Tony Khan Talks Turning Down Making AEW Dynamite Three Hours, If Rampage Will Be Secondary
Earlier today it was announced that All Elite Wrestling's flagship show, Dynamite, would be moving from TNT to TBS starting in 2022. Also announced was a third hour of TV, AEW Rampage, which will premiere on TNT August 13 and air every Friday at 10 p.m. EST. In his weekly appearance on Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan discussed this news, including some other perks to the deal.
"So I have renegotiated our contract with TNT and TBS and we've made a great agreement," Khan said. "I'm very excited about it. First of all, we're launching a third hour of wrestling that I've talked about a lot. It'll be Friday nights at 10 p.m. It will be in addition to Dynamite on Wednesdays, 8-10. We're launching a show called Rampage (that) I'm really excited about and wanted to do for a long time. It was part of our original extension over a year ago. So we're doing another show Friday nights, 1o p.m., called Rampage, and we'll continue doing Dynamite on Wednesdays, 8-10 p.m.
"In 2022, and this is a great deal they put together with very, very fair financial considerations for us in this, we will be moving to TBS with both shows. Dynamite and Rampage in 2022 will go to TBS. But we will not be leaving TNT, because we're adding another great thing for the wrestling fans. Quarterly, and I'm not sure which night they'll be on, but in the past there've been great supercard specials for wrestling fans, like Clash of the Champions, Saturday Night's Main Event, The Main Event, Battle of the Belts. We're going to have our own supercard series and we're going to have quarterly supercards still on TNT, which is another part of this great deal that we worked out with WarnerMedia."
Khan talked about how great this would be for AEW and also brought up how he was initially asked about extending Dynamite to three hours. Khan revealed he countered by suggesting it as a third hour of Dynamite on another night instead.
"It's great for everybody here, it's big news," Khan said. "We knew that another show was coming this year. I've been saying it for a long time that we were going to add another night, one hour. I didn't want to do three hours of Dynamite. They (WarnerMedia) asked at one point if I wanted to do three hours of Dynamite. It came up about doing a third hour and I said I really believed in doing it on another night."
Khan made it clear that Rampage would not be a secondary show to Dynamite. Rather Rampage and Dynamite would be AEW's major shows in terms of content, while Dark and Elevation would take on the role of "developmental" or "syndicated" programming.
"This time slot I think is really good for the fans to keep a great night for wrestling fresh on Friday nights. So at 10 p.m. you're going to have a great option to come watch Rampage. And I promise you Rampage isn't going to be a secondary show. Rampage is going to be the partner of Dynamite, the equivalent of Dynamite. We have these two strong franchises in Dynamite and Rampage and they are our weekly core properties.
"And then we'll have our peripheral properties (Dark and Elevation). They're probably the equivalent of what you'd seen, partially a developmental show, partially a syndicated show. I think that's what you'll get on Elevation and Dark. But Rampage and Elevation, those will be our core properties on TNT for the rest of the year, and then next year going to TBS. I'm really excited about it."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription