AEW CEO Tony Khan (Part 1)

growing and growing. And we've had some more guests. But today's a crazy day because we have not only my biggest guest, but someone who as I've watched his career and what he's built grow, I felt a lot of weird connections that I want to get into today. Uh, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the amazing owner and the boss of a w Mr Tony Corn, now stuffing up for the mic The Hope of Wrestling with Freddy, Freddie Prince June. Yeah, thank you, Freddy. Thanks for writing me

on your show. Dude, I appreciate it. Man. I uh, this is weird, Like I've had a kind of a a crash course and self reflection watching what you've been able to accomplish. So and I'm gonna throw a bunch of weird stuff at you and if it doesn't click, you just be like Freddie, you're crazy. But I just I feel weird connections to you. And in the following regards, we're both in some sense legacy kids, all right. Our father's accomplished a lot against a whole bunch of odds. Uh.

They dealt with their own challenges. Now, my father didn't deal with the pressure well at all, and his life ended way too freaking young. Your father dealt with the pressure incredibly well and was able to raise a family um and do this business. So I know what it's like to be a legacy kid. I know the pressures of that, and I knew I didn't want to do exactly what my father did, but I wanted to show respect to it. So I never got into the stand

up comedy element of it. But he always wanted to be a film actor, and so I jumped into that. Here you are, and I got to do all this before social media. Here you are. Your father. For those who don't know, owns the Jacksonville Jackuars. It's a fairly exclusive club to be an NFL team owner, and you have to be test a smidge successful to be able

to pull it off. So you're dealing with not only that kind of pressure, but your post social media not post you're in social media, we're in we're in DS during social media, and that pressure is a global pressure. What have you found to be And I will get into the beginnings of this in a minute, but this was the most important thing to me, So I just wanted to make sure we hit it. What have been the challenges or what are the things you thought would

be challenges that were easy? What were the things you thought would be easy that were really hard? Um? Can you just jump into all that and take as much

time as you want. The biggest things to me were I think And you've worked in the wrestling business, Freddie, so you know that when you get in your kind of learning from the ground up because you have all these experiences watching wrestling on television and then you get to work in a company and a lot of what you believe in a fan really translates to the business and a lot of you know, things you're seeing for the first time when you when you get behind the curtain. Yeah,

big time. And for my first show, you know, I had big picture ideas, big picture thoughts like, you know, I felt really strongly about certain aspects of the card, like you know, for example, that Kenny Omega versus Chris Jericho.

I really felt like I had to be the first main event um that had done huge business for New Japan as the main event of the Dome Show a year prior, and I really felt like that was a big part of my business case was seeing how successful that show had been around the world and knowing that bringing that to America, American pay per view, there would be an audience for that match. That's an old school philosophy, though, Like that's old school, Like, hey, Morocco Snooka did great

business over here, Let's bring that over here. That's old That's pretty old school, man. A lot of my philosophies really are as we talk, you'll see. I think a lot of it is that way, Like you know, the way we've we've run the business and routing the tours, trying or you know, make the most of what we got uh service very well through the pandemic. I think that might set and and ran the business like a territory for a long time and then you know, managed

to build a developmental component out of it too. Dark because we had daily place, we had the crew, we had wrestlers, and there's so many wrestlers around Florida and Georgia driving distance that wanted to come in and work. I follow most of them on Instagram. I mean they literally are like, I'm going to do Dark. I'm getting in the car right now, Like I've literally seen this happen.

It was great, and a lot of a lot of those people then became featured wrestlers now on my Granted, you know from the beginning, UM, I was entering it as similar to you of an educated wrestling fans, and uh, put a business plan together from the beginning. UM so as far as like challenges that like you have ideas

that are great ideas. And there's a big difference between booking on paper and booking in real life because you're dealing with like, actual human beings and it's very different dealing with people than dealing with like wrestlers on paper

or in your imagination. UH. And similar in sports to my experience is working in football, like for example, as the Gentleman is your film, working with the players and their contracts, sitting down with scouts and coaches, evaluating talent, I think that gave me a lot of good operation to come in. So my experience in a sports business, combined with a lifelong fandom of wrestling, I think served

me well. The thing I probably wasn't prepared for at first the first several months was getting my hands around doing everything. I don't think anybody ever expected me to get so organized. Well, let's so let's jump it. Let's jump into that deeper, okay, because look, I tried to run a show, right. I had a sitcom back in the day. It lasted one season, and it lasted one season because I tried to do everything all right. So now some people can do this. Their brains are just

wired that way. I'm left handed, so I'm more right brained, so I cannot. Okay, So I it's a this is a this is a tricky thing because I was gonna ask you, like I'm friends with or friendly with Junie Buss, and so I've spoken to her about how she what things she takes over versus how her dad approached things. Her dad was very much about designating responsibility. What I've heard and where I think you're about to go is you're in especially in the at least in the beginning

phases of this you want hands on everything? Is that correct? I was not hands on about every I was over seeing everything, but it was probably more of a collaborative thing the first several months, and I just felt like it wasn't was it organized as I would like it to be. We had risen to such great heights and it's such a great opportunity, and it was all so close. And at the end of you know, we launched the show, had a huge debut, did really good ratings, and now

doing really great ratings these past few years. But after the first two months or so, uh maybe maybe even after the first six seven weeks, started to see it dip UM and I think it was probably around late November into December and continued through December, and it was a trend and I didn't like the way the ratings were going, and clearly the way the ratings are going

were reflecting that the fans didn't. You know, I didn't like the direction I was going where we were going, and so I made a lot of changes, uh, going into that, I felt really good about UM in terms of being more organized and just you know, uh doing it all shows by hands and they've been a lot of you know, more focused, and uh, it's it's great having like lots of ideas coming from lots of different places. And I do utilize and have lots of different contributors

bringing ideas to the table. But um, it's just hard. Like you've been in those writers, they're brutal, so it can be very difficult. I mean, I was the kind of guy I could handle about, you know, five or six storylines on my plate before the work would start to suffer. But you're getting pitched forty fifty things a week, so you know, it's like you're going to SNL and they're like, hey, we have fifty sketches. Don't worry about

memorizing all of them, but please memorize mine. And it's every talent coming in with their ideas, right, and you're the host. You're like, yo, I've never done this. You do this every week, like we have to find a common ground here. So what I've seen you pull off has been nothing short of impressive to me. And and you're gonna take criticism no matter what because it's art.

So the critics are right as much as the fans are right, because we're all conditioned to enjoy things based on how we were raised and and how we interpret information. There's types of TV series now that give you everything in the pilot, and when I was a kid, they made you wait, but with binging shows they don't anymore, so that the style has changed. But that's not my thing. I don't go around crapping on it. I just know what I like, so I'll just go watch Clue the

movie or something like that great movie. So you know every every single work, Yeah, me too. I'm not handid and I know every word of yo. So here's the

side quest real quick. When we were doing I Know You did last summer, we were in North Carolina and Madeline Khan, who was Mrs White, was in the bungalow next to me, and I was cooking food and it was gonna be for the cast, and Madeleine Khan literally goes, whatever you'll smelling or whatever you're cooking smells marvelous, darling, and I went, oh my god, thank you so much.

And she came to this little white picket fence we were staying in these cottages and she goes, I'm coming to have dinner with you, and I legit snubbed the whole rest of the cast and had dinner with Madeline, who I was completely in love with, a total crush on her. It was like a Portobello mushroom pop. My mom was a chef. She talked about a cook and the cast didn't even talk to my white My future wife didn't even talk to me the next day. And

it's all Madeline cons fault. But I didn't care, and I love her and I love her in that movie when she's like flames on the side of my face, he's greatest anyway, side quest over her and Tim Curry had all the best dialogue in that movie. There was an animated Star Wars show called The Clone Wars, and he did in the final season. He was the I don't know people are supposed to know that, but yeah, he was the Emperor's voice. I didn't know that. Yeah,

they played with it a little bit. But his acting is so sick that people like, yeah, we're good, so okay. Howard Hessman passed away recently. Uh you know, he played uh, the religious guy who turns out to be an undercover top at the end The Kingdom of Heaven Is Real. Had to hold back. I was like wrestling plans aren't gonna get this, but I wanted to post. I can't believe the clue just got us to this. This is amazing. Clue was huge in the wrestling business, like so many

people in wrestling wealth Clue. Did you know that it they played different endings in different theaters all across the country. They should have been and that's why the movie bombed in theaters that they didn't get people all three. So satisfying to see the three endings. But is you you're

such a clooner. This is amazing. So Howard has been passed away, and I should have done it if I wanted to post the meme of like him saying like the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, because I thought that would be really appropriate set off for Howard Hussement. You're allowed to meme whatever you want. Man, you don't have to worry about that. It's out of respect. You know, it's not like you're slandering the good man. People don't

get stuff. I don't know. I should have done it, So Howard Custment, I want, I wanted to do it. I should have done it. He was great in w therapy Cincinnati. Yes, absolutely, that's great. So he that is one. The other thing that he just reminded me of with Tim Curry is uh the Emperor, you know, the in the actual movie Game McDermott. I had never seen him in another movie until this weekend Winbert passed away. Wait wait, oh yeah he did. And I've never seen Rky Park

and I've heard it's good. So I watched Roky Park and it's really good, except that, like it's one of those things where like all the Russian acts there, all the Russian characters are played by British actors, so it's like Star Wars where it's just like all the homes of British vilains, but the Russian and and all the all the Romans in movies are English as well. It

always works out like that. They got they got a Scottish Russian once with Sean Connery, but he just he basically says fuck it in the pirst scene and does his own thing in Entreet October. That's so true. Yeah, and he's got a great wig too. That's a power wig. Man. When I tell my hair, it kind of gets that like Kevin Nash, Sean Connery, Red October looked to it.

It's pretty hot and we just we just lost you know, William heard and I had never seen him Mcgermand in another movie, but he was in the working park and he plays like this Russian professor with a British accent. Does it take you out of it knowing he's the emperor? Was the role? That was the Emperor's role? That impactful that you're almost like or was it? Okay? It's a pretty crazy pay a pretty crazy character. He's like the scientist who like, uh, like, you know, I don't want

to spoil that. I don't know. I haven't seen it yet, so for sure I liked it. I wanted to go back and watch something with blame hurt. I hadn't seen a free pass and I rarely get free time to do anything, and I had a couple of hours, so I watched it. So so we had so much in comment, as we've established here. Uh so, yeah, man, I want to get back into this, Like and you said this earlier. You you were basically learning on the job with a hyper amount of success right away, but still having to

learn valuable and sometimes rough asked lessons I had. I was a rocket ship, like from my first little job, all of a sudden, I was doing movies, movies, movies, but I was so green that I always felt like I wanted to redo every single scene by the time the movie was over, because I felt like I was a better actor, but I was getting to work with

like legends, right, So I tried to sponge it. And I always hated everything I did early in career to the point where I don' I've only seen three movies I've been into my life because I always felt like I wanted to change everything. Did you go through something like that or is it just you have to steam roll and be like throwing away every week. I still go through that every like at the end of every week, at the end of every taping. It's rare, like like

revolution all out. There are times where like it's just so perfect that you come out the original Revolution. There have been times where like you you're done with it, and you're like, that could not have gone any better. Let's celebrate one of the greatest nights we're ever gonna have.

But more, you know, we've done a twenty seven episode to Dynamite and thirty something episodes a rampage, and a lot of times when I come out of TV, even though even some of the ones that have been the best received, most popular shows, there's like one thing I want to have back, And I'm just like banging my head and ripping my hair and yelling at myself, like what was I thinking just about one thing? You know,

like you could have flipped these two segments around. Um, you know, I would have probably put this later in the show, or I could have maybe held the rating up higher if I go on with these is the lead segments. So I think about that stuff all the time and beat myself up. But I would also rather beat myself up than beat anyone else stuff Again, like a lot of it lives in my head. It's one of the reasons why we don't have as much leaking of surprises their secrets and stuff, because like it all

right here anyway. So you know. So it was a lot of learning on the job, and I think there was like a big moment. We only lost the demo once, like we went I think we're head to head with nx SKI for like seventy six weeks, and we went like seventy five and one in the demo and the work where the one was the one to reset me. We have been losing the overall number, which was not

the number of the network tired as much. You know that the number that was like the lead number on the report that they would talk to us about, like the actual scoreline lead to week number eighteen forty nine that they focused on. But also you know, looking at the total viewers in December, we were losing it the total viewers, but we were still holding out to the demo, and I I dropped. I quit being in denial when we lost the demo. And then it's the only week

off I've ever had since we started. This is Christmas twenty nineteen, because we've done a show every single week since October two often except for Christmas twenty nineteen, we were off because it was Christmas Day. We didn't do a show that day. How is your brain allowing you to step away or did your brain make it? Did someone tell you, hey, man, take a week? Did you need to do? Like what what's going on? And tell myself?

Like you know those things you do and you know firstanding I know you all know exact what I'm talking about, Like you know, and like there's something you don't believe in and you're like I'm just gonna do it because like made it right. And and then like by the end of that first year, at the end of twenty nineteen, we did do in the show for like three months and it just felt like I had that moment. I

was like, I'm not gonna do anything anymore. I don't believe in And and then like you know how you sat like in New Years Resolution like that, like and I was like, Okay, going into this New Year, we get this. Christmas all of New Year's Day was one of the best shows we've ever gone, and not just because of everyone involved, Like you know, the wrestling was

off the charts and everybody brought it. There was such a We had a huge main event with the arm Bucks and Kenny Omega versus Pack and the Looser Brothers before they became the Death Drawing Gold but but as a trio that was originally supposed to be the Fighter in Festimating then in the first Fighter in fest foot Pack at a Visa issue and so arrato, kid, I love Pack by the way, I he look, you have some guys and some girls that can talk, that can

talk to the point where I don't believe you're you're you use writers I don't believe you do. Um. I was always I have always agreed with this is weird for me to say it, but I always agreed with this philosophy. I felt I should only be there for the people who can't write their own promote that you won't get a mouthpiece four. So that was sort of my approach was, Okay, you're not a talker, let me.

And there was one time I won't say the wrestler, but I put an ear piece in his ear, just like Marlon Brando used to do, and I in backstage read him line for line how to cut it the emotion. But because he literally, he goes, bro, I'm a robot, just tell me how to do it. And I'm like, you gottah. He's I can't memorize this, but if you tell me how to say it, I'll say it. And I was like, let me think of something. And so we went to magic and I was like, can I

get like an earpiece? They go, we don't have that here, but we can get you one from the truck, and they grabbed me an earpiece and we stuck a little. The tiny little receiver is here, not the one with like the loop or anything. Just a tiny receiver. And I was in Guerrilla and just cutting lines, telling him and telling him good job, Like I even screwed him up one time. I was like, that was really nice, and he kind of like smiled and I was like, no, no no, no, I've never done it. I've never done

that before. But yeah, so you have, so you do have some talkers. And that leads me to somebody. Oh I absolutely fell in love with because I hate him um and he needed to get beat up. But to me, he is not only the future, but the right now. And that's m JF. You guys told a story with him and Punk that was so the opposite of the stories being told in mainstream wrestling right now. You took your time. It lacks it's nothing felt rushed. You didn't

give anything away. And he wore a white suit. He wore a I literally when I saw that Punk had the white teacher, he had the white suit. I told him. A fan of horror movies, I was like, oh, there will be blood, and that's such a beautiful representation. Like I've said this and you'll you'll click with this. I think I've a He's felt wrestling is the purest form of art because it's the literal blood, sweat and tears

on an actual canvas, and it's that's Jackson Pollock. Man, Like that to me is what those bloody, those bloody

matches are. It's Jackson Pollock. And he wasn't for everyone, but he's what made modern American artists respectable around the world was because of him and his willingness to just sort of vomit his emotions on a canvas, which is what it was compared to by his critics, but it literally set American contemporary art on a whole new level that rested on his and a handful of other artists shoulders. But Ed Harris played him, so he gets to be

the most famous one. Um, you guys, Sorry, you guys, that's the cynical side of me sneaking in once in a while. Um, you guys have something. And I call him JF one of the pillars of A. E. W. Right. He is ten years from now when he's still there, and it's probably gonna be the highest paid wrestler on

the face of the planet. He is going to be one of those guys that you're building multiple at least this is my opinion, multiple, multiple men off of where And I already saw it with Wardlowe just for a second, like where it was just like he's been a robot and now he's vulnerable for the first time and he's actually like expressing himself with some vulnerability. And I was like, if they pulled it off on their first try, like on their first try, a man, hallelujah. But I honestly

feel you guys are on such a great path. I know you can't blow too much smoke at this kid, but can you just talk about m JF Where you found him, who helped you get eyeballs on him? Where was the first? Like if you're cool talking about that stuff. The first time I saw him was on MLW and uh, I was watching MLW that summer team. It was really

big for me. The only people that really first took this seriously were Matt Jackson and Chris Yech and I talked to both of them almost every day and uh and from the air they brought in a lot of other really good people like obviously Matt rod Nick his brother and his white Gana runs our merchandise and she's a big part of the company too, And then obviously with Kenny with Kenny Omega, Tody Rhodes. You know when

I want to talk to Matt. I wanted to get the Bullet Club together, especially inarticular the Elite with Matt and Nick and Kenny, which I thought it was the best trio in the world. And I really saw Teddy coming in as a singles headliner and Matt Nick as the top tag team, and I wanted to get Jericho and the business case. I knew there were a couple of things happening and not so, so let me go back to MJF who was the person you've asked about, And that's the reson I'm focusing on here. But but

that's the way I found him was on MLW. I was watching a ton of wrestling and other people like him too. Like once I started talking to so, he brought up that he thought would be great. Um. But in my scouting, he was one of the first people I saw outside of that group of names I just mentioned, uh And and Trent, Trent Bratta would be people that remember Trent Dode. You want to side quest real quick? Okay. It was my second stint a w W E and

I'm just running basically an acting class. Okay, so the same techniques that we would do, like repetition, we're saying, Tony, it's a pleasure to meet you. You're locked into those words. You can go it's a pleasure to meet me. It's a pleasure to meet and we go back and forth until someone feels so stupid I have to change the line. Whoever changes the line to loses right. So we would do all this stuff like MS would kill it, that kind of stuff, because he's just like, f you, let's go.

But Trent was in there with with with a J and um Mendes and they were going to do repetition, and he was I don't remember what his name was back then. They gave him a terrible name, as they do sometimes, but I don't think so. I think it was I don't think so Bretta is cool, but it's like, what's that FCW. So they came up and they did a repetition, but it was Pokemon, and I had never I didn't know if I was too old, I didn't

know what Pokemon was. So he goes something like, hey, that's a that's a sweet, right you or something like that, and she goes, that's a sweet right and it's going back and forth, and I literally look over to Big Show and Cardona and I went, what the fund is it right you? And and Big Show pop too loud. I go, you guys, what are you talking about right now? And it was literally, we're going back with the bottom Pokemon.

That was my introduction to Pokemon. And then A j went on to become a freaking world champion after I left, and then a best selling freaking author. And now she's about to take over Hollywood and she's now running another wrestling She's gonna run Wow. I don't know if that's public, but she's gonna run Women of Wrestling. And she's written some scripts that aren't announced yet, but one of them is going to be and it's like with the biggest freaking director in the world man, So she's killing it.

So she's also left handed and she's also right brain, just like us. So shout out to to all the south Paws in the world right now, everybody. Thanks for listening to Part one of the Tony con Interview. Tune in next week for the conclusion, aptly named Part two. This has been a production of I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio Hop, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. H