Tony Khan reflects on Satnam Singh’s AEW debut.
The conclusion of the 4/13 episode of AEW Dynamite saw Samoa Joe defeat Minoru Suzuki to become the new ROH World Television Champion. On the outside of the ring were Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt who Joe is involved in an on-screen program with.
The lights in the arena went out and when the lights came back on, Satnam Singh, AEW signee and 2015 NBA Draft pick was standing behind Joe and that led to Joe being beaten down to close the show. There was a great deal of feedback on social media about the presentation of Satnam’s debut.
Tony Khan appeared on Busted Open Radio and said the idea to turn the lights off was not his and that came from someone with 30 years of experience in the wrestling business. Khan said no negatives were pointed out when the idea was presented but he and those around him were not thinking about the cons.
I could have done it better [Satnam Singh’s AEW debut]. It’s like — it’s one of those things, I wish I had done it a little differently because the fans are always gonna be right so if the fans don’t like something, sometimes there’s some things about it that where you’re trying to get heat which this was a trying to get heat situation, people aren’t always gonna love it. But there were things about it I probably should have done differently now I see in hindsight and to be honest, it wasn’t my idea to turn the lights out. But I am the ultimate filter, I am the person who everything goes through. I put the outline of the show together and I came in Wednesday, I thought it was the best outline I’ve ever put together, one of them at least. As much strong wrestling as you could possibly fit into the program and I thought up until that point, the show was excellent and that was the one thing we went off on. People might not have liked it. Satnam’s an important person for us, it was important to debut him in a meaningful way and to show that with Jay Lethal, he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. At the same time, turning the lights out for somebody people didn’t recognize, it’s a great point and to be honest, when — well the person who brought up turning the lights off has over 30 years of experience in pro wrestling and when they brought it up to me, I was only looking at the pros and I should have thought about the cons because that is my job as the person who decides what goes in and who filters out these ideas. We had all these people in the room and somehow not one person, when that idea came up, brought out the negatives and then when we did it, all of a sudden, all of the negatives were very obvious. So, look, if I list — I’m not gonna say who it was and I don’t need to list all the credentials. Mark [Henry] included all the great wrestling people around me and in the production meeting but you know, it was a lot of veteran people and to be honest, nobody said that but then when it happened, I agreed with the fans completely.
To hear John Pollock and Bruce Lord’s thoughts about the arrival of Satnam Singh, head over to the POST Wrestling YouTube channel to catch up on the latest Rewind-A-Dynamite episode.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Busted Open Radio with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
