Tony Khan explains why he excluded AEW EVPs from creative meetings

Tony Khan likes to write stories for AEW shows himself instead of having a committee to avoid chaos within the creative process.

Reports emerged a few weeks back about the AEW EVPs (The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and Cody Rhodes) losing their creative powers, with Tony Khan opting to write the shows himself.

Tony Khan spoke to PWTorch about the creative process in AEW:

“Around the start of 2020, the end of 2019, I moved more towards me writing the show, and I think it helped. And I think the show has been better for it. Not because everybody doesn’t have any good ideas, because they’re still contributing their ideas, that part hasn’t changed."

The idea of getting everybody in a room together and trying to spitball ideas, and then three people get really into one idea and they get 10 steps down the road on it, and the other two people are like, ‘what is this?’ That’s just an example. But in general, I have found it much easier and more productive if I just try to organize a show at home between shows and have a good idea arriving for TV what I want to do next week,” Tony Khan said. “Which is why, generally, until we get pretty close to the PPV, we are always announcing matches a week ahead. Then when we get closer to the PPVs and we are building the PPVs, and I am only announcing a few things as opposed to the whole card.” (h/t: WrestlingInc)

Tony Khan says he has got more "hands-on" with AEW

Tony Khan, despite being a lifelong wrestling fan, started AEW as an outsider. Despite owning the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham, running a wrestling company is not easy.

Tony Khan spoke about being a novice at the beginning, before further explaining why he doesn't have a committee of people in the creative team.

"I have been pretty open. It’s not because of anybody other than me that I have probably gotten a little bit more hands-on with the stuff I do than when we started. But that makes sense because I had never worked with a wrestling company. I had only come in from the outside, so I was organizing a lot of things at the beginning and I was the head of a committee, and I think there are a lot of drawbacks to trying to book a wrestling show with a committee. Even if you are at the forefront of it, it’s a mindboggling, difficult process,” Tony Khan said.

AEW allows wrestlers a certain level of creative freedom and Tony Khan has done a great job so far of booking his shows. It will be interesting to see if his approach changes in the future.