Tony Khan Explains Why AEW’s Current Roster Reminds Him of WCW 1997

AEW president Tony Khan has said in previous interviews that he doesn’t want All Elite Wrestling to be viewed as “the next WCW,” but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see similarities between the two promotions. During his latest appearance on Busted Open Radio, Khan explained why he sees similarities between the current AEW roster and what WCW had back in 1997 when WCW Monday Nitro was consistently beating WWF’s Monday Night Raw in the “Monday Night Wars.” At that point, WCW’s roster had its fair share of established stars like Hollywood Hogan, Sting, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall but also had plenty of promising, young talent like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio.

“I don’t want to compare our roster to anything, ever, but I like to compare our roster sometimes to what I think was the hallmark great roster, which was 1997 WCW where you had all these stars and all this young talent,” Khan explained (h/t Fightful). “I really do my best to try to utilize the roster even better than they were when they were a successful company and printing money in 97 and 98. They had a lot of young talent that they didn’t realize and they could have built for the future to help make it a profitable company that they never want to shut down. They could have made it a money-printing machine if they developed the young talent in-house that they had like Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio. I do try to build stars for the future and that’s why you have so many great homegrown stars that are being featured at All Out.

“There are great opportunities here and I don’t think Jericho, Mysterio, and Guerrero got those same opportunities when they were on a roster with the all-time names like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Randy Savage, and Roddy Piper,” he continued. “What a great TV business they built with that roster that unfortunately didn’t last, but I think would have lasted longer if they had built the young stars the way I try to do.”