Tony Khan had major plans for All Elite Wrestling in 2021. But the year wound up being so much bigger than he possibly imagined. On the business side, the young company launched a second weekly show in AEW Rampage, returned to touring the country after spending 16 months inside Jacksonville’s Daily’s Place amid the Covid-19 pandemic, announced AEW Dynamite‘s move to TBS and signed some of the biggest free agents in the industry. Meanwhile, the in-ring product was elevated to a new level thanks to a near year-long AEW World Championship reign from Kenny Omega, major crossovers with other promotions and the rise of homegrown talents like Hangman Page, Dr. Britt Baker and AEW’s “Four Pillars” — MJF, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara and Jungle Boy.
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Khan sat down with ComicBook this week for an interview and kicked things off by reflecting on the events of 2021 — “I had no idea at the beginning of the year what to expect. I knew we were hoping to get back on the road later in the year. And we had a plan. That ended up working out tremendously well. We’ve been back on the road for six months, and that was a huge goal for 2021, was to get back on the road and started seeing the fans at the live event, But one of the most important things I wanted to do was continue to expand our roster and make AEW not only the home of professional wrestling but (make) AEW the home of the best roster in the world. And I do believe we had the best roster of any company on the planet right now.”
Perhaps no homegrown AEW star found more success in 2021 than Hangman Page. The former Ring of Honor midcarder made the bold claim at AEW’s first rally in early 2019 that he would be the company’s first world champion. He’d fail in that attempt months later at the first All Out event, but it set the wheels in motion for a storyline that became as old as the company itself, culminating in Page winning the title to a massive ovation at the Full Gear pay-per-view in 2021.
“I always knew that it would be a few years before Hangman was the champion, but I always expected Hangman to be the champion,” Khan said. “I always expected (Chris) Jericho, (Jon) Moxley and Omega to be the first three champions. And I always believed that all three of them would have great reigns that would be cornerstones that we would build the company on. And I think that came to life. All of them represented the company incredibly well. And all their reigns were very important times for the company, they helped us get through a lot of shows and they all have great matches.
“Jericho was really our first champion, helped us get going. And then Moxley and Omega kept the company strong through the pandemic. And Hangman, I had earmarked to be our star for the future,” he added.
But for every hero there must be a villain, and few played that role better in 2021 than Omega. “The Cleaner” closed out 2020 by turning heel, aligning himself with Don Callis and cheating to win the AEW World Championship from Moxley. But the Canadian star didn’t settle for just putting on great matches as the face of AEW — he was also at the forefront of AEW’s crossovers with promotions like Impact Wrestling (winning their world title in April and holding it until Rampage’s premiere), Lucha Libre AAA and New Japan.
“He was such a great world champion and was so great for AEW on and off-camera,” Khan said. “He absolutely had some of the greatest wrestling matches I’ve ever seen. Just in 2021, when you look back at his amazing match with Ray Fenix on Dynamite, and his incredible three-way match with PAC and Orange Cassidy at Double or Nothing, his title defense against Jungle Boy on Dynamite, his great match with Christian on Rampage and a great rematch at All Out. He was in some great tag matches this year. And also, of course, (the) match the Hangman page at Full Gear where Hangman became the champion. That’s only the beginning of listing off the great matches Kenny had this year. And there was no one better to represent the company in big match after big match through this great year.”
On top of what was happening on AEW programming each week, the company was also right in the middle of the biggest story of the pro wrestling industry — the free agency market. WWE, having restructured its recruiting and developmental strategy with NXT 2.0 and undergoing waves of budget cuts, chose to release more than 80 wrestlers throughout the year, causing the independent wrestling scene (still recovering from COVID-19 shutting down live events across the country for roughly a year) to suddenly be flush with talent. AEW picked up some of those released stars, while other WWE stars openly chose to leave in order to join the young promotion’s roster.
“I think there’s definitely a lot of common interests between our companies (regarding what types of wrestlers each promotion wants),” Khan said. “I know that we have signed some great wrestlers who were released from WWE contracts, and I’m not sure why each of them was released. But I know that they’ve been great assets for us. But then, there are a number of wrestlers who signed, that WWE did want to keep in the fold, and they were competing with us for their services. So, to have Bryan Danielson, who’s now the No. 1 contender to the AEW World Championship, and one of the most important wrestlers in AEW, and possibly our next champion, they wanted to keep Bryan Danielson. I never expected Bryan Danielson to be a free agent. I didn’t expect us to be in the mix to sign him, but that’s how great the company has grown and how much we’ve matured in recent years that a great star like Bryan Danielson would become available to us, for AEW. And not only that, but that he would choose to come to AEW over staying (in WWE) — and he had a very significant offer to stay in WWE — and this was the choice he made.”
Three of the big signings from this year included Adam Cole, Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly, the original three members of WWE’s Undisputed Era faction. The trio will wrestle their first six-man tag match on this week’s Dynamite and Khan admitted he takes pride in being able to recruit three stars who, when Dynamite first launched in late 2019, were leading the charge for the opposition on Wednesday nights.
“I really do value that,” Khan said. “It reminds me in sports, say in football, you play against an opponent, and they have great players. And if you could sign those players that used to compete with you, and give you trouble when you were game-planning. If these were the people you game-planned against and knew that these would be the toughest matchups, then to bring those people onto your team, those are some of the best acquisitions you can make. And to be able to add Adam Cole and Bobby Fish, and now to have Kyle O’Reilly make his debut on AEW Dynamite this week, I think it’s very special. It’s that much more special to do it in Daily’s Place, the home of AEW, where we’ve competed against those guys (WWE) so much. And to have that act, Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, and Bobby Fish come in against one of our top homegrown acts, Orange Cassidy, and The Best Friends, it’s a big, big deal here. It’s very symbolic, it’s very fitting. I’m very happy JR (Jim Ross, returning from his battle with skin cancer) is going to return to the broadcast booth, and he’ll be there to call that match. It should be great.”
As for the future, it will take quite a bit for AEW’s 2022 to surpass 2021. But Khan already has a plan in mind.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to do the whole year touring, and spend 52 weeks touring across different, great markets,” Khan said. “This year, the first half of the year, we were very fortunate that we were able to do the shows in Daily’s Place, but it wasn’t until the second half of the year, where we got back on the road and saw so many more great fans across the country. So, we’ll always keep Daily’s Place in the mix. We’re there this week, and we’ll be back again soon. But we’ll be a lot of great places around the country in between. And I think it’ll be great to bring AEW back to the west coast this year with Double or Nothing. And some of the TV around that. And I look forward to hitting more markets.
“And also, this will be the first year we’ve had this full roster in place. A lot of people came to AEW at the end of 2021,” he added. “Huge stars, like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Ruby Soho, Adam Cole and now Kyle O’Reilly. All of them and more will have a chance to wrestle a full year in AEW, and I think that’s going to be very special.”
And for fans holding out hope for more crossovers, the man known as “The Forbidden Door” confirmed more are on the way.
“We’ve only begun opening the Forbidden Door, and I think we still can and will open the Forbidden Door, many more times,” Khan said.
AEW Dynamite will air its final episode on TNT on Wednesday night — New Year’s Smash — then kick-off 2021 with Dynamite’s first TBS episode on Jan. 5 and the Battle of the Belts special on TNT on Jan. 8.
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