AEW’s Tony Khan on the Daniel Bryan Rumors, WWE Changing Its Recruiting Strategy

AEW’s Tony Khan spoke with Wrestling Observer Radio this week to preview the company’s upcoming All Out pay-per-view. One of the biggest stories heading into the show is the reports and rumors that Daniel Bryan — a little more than four months removed from main eventing WrestleMania 37 — will make his debut for the promotion in Chicago. But much like with the CM Punk situation earlier this month, Khan is refraining from commenting.

“I can’t answer that question. It’s fair for you to ask. Nothing I can address on the Observer today. He’s one of the all-time greats,” Khan said.

However, he did confirm AEW will have some new faces arriving between now and the end of the year — “Definitely going to make multiple additions in the next 4-6 months. Will be some activity in the near future. I can’t specify exactly what it is but I don’t think people want me to.” Other names that have been rumored for AEW include Adam Cole, Bray Wyatt and Ric Flair.

Elsewhere in the interview, Khan discussed WWE reportedly changing its strategy in recruiting new wrestlers, putting a heavier emphasis on former athletes rather than independent wrestlers. Khan responded to that news with several tweets over the past week.

“There are people who look great but will never be good at this,” Khan said. “You can pick 100 good-looking people and you might find zero that are great at what wrestlers really do.”

Khan also spoke with Dan Le Batard earlier in the week about 50+ releases WWE has made since the start of 2021.

“I think I can actually put them over and give them some credit here because they can’t keep every wrestler under their thumb, they just couldn’t do it,” he said. “They tried to sign so many people and had cast such a wide net for so long, that inevitably, somebody with money and connections was going to be able to come in and start a wrestling business. The disconnect [for any other potential start-up], would be they were probably going to have to pass it off to somebody else to run the business. One of the real things I had going when we launched this company was all the institutional knowledge I’d built up over the years. You know, Dynamite is a show I’ve been writing on paper for over 25 years for 26 years, and Rampage, its sister show, is a show I conceived over 10 years ago. So I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life and I really just needed somebody to believe in me, which was TNT/WarnerMedia. I don’t think it was really possible to stop me in this case, because, you know, I would have found a media partner, I would have found wrestlers who wanted to work with me, and I would have been able to launch a show.”