Tony Khan Says This Weekend For AEW Is Not About Competing With WWE

AEW President Tony Khan recently made an appearance on Moose & Maggie on WFAN. He discussed competition with AEW and where his focus lies.

"The most important thing is that AEW does the best shows, and if you watch the shows, we built this audience from scratch," Khan pointed out. "There was no AEW a couple of years ago. Now AEW on TNT is the best show in many fans' eyes, and we're building and building this audience. Year over year, we're up double digits. Every month, we're up year over year, and now we're up 30% over where we were a year ago, and there's a reason for that. It's, in some ways, the worst timing. We're off Wednesday for the next couple of weeks.

"It's a big weekend for us because we need to make a statement. We were doing such great numbers on Wednesday, so it's bad timing to have Dynamite moved to the weekend, but we built this great thing in Rampage, and we have Friday night Rampage on TNT at 10:00 and we have Saturday night Dynamite on TNT at 8:00. Right now, we have all this momentum. The number one show on all of cable and satellite TV six straight Wednesdays. It's bad timing to be moving off Wednesday when you're on such a great recent run, but this weekend's huge for us, and the shows have been so good. It's not about competing with them. It's about doing our best show."

Khan has said in the past that AEW has surpassed his expectations these past two years. He revealed what his short-term goals for AEW.

"I would like to continue having chances for both Dynamite and Rampage to be the number one show on cable on their night," Khan said. "So Dynamite has been number one on many times on Wednesday night. I want to do great numbers on Saturday this week, and I want to do great numbers on TNT on Wednesdays and keep that number one spot. Also, Rampage has finished at number one multiple times. We've finished number two, three all over, and the sports competition has been really tough on Friday nights, but I want the fans to know it's a big event this week, live. Who knows what's gonna happen with these huge matches and the top stars?

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Moose & Maggie with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.