Chris Jericho Comments on AEW’s MAX Deal Being “The Way of the Future”
Sports Illustrated’s The Takedown on SI held a recent interview with Chris Jericho. One of the topics discussed included Jericho’s thoughts about AEW’s new media rights deal with Warner Bros Discovery and AEW shows being aired as simulcasts on MAX.
“Well, it’s kind of the way, the way of the future. I think cable television as a whole will pretty much go away at some point, because there is so much emphasis on streaming. Just the quality of the picture, the fact you can watch it whenever you want to. All of those things are such a positive. So even though we have such a great relationship with Warner Brothers and TNT and TBS, I think it’s very important that we were able to move on to Max.
The whole business is based on television revenue nowadays. Before it was pay-per-view and it was live attendance, and it was all that sort of thing, and now it solely rests on the television deal you can get. We’ve had ups and downs as far as ratings and demos go, but we still always do really, really well on cable. If we’re not number one or two, we’re in the top five, and at the very least the top 10, and that’s out of 1000s of shows.
So, it’s a very valuable property and I think we all knew that within AEW and anybody Tony surrounds himself with, but there’s a lot of pundits and critics that still to this day don’t see how valuable AEW is and how much it’s growing. The television deal is $185 million a year. I mean, that’s next level. That’s pretty much four times that we were getting. So, I think that there was a sigh of relief, not that we didn’t know we could get it, but just now that it’s locked in, now we can get to work and really concentrate on the things that we need to concentrate on, both to continue upward ascension in some areas and to improve in others.”
Tony Khan Reportedly Becoming More Hands-On Involved with AEW Creative
AEW CEO Tony Khan reportedly has become more hands-on with AEW’s creative for recent shows, according to Fightful Select.
It was reported that their sources stated that those within AEW were “understandably pumped” over how well this past Saturday’s AEW Collision Homecoming 2025 show came off in terms of execution and reaction.
It was also reported that the current belief within the company is that Khan has “been more in the weeds” of AEW creative over the last couple of weeks for shows.
AEW Files New Captain Insano Trademark
AEW filed a new trademark for “Captain Insano” on January 24th for wrestling and merchandise-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Captain Insano was the character portrayed by Paul Wight in the classic comedy film The Waterboy.