Tony Khan discusses ‘The Owen’, Madison Square Garden and more subjects.
This coming Friday, AEW’s Rampage program will be going head-to-head with SmackDown on FS1. SmackDown is going to have a 30-minute overrun which will lean into Rampage. AEW President Tony Khan recently added a BUY-IN pre-show for Rampage which starts at 9 PM EST and that show will feature Bryan Danielson versus Minoru Suzuki along with Bobby Fish versus Lee Moriarty.
Khan made the media rounds to promote Rampage and Saturday Night Dynamite and he sat down with Robbie Fox on ‘My Mom’s Basement’. Khan shed some light on when people can expect more information about the Owen Hart Cup. Khan said he is planning to make announcements about The Owen when AEW is back on Wednesday nights.
I am gonna make announcements [about the Owen Hart Cup] in due time, but I think we’ve got a couple big weekends. It’s unusual doing Dynamite on a Saturday but we always do Rampage Friday night so it’s a great chance to make a go of it.
And I think for when we’re back on Wednesday night Dynamite, I plan to make more announcements about The Owen and I just — when we talked to Martha Hart originally, [Chris] Jericho, who’s another good friend to Barstool and a good friend of mine and Martha Hart’s, put Martha and myself together on Zoom during the pandemic and we Zoomed a bunch of times and built a friendship and I think Martha’s got something really special that she wants to share with the wrestling world which is the legacy of Owen Hart and it’s up to her and she has the choice of what wrestling company, if any, she wanted to work with to disseminate and really help build that indelible legacy of Owen Hart. This really great, important person in the history of pro wrestling and I’m just glad AEW’s gonna be for a long a time, the legacy of Owen and The Owen. This tournament is gonna be really special and we’ll announce more about it but I’m excited to tell you more.
Last month, AEW presented their Dynamite and Rampage Grand Slam events from Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York. While Madison Square Garden does appeal to Khan, he feels there is something special with Arthur Ashe considering that AEW is the only wrestling that has taken place in the venue.
It appealed to me at one point [Madison Square Garden]. More so now, I have Arthur Ashe [Stadium]. I think it’s one of the homes [of AEW]. Certainly in New York City, I think it’s the home of AEW. We have great things in the market and the area but really New York’s a bunch of markets so in the New York City market, particularly what we have there in Queens, it’s very special and I would love to come down here. We have UBS [Arena]. What an amazing fan base we have in Long Island and the numbers we’ve done for our pre-sale in UBS are pretty amazing and I love going over to Newark and it was great fans there but being in New York City was fantastic. Grand Slam in many ways is one of the biggest success stories we’ve ever had so I definitely wanna keep coming back to Arthur Ashe and for MSG, it’s been appealing to me but there’s been a lot of wrestling there whereas we’re the only wrestling that’s ever been for Arthur Ashe. The Grand Slam is very special to AEW.
POST Wrestling will have coverage of both Rampage and SmackDown as the shows are airing. This week’s SmackDown will feature an appearance from Brock Lesnar in addition to the King of the Ring and Queen’s Crown tournament finals.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit My Mom’s Basement with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
