some ideas as I put the next outline together. But putting the outline of the show together, I’m never going to let it be a collab… putting the outline of the show together, I have a good process for it, and I’m back to the process that I used in 2020 and 2021.”

Though he might be listening to less voices overall, Khan did say that there is still collaboration between himself and the wrestlers.

“I don’t want to describe ever being collaborative is a bad thing, because the whole thing that makes AEW great is collaboration. But the collaboration should probably, at its best, be between me and the wrestlers, and working to find the best path, and not having a lot of people in the middle of that,” he said.

AEW will hold its annual Worlds End pay-per-view on Saturday, December 27th.

Fans can check out the lineup for the show here.