I’ve always wondered is “Who has the creative say in AEW?” I figured it was a loose booking team of Cody, The Bucks, Omega, and so on. The shows have a feeling of a direction but at times, they lacked the flow to say “This was a tight show start to finish.” PW Insider recently revealed that Tony Khan has been pushing the booking direction of All Elite Wrestling this year.
Tony Khan: Booker Man
I wasn’t entirely surprised when Khan’s name was mentioned as the key creative force. This has been the case since the start of the year. His name was on my list as possibly having the largest say in the booking. AEW in 2019 went through some growing pains to find a balance of pace and consistency but the TV product managed to find a solid balance.
Or rather, it found a solid enough balance to build on for 2020. An interesting note is that as a kid, Tony Khan was really into fantasy booking. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do this or no longer do this. It’s one of those parts of the fandom—along with the old e-feds—that is pretty much wrestling fanfiction.
At some point, everyone believes that they can book a dope wrestling show five times a month. You know, that they could either run WWE better or beat WWE. Tony Khan just so happens to have the resources to actually do it.
Side note: In my free time, I play Total Extreme Wrestling and try to book “Primetime” Brian Lee as a credible world champion. If you’re wondering how that’s going: not well at all. Actually, my whole roster is a mess and Shane Douglas isn’t making things easier in WCW.
Changes In The Product Is The Signature of A Booker
At any rate, Khan being in charge of the creative direction of AEW is interesting because the first few episodes of Dynamite seemed different. I wouldn’t say better than 2019 but some episodes didn’t have that sense of “Oh wow, this show is just two hours? Feels longer.”
There’s a sense that things are actually moving along and some talent appears more interesting than they did months ago. The latter improvement is extremely important because, in 2019, some wrestlers didn’t come off as talent I’d catch weekly to see. They simply didn’t come off as interesting enough to care about their development.
We’ll see how the Tony Khan approach works long term as All Elite Wrestling’s PPVs come up.
SUBSCRIBE NOW: Get TheOvertimer’s Hottest Stories, Breaking News and Special Features in your email, CLICK HERE!
