Tony Khan Comments on Double or Nothing’s Long Show Length Helping AEW Financially
AEW held a Double or Nothing post-show media scrum this past Sunday in Las Vegas, Nevada featuring AEW CEO Tony Khan among the guest speakers.
On the topic of Double or Nothing 2022’s run-time length, Khan stated that the reason why the show ran longer than usual was due to his concerns over the NBA 2022 Playoffs Game 7 between Boston Celtics and Miami Heat going head-to-head with the event that same night. Khan also stated that the show’s longer length ended up helping out the company financially.
“It was a little bit different. I ended up adding a little bit to the length of the show to help the show commercially and help the show make money. I think it made, if not a seven-figure difference, at least a six-figure difference.
I probably would have ended the show the same time they always end. We’ve done a lot of the best pay-per-views anyone’s ever done, they’ve all ended between 11:40 and 11:55-ish, 11:56, 11:57 on the east coast.
I will listen to the feedback of the fans. Revolution had pretty good response and commercially the show was really successful, and had similar length bell to bell… But like I said, I’ll listen to the feedback. This was a unique circumstance.”
Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com
Tony Khan & CM Punk’s Comments on Eric Bischoff’s Claims of Punk Being the Biggest Financial Flop in Wrestling History
During the same post-show media scrum, Tony Khan also commented on his thoughts about Eric Bischoff’s recent claims that CM Punk was the biggest financial flop in the history of wrestling.
“That’s fucking bullshit. There is only one person that can attest to that, I don’t know about other people. I can only attest to what’s happened here and public record, and some of these things are a matter of public record because freedom of information. We do have, over the years, a good amount of financial data in pro wrestling. I can tell you, no one wrestler has ever come in and made a bigger plus delta financial difference in the history of my company going into the third year anniversary, no one person has ever made a more positive impact. We just did a record pay-per-view buy, every pay-per-view, he’s done a four pay-per-view cycle now, every one of them was the record.
Whether it was All Out, where he was huge part of the draw with Darby, his debut was a huge thing with the First Dance, the biggest Rampage draw in the history of that show. The matches, he carried the Friday Night War, which, by the way, is a matter of record in fucking court in the state of California that we won the Friday Night War. Just ask Jerry McDevitt because he fucking wrote it. This guy won it, vs. Matt Sydal, who is a great wrestler, he had another goddamn great match on Friday night. This fucking guy, he fucking did the Friday Night War, he did the First Dance, he’s done the record Double or Nothing. He did the record All Out in his debut. He was a big part of the record Full Gear, a great match with Eddie Kingston. He’s wrestled a bunch of young guys and veterans in-between there. Will Hobbs, Daniel Garcia, then he showed up and did the biggest program in terms of everything, TV, box office, ever with MJF. Then he did the goddamn main event here. He’s the biggest part of financial success in the history of this company. Let’s fucking go.”
CM Punk also gave his thoughts about Bischoff’s recent comments and online feud against him.
“I didn’t have a Twitter war with anybody. I never mentioned him by name. I think people like that just need to die in the dark. I don’t need to speak their name and stuff.
I’m focused on what we’re doing and the positives we bring to the world. Everybody’s got a shit opinion. Just let him have it.”
Transcript h/t: Fightful.com, F4WOnline.com
Tony Khan Comments on Lack of Casino Battle Royale Match at Double or Nothing 2022
During the same post-show media scrum, Tony Khan gave his reasons for the lack of a Casino Battle Royale match at AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 event this past Sunday.
“It would arguably get more wrestlers on, but I don’t think it would spotlight people as much and it’s a longer match. Historically, a lot of entrances and you talk about a match that could burn the crowd out on a night where we’re trying to do that. Doing 21 entrances isn’t necessarily the way to go. Also, I didn’t want to have somebody come out, the winner of the match could tip what was going to happen in the main event. It could have been somebody that was a good matchup for either person. I also thought it was probably better to have Darby and Kyle do a great match at the length they did, which was a kick ass and hot match versus sticking them in with 19 other people where, anybody else, a mixed trios would have made sense there, the other matches on the card were all in good spots. Death Triangle and House of Black, with Fenix coming back, they deserved a good trios match. They kicked ass versus jamming the six of them in there with Darby, Kyle, and a bunch of people.”
Transcript h/t: Fightful.com
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