Tony Khan Discusses Partnership With Owen Hart Foundation, Booking The Tournament

One of the biggest stories in wrestling this past week was the announcement of AEW partnering up with Martha Hart and the Owen Hart Foundation to both honor Owen Hart and to create the Owen Hart Cup Tournament, to be better known as 'The Owen.' In his weekly appearance on Busted Open Radio, AEW President Tony Khan talked about the tournament and the partnership.

"This is going to be a tremendous, tremendous event and it's a great partnership with Martha Hart and the Owen Hart Foundation," Khan said. "Martha is a very principled woman, to say the least. She's a very intelligent woman, and she thought long and hard about this, and we talked for a long time about this. I talked to Martha about this for over a year on a regular basis. She put a lot of thought into it. We put a lot of thought into it and that's how this came together. She's a really good person and I think she wanted to make sure we're good people too. And I really like Martha a lot, and I just can't say enough great things about the legacy of Owen Hart and how much it means to so many of us.

"What a great opportunity this is to celebrate his life. We had this in the works for a long time. The Owen, I think can be a very special prize in wrestling. I think people are going to want to win the Owen, and I believe we'll really establish it as a real special thing in AEW. A really special, annual tradition. I've got a few match announcements and a few big booking plans up my sleeve that I'm excited for people to find out about. And that's all coming in due time. The Owen Hart announcement is really big for us. When we get through this huge night for us, I think next week, we'll have a lot of cool stuff when the dust has settled."

So how did Khan and Martha Hart get to talking? According to Khan, it was a top AEW star who narrated the Owen Hart episode of Dark Side of the Ring that made the introduction between the two sides in order to get the ball rolling.

"Chris Jericho introduced me to Martha, and without that introduction, I don't think this would be happening," Khan said. "I really appreciate Chris. And I'm just very thankful he made that introduction to Martha."

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