On a recent episode of his Talk Is Jericho podcast, Chris Jericho commented on TNT telling AEW not to do surprises, wanting to help the ratings by promoting things.
Jericho was referencing Sting's surprise appearance on the December 2 episode of AEW Dynamite when he said, "[TNT] was like 'don't do that again.' That's why Paul Wight was announced on social media because TNT said, 'We don't want surprises, we want to take advantage of the ratings.' We had a big surprise, a big announcement, and we used the big announcement to announce the next big surprise. I think that's one of the reasons too, to spread it out a little,"
Speaking to Mike Johnson at PWInsider, Tony Khan clarified how that conversation with TNT went.
"It's a mixed bag..I wouldn't say that's exactly how it happened. Some of that, maybe through different..point being, I don't think that's exactly how the conversation...I know, because I was the one who had it, that's not exactly how the conversation with TNT went but there's a balance between announcing things in advance like we've done with Mike Tyson coming in for this week or with Paul Wight coming in, telling fans in advance when something's coming or surprises that came out of nowhere like when Sting showed up. And I think that's a great balance to have and I think we'll be doing both. So with Mike we announced in advance but I would never, and let me make it clear, TNT never said, "Don't do surprises." They thought that was great and they've had a huge reaction to Sting and in doing the announcement with Paul they were excited to do one with a press release and it was a great strategy, we did a great number and it was a huge interest and it built huge search traffic and it built a lot of buzz and now Paul is a big part of our family and for everybody that's been involved in Elevation, he's brought a lot more eyeballs on Elevation, it's been a huge, huge success for us," said Khan.
As mentioned by Khan, AEW did announce Mike Tyson's appearance on the April 7 Dynamite one day in advance.
Fightful will have live coverage of AEW Dynamite beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
