AEW: Texas Chainsaw Massacre Sponsor Money Donated to Maui Food Bank, Tony Khan on RVD in AEW, Willow Nightingale

AEW Announces Texas Chainsaw Massacre Sponsorship Money Donated to Maui Food Bank

Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Nashville, Tennessee featured a Texas Chainsaw Massacre Deathmatch between Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy that was sponsored by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game. Wednesday’s show was also a Fight For The Fallen 2023 special to help raise funds to assist those affected by the recent wildfires in Maui, Hawaii.

Following the show, AEW CEO Tony Khan announced on Twitter that all of the sponsorship money that AEW received from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game will go directly towards the Maui Food Bank.

All proceeds we receive for tonight’s @TXChainSawGame DeathMatch will be donated to @MauiFoodBank!

We made lots of changes to #AEWDynamite tonight to make tonight’s episode #FightForTheFallen including the @TXChainSawGame to help the charity.

Donate now!https://t.co/DbkjX0YDgs

— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) August 17, 2023

In regards to the monetary amount, Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that his sources stated that AEW had received around $100,000 in money as part of their match sponsorship deal with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game.

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Tony Khan Comments on Paying Extra for “Walk” by Pantera for RVD’s AEW Stint

A recent episode of the Battleground podcast had AEW CEO Tony Khan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Khan’s thoughts about AEW having a backup song in place for Rob Van Dam’s recent stint in the company and the reason why he paid extra to secure “Walk” by Pantera.

“We did have a backup (song for RVD’s AEW stint) but it wouldn’t have been the same and that’s why I wanted to pay the extra and go the extra mile and get ‘Walk’ by Pantera. Pantera was great and worked with us and we worked out a reasonable deal. I compare music licenses in wrestling to trades in pro sports. It’s like, you can do your best but, every trade is its own transaction. It has to be between at least two willing parties. It can’t just be one willing party in a trade and I think that’s very similar with music rights in wrestling. You have to reach a deal that’s fair for everybody and sometimes the value is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes people ask for money that I don’t think is reasonable. Other times, we’ve gotten deals that I thought were very fair. But we do use a lot of licensed music and in perpetuity. So someday when the AEW streaming library becomes available per our exclusive rights with Warner Bros. Discovery, the great company we’re very fortunate to team with, I am optimistic someday all of this will live on Max hopefully and every great moment where we’ve licensed music, we still have that music. I paid for the rights in perpetuity. So whether it was something incredibly moving and memorable like when we used Tom Waits’ Ol’ ’55 for the tribute video to the late, great Mr. Brodie Lee or like you said, something fun with the great entrance, RVD-Pantera. Other great moments like Bryan Danielson and The Final Countdown at Forbidden Door and so many other of the great things we’ve done over the years.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

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Willow Nightingale Comments on Her Goals for AEW Career & Focus on Conditioning to Keep Doing Long Matches

In a recent interview with ESPN’s 99.9 The Fan, Willow Nightingale gave her thoughts about her current goals for her career in AEW and wanting to focus on improving her conditioning to continue to work long matches.

“Right now, as much as I’m proud of my in-ring work, I’m always trying to fine-tune it. Luckily, we have some of the smartest people about wrestling backstage. It’s listening to things that I can still improve upon, going to training and making sure that’s done. Recently, I had a match with Athena at Death Before Dishonor, and that was 20 minutes or so. That’s the longest match I’ve had in my Ring of Honor/AEW career. I’d really like to move forward, being able to have lengthy feature matches again. I’ve really been focusing on conditioning, trying to be able to make sure that I can do 30-minute matches because if I am put in that position again, and hopefully I am, I want to be able to go and not have any restraints holding me back. My good friend Kris Stat [Kris Statlander], of course I’m going to help her out and we’re going to do our best, but it’s not lost on me that she is a champion at AEW, and I’m not. Hikaru Shida became AEW Women’s Champion, I’m a huge fan of hers. I got to wrestle her on the Jericho Cruise last year and it would be awesome to have a match televised for our fans to see how that turns out. There are a lot of directions that the next few months could go for me. That’s where I have my attention; who are the champs, what are they doing, how do I reach that level? Only time will tell what I do, but that’s where my eyes are.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com