"He got a pop, even from the network side"- Tony Khan reveals TNT's reaction to hardcore legend's death match in AEW

Tony Khan booked Nick Gage in a death match at AEW Dynamite against Chris Jericho. The hardcore legend got a "pop" from TNT executives, according to the AEW boss.

Nick Gage and Le Champion battled it out in a death match in the main event as part of the Labors of Jericho storyline. The match was a typical Nick Gage affair as the audience witnessed light tubes, glass slabs and pizza cutters.

While viewers were split over the decision to televise such a match on national television, Tony Khan told the Wrestling Perspective Podcast that executives at TNT were aware of Nick Gage's work.

"I wouldn't want to watch a whole card of it or for six months straight, but I think for a big match of big payoff, it can be really good. In that case, if we're going to bring in Nick Gage, I thought it made sense to do it that way as opposed to having Nick Gage doing Marquis of Queensbury or chain wrestling, even though he's a very capable wrestler. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun and even on the TNT side, we had the marketing call, and going into it people were fans of Nick Gage and people knew him. When I said we were going to bring him in, he got a pop, even from the network side. People all over are familiar with his work and it was definitely a calculated thing. When Chris mentioned him, I knew it was going to be a crazy match. I gave it the thumbs up because that's the spirit of AEW, independent wrestling and he's a big thing in independent wrestling," Tony Khan said. (h/t: Fightful Select)

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Tony Khan stated that the AEW-NJPW relationship didn't get off to the best start

Tony Khan stated during the Full Gear media call that NJPW was "pissed off" with him when he started his promotion.

"It's a great relationship. I really enjoy working with New Japan. It's changed a lot since AEW started because when AEW first started off, I think they were pretty pissed off with me. And then, as wrestling went on, I think they saw that like I wasn't really trying to stop them from doing anything. I actually made a lot of friendly gestures along the way, and so I think they saw there's a good relationship and I have a good reputation for being an honest person," Tony Khan said.

Of course, over time it sorted itself out as we saw several NJPW stars in AEW and vice-versa. Big names like KENTA, Lance Archer and Minoru Suzuki crossed the Forbidden Door. We could soon be seeing Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii in AEW as well.