Tony Khan spoke with reporters on a media conference call on Wednesday ahead of tonight’s major announcement and Sunday’s Revolution pay-per-view. Cody Rhodes was brought up several times throughout the call, which led to Khan giving more details on his and Brandi’s departure from AEW last month. At one point he was asked if Rhodes’ contract had an option for additional years like what the Young Bucks initially agreed to. Khan said he was more interested in locking “The American Nightmare” into a long-term deal and once the two sides were unable to to come to an agreement, he opted to let Cody go.
“I don’t want to get too deep into it because a lot it’s personal between me and (Cody) but I tried to reach a longer agreement with him beyond what we had for the option years,” Khan said. “And it sounded like at one point I think that we were going to, honestly, and when we couldn’t settle on it, the last thing I want to do is keep somebody here who isn’t gonna want to be here so it didn’t look like we were gonna get a longer deal done.
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“I would’ve loved to have done it and I have a lot of respect for him but when we didn’t come to terms on that it made it pretty clear where we were gonna end up on things,” he added. “That being said, I said nothing but respectful stuff about Cody and I’ll continue to.”
He was later asked if there was any additional pressure on putting on a great show with Revolution given that it’s the first pay-per-view without Rhodes being in the company. Khan said there wasn’t, pointing out that a handful of previous pay-per-views didn’t have Rhodes on the card. He specifically mentioned All Out 2021, which many still consider as AEW’s best show from top to bottom. Check out the full card for Revolution below.
- AEW World Championship:ย “Hangman” Adam Page vs. Adam Coleย
- AEW Women’s World Championship:ย Dr. Britt Baker vs. Thunder Rosa
- AEW World Tag Team Championships:ย Jurassic Express vs. reDRagon vs. TBD
- Face of the Revolution Ladder Match:ย Keith Lee vs. Wardlow vs. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Ricky Starks vs. Orange Cassidy vs. TBD
- TBS Championship:ย Jade Cargill vs. Tay Conti
- CM Punk (-325) vs. MJF (+225) (Dog Collar Match)
- Jon Moxley vs. Bryan Danielson
- Chris Jericho vs. Eddie Kingston
- Darby Allin, Sting and Sammy Guevara vs. AHFO (Tornado Trios Tag Team Match)
