Tony Khan
speaker
120 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Tony Khan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
I think that it's interesting because when I watched the Colbert show that first week of the lockdown, there was nobody in the studio to react to the joke. So then I watched what Jimmy Fallon was doing and I thought that was really interesting because he had the crew and people from the office
behind the camera, so it sounded like maybe a dozen or maybe even a couple dozen people in the studio, and it sounded like a small comedy club. I thought that was the closest thing, and I really thought the spirit of that was right. So I decided to do the same thing, and I would take the crew of my show and have
Some of the wrestlers that weren't wrestling that night, some of the crew that weren't being put to work at that moment, and have them sit around the ring and react to the matches. And then we'd have an audience, even though you couldn't sell tickets in the lockdown. So we never stopped. We never took a week off. AEW ran every week through the pandemic. And we never put a rerun on.
It was like a period that is known by the wrestling fans as being a really great period at AEW, where the company really focused and delivered. And it's considered a golden era of AEW wrestling by our fans. And it was an area and a time where we really set ourselves apart and closed the business gap. We came out of the lockdown a lot stronger than we went into it.
I use an analogy for people that watch Star Trek. In Star Trek II, the original Rathacon, there's a nebula. And it's a terrible place. And you won't be able to use your radar. You won't be able to use your shields. Your weapons won't work. Nothing's going to work. But... It is like that for everybody.
So if you're the challenger and you're the underdog, then you're better off in there because then it comes down to skill and acumen and creativity and really strips down a lot of those things. So that's how I felt about the lockdown, that it really opened it up for us where we could explore new ideas, try new things.
And we would have this really exciting period that went from March of 2020 until the summer of 2021. And then when we went back on tour in the summer of 2021, we were in a much better place than we went into lockdown. We came out far stronger. So that was really exciting.
Yeah, Ring of Honor was a company that was a challenger brand. They weren't the biggest company in wrestling, but they built a great tradition of wrestling. And they had built great momentum right as we were launching AEW, honestly. And the launch of AEW did slow down Ring of Honor. And then in the lockdown, Ring of Honor ended up shutting down completely.
And in 2021, they ceased operations and they were a company that was really hardly hit by the lockdown. And Sinclair, broadcasting was looking to sell the company. And so I did purchase it from them. And it's a great company with a great history. It frankly never reached the heights of AEW. And it was a great challenger brand with a great history that I have a ton of respect for.
Some of the greatest wrestlers of all time competed in Ring of Honor. And I thought it was a cool thing to keep a lot of those people wrestling. There were some people that were contracted to Ring of Honor that I brought in as part of
The agreement, there were some people that I wanted to use a lot, like the Briscoes, that I was able to start to work with and get to know, and the friends I've made and lost along the way. But I do think it's another thing that I'm really excited to bolt on here now as we're in the streaming era. It gives more resources. We've put the AEW library on mass.
And we have tons of options now to build out, build more things, fast channels, and exciting possibilities and ways I can leverage the history of AEW and also the history of Ring of Honor to create new content. And also, Ring of Honor has great history. They have great champions, great wrestlers. So yeah, I was happy to keep it alive.
And like I said, it never reached the heights that we have here with AEW, but it's a great promotion and it has a great voice and a great history.
I think the hardest things that have happened have been friends that we've lost along the way. There have been, in two cases, wrestlers that I was very close with and people that were beloved by our locker room that we've lost. In AEW, Mr. Brodie Lee.
who is a beloved wrestler in AEW and all over the world of wrestling and had been known to all the fans and all the wrestlers all over the world and left behind a beautiful family and honoring him. was a great challenge. And I think the company put our best foot forward to honor our greatest champion and his family.
And Mr. Brody Lee left behind a great legacy and putting a tribute that is befitting that legacy and the man that he is and was and the family that he's left here with us. It's one of the hardest things we've ever had to do. And I think That is one of the most important things we've ever done. We also then, in Ring of Honor, lost the late, great Jay Briscoe.
And when I acquired Ring of Honor, the Briscoe brothers were its greatest stars. And they're a tag team of brothers. They are closer friends. than anybody could ever imagine. They had a bond of brotherhood that extended into the wrestling ring that brought them even closer together because they're brothers and they're tag team partners and best friends.
And Mark Briscoe is a huge part of AEW and ring of honor history. And Mark Briscoe came from ring of honor. And now he's a huge part of AEW and his brother, Jay Briscoe never got the chance to be part of AEW. I was very honored to work with him. And, uh, losing friends like Jay Briscoe and Mr. Brody Lee along the way, and then that we're all responsible for honoring them and their legacy.
I think that's challenging, but also an important responsibility that we have. So that's probably been the hardest challenges along the way is when you work with people that you lose.
yeah i mean these are very upsetting things and whenever you lose somebody that's in your life you're going to take it and there's a lot of different takeaways but i mean a lot of bad things yeah and uh i'm sure you've worked with people over the years that you've lost and had friends that you've lost and friends at work and it can be really hard and those are people that the wrestling fans really respected and people that everyone out
Showing 81–100 of 120 · page 5 of 6
← Previous
Next →