Wade Keller spoke with AEW President Tony Khan and Tony commented on the mistakes All Elite Wrestling has made so far. Moments such as the Men’s Casino Battle Royal, the Shawn Spears chair shot to Cody, and Adam Page and Kip Sabian going to long.
Khan had this to say when talking about the Men’s Casino Battle Royal:
“The Double or Nothing Battle Royale, the Casino Battle Royale at the beginning, it was almost intentional that you had Max [MJF] out there with the guys he was out there with. Because it was to build to a big moment with Max and Shawn Spears, which is something we thought out for the future. And the problem was, you know, the first several minutes were, they were almost intentionally flat, and it was the first several minutes of wrestling we’d ever presented out of the gate. So maybe, you know, it was a big gamble that people were going to stick with us, and thankfully they did and a lot of people ordered the show. But yeah, that’s a risky move out of the gate when it’s your first couple of minutes of wrestling you’ve ever technically done.
“But it did work, and I don’t know if I’ve ever told this story in public. But as I was sitting there with Cody in the gorilla, this was early enough in the show that he was still with me, and then all the guys had their matches and they’re going to change out. The one person who’s always going to be there timing and there for whatever is me. And so, it was a little hand-holding moment. Because we knew Spears is about to come out, and we really needed this to work. [laughs] So like, we found ourselves literally looking over, holding hands, waiting for the pop for Spears and it worked. And that was a big moment, and it really picked up from there and I thought from there it was great. But it was a really ballsy move out of the gate and maybe too much to try and almost have the first part be flat. I actually got hands-on with the Women’s Casino Battle Royale in terms of laying it out, because I wanted to make sure we didn’t do that again.”
The All Elite Wrestling president commented on Shawn Spears’ chair shot to Cody’s head as well:
“In terms of other things … I mean look, the Cody/Shawn Spears feud and the stuff they did on Road To, it was tremendous. And would everything have come out and would they have built this amazing feud, that to me is one of the best feuds anyone has done all year with getting Tully Blanchard involved and the stuff we did over the summer from Fyter Fest to All Out. I think it was awesome. Would it have been as big without the chair? I don’t know. Could we have done the chair shot better? Yeah. And we were supposed to and it didn’t come off the way it was supposed to. And you know, I’ve addressed that. But it wasn’t what I had signed up for.”
Khan lastly commented on the match between Adam Page and Kip Sabian from Fyter Fest:
“Besides that, I don’t think the Hangman Page-Kip Sabian match should have gone as long as it did, and it wasn’t supposed to go as long as it did. And I almost cut five minutes out of it, and I wish I had. I regret not cutting the five, and it went another two longer than it was supposed to. So that is one thing I regret, because Fight For The Fallen was a great show and that was probably the one thing that dragged. And then you know, I don’t think it did anybody any favors. I don’t think it helped Kip, either. So yeah, ’cause Kip’s awesome and the point of it was, we want people to see, ‘Look, Hangman is a big star but we also really care about Kip, and this is a guy you’re going to pay attention to in the future.’ But it didn’t come off the way it wanted it to, and I certainly didn’t want it to go 19 [minutes]. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to go 17 minutes, let alone 19. And it probably would have been the right move to cut it to 12 or 13 like I was thinking.”
Credit to Wade Keller Pro Wrestling podcast and H/T to 411Mania for the transcription.
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