Tony Khan On Talks With WarnerMedia About ROH Weekly Series And Pay-Per-Views
AEW's Owner, CEO, and General Manager Tony Khan admits it's "hard to say" what the future holds for Ring of Honor. Khan announced an agreement last month for him to purchase the company. In a new interview, he indicated that much of ROH's future, including producing weekly television, hinges upon ongoing discussions with AEW's media partner WarnerMedia.
"I do own (ROH) as a separate entity from AEW," Khan told ESPN's Marc Raimondi. "But I also have a TV contract with Warner that I'm going to produce wrestling shows for them. I've been having these conversations with Warner, because I think it would make sense for everyone. And I think they're open to it. But in the short timeline we had, what I asked for was basically an exemption for it being outside the portfolio."
Tony Khan says WarnerMedia's allowed him to go on with plans for Ring of Honor's Supercard of Honor pay-per-view last week. The show, and several matches for the card, were being promoted before Khan's purchase of ROH was announced.
"I've been having more conversations with WarnerMedia about what we can do together to grow Ring of Honor," Khan said. "I think it would make sense for Ring of Honor to continue as a weekly series and major events like we just had with Supercard. I think the success of Supercard, critically and commercially, will bode very well for WarnerMedia really taking an interest in Ring of Honor, as well as AEW. I think there's great potential to have a complementary wrestling brand."
Tony Khan did not comment on when fans may see another Ring of Honor pay-per-view. Whatever form ROH takes in the future, Khan appears to be determined to keep the spirit of the company alive. He says that was his goal while producing Supercard of Honor. However, part of that was out of necessity.
"I really tried to make it a Ring of Honor show — with the Ring of Honor announce team and using a lot of people that had recently been wrestling for Ring of Honor — and then having some faces of the past, some of the great legends of Ring of Honor either appearing on video or in-person as a surprise," Khan explained. "Like the Young Bucks. Or Samoa Joe returning to Ring of Honor and signing with AEW that night.
"I did utilize some resources from AEW with permission from Warner with the understanding from them that I was not going to make this an AEW show," Khan continued. "It would be a Ring of Honor show. I was asking them to utilize some AEW resources to make this a great pay-per-view event. For Ring of Honor, it turned out to be one of the most successful events in their history."