Tony Khan speaks to the media after AEW Double or Nothing.
On Saturday Night, All Elite Wrestling held their first-ever show under the AEW banner; Double or Nothing. The show has received rave reviews from fans online and no one was more excited about the event than AEW President Tony Khan.
The biggest moment at Double or Nothing came following the main event when Jon Moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose in WWE) showed up and laid out Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega. Speaking to the media after the event, Khan discussed how the Moxley deal came about.
"As soon as he was out of his [WWE] deal and wanted to talk to people, he came to me and I was really excited to talk to him when he was able to talk. I'm very excited he's apart of the roster. He is on a multi-year contract and a full-time deal. When we go weekly, he's going to be working full-time. But when the schedule is light, I'm going to be open about him working international and Indy dates."
Fans had speculated on Moxley showing up in AEW from the moment he announced he would be leaving WWE. Another name fans got their hopes up with was CM Punk, who did not end up appearing on the show. And Khan was in no mood to address the Punk speculation.
"When I sketched out a list of like, 'Hey I want to start a wrestling company, who are the names you're going to get?' Everybody we got was on that list and [CM Punk] was also on that list. I have a good relationship with Phil. It's a real insult to what we've done to make that the story of the show."
Punk had said all week that he would not be appearing and, despite being booked for a Cage Fury commentary gig, some fans didn't take the hint.
The arrival of Moxley wasn't the only shot at WWE as Cody Rhodes took aim at Triple H in his entrance, smashing a Triple H like throne with a sledgehammer. Cody, being the lone former WWE superstar in the Elite, has made it known that he wants to out-do WWE and took multiple shots at the promotion during the weekend. Meanwhile, The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega have mostly stayed away from discussing WWE as a competitor. Khan doesn't believe there is a right or wrong way to go about addressing WWE.
"We don't need a company line [on our stance against WWE]. Everybody is trying to get something different out of it but we all want to do the best shows. If the competition fuels our fire, that's great. For me, I'm just trying to do the best show possible," said Khan. "I'm not really thinking about their show and I hope their shows are great because the best times in wrestling, everybody was doing great stuff. There was a time 20 years ago where all the shows were great. I'm excited when we get to weekly because we've done a show that we can hang our hat on, that we've done one of the great wrestling pay-per-views but when we get to weekly, it's going to be a better quality of life. The work is going to be better and it's going to be like it was 20 years ago. You're going to be able to watch a lot of wrestling and it's not going to be a chore either. It's going to be fun."
AEW will begin airing weekly programming on TNT starting this fall, though no official premiere date has been announced.
You can view the entire media scrum with Khan in the video above.