Tony Khan On AEW's Increased Diversity: "It's Really Important To Me"
Tony Khan on how free agents have helped AEW improve its roster's diversity.
Roster diversity remains an important priority for AEW CEO and founder Tony Khan, who spoke on the matter during a recent appearance on The Ringer Wrestling Show.
Asked about the topic directly, Khan spoke on names like Keith Lee, Swerve Strickland, Stokely Hathaway, and Athena, none of whom were available to AEW until become free agents recently. In addition, he put TBS Champion Jade Cargill over as a ground-up AEW prospect who entered the promotion with no prior experience.
Said Khan (h/t WrestlingNews.co):-
"It's something that's really important to me... eery single person you named pretty much was not available when AEW started. Those are all free agent acquisitions, except for Jade, who we've trained and is one of the very few wrestlers that has trained from the ground up in AEW because primarily, the general rule of thumb is we signed people with experience in wrestling. We don't train people from the ground up, and Jade is the exception of any rules. What a great wrestler she is. I think virtually every other wrestler you named -- Keith Lee, Swerve Strickland, Athena, Stokely Hathaway -- These are people that were not available to us. They were under contract elsewhere. I would have killed to have these people in AEW before and now I'm thrilled they're all here as a part of AEW. "
Continuing, Khan mentioned his attempts at using AEW's primary YouTube series, Dark, as a developmental show, citing Red Velvet, Powerhouse Hobbs, and The Acclaimed as success stories who had broken out in AEW differently from the big-name signings:-
"But I also in that time, tried to develop talent through a grassroots system. And I was using AEW Dark and still continue to this day to develop wrestlers on AEW Dark on YouTube. They aren't always on television. And these people weren't even coming in to be showcased on AEW Dark. They were coming in for tryouts, for developmental work. But great examples of this are Powerhouse Hobbs, Max Caster, and Anthony Bowens at first separately as individual wrestlers actually trained at the same school and never teamed before. Now they are The Acclaimed, one of the pushed acts on television... Red Velvet is a great example of that also. So Hobbs, Red Velvet, Caster and Bowens individually they were all tryout wrestlers on AEW Dark."
Cycling back to Lee, Strickland, Athena, and Hathaway (whom he calls "the best manager in wrestling", the AEW chief said he thought it was "crazy" that each of them got released by WWE. Nonetheless, he is glad to have them on board:-
"These were not people that were available to us. So I would have killed to have them and when they got released, I thought it was crazy. Every one of those people getting out of their contract getting released, being on the street, looking to wrestle work for us. It was crazy to me. And I'm so happy that we're all here."
Of the wrestlers mentioned by Khan, Cargill currently reigns as AEW TBS Championship, Hobbs is part of the number two ranked tag team in the company with Ricky Starks, while Lee and Strickland are third on the same list.
As Swerve In Our Glory, Strickland and Lee face The Butcher And The Blade on this Wednesday's Dynamite.