5 Ways AEW's Tony Khan Is A Great Wrestling Booker (& 5 Ways He ISN'T)

5. ISN'T - He Has Lost Sight Of The Emotional Aspect Too Often

Kenny Omega Konosuke Takeshita
AEW

Personal issues draw money and you're meant to root for somebody in the fight.

You can tell ambitious stories. You can play with ambiguity, much like AEW did to masterful effect with Hangman Page, and make the audience question who the real hero is. But the emotional layer, whether it's applied traditionally or not, must exist. In recent times, Tony Khan has almost completely lost sight of this.

He has lost sight of it through his convoluted spreadsheet booking and abandonment of the basics. Using the Kenny Omega Vs. Don Callis programme as an example, it reached an absurd, virtually meaningless end.

Callis betrayed Omega when Omega deserted the dark arts and his athletic spark deserted him. The money-hungry Callis instead scouted and recruited the younger, more explosive decathlete Konosuke Takeshita. This core premise was excellent. Callis was family to Omega. The betrayal felt huge, since Callis had put Omega over with such conviction over the prior five years. The matches were guaranteed to be awesome, too.

It was ruined.

It was ruined through two main reasons - reasons typical of Khan's over-thought approach. Firstly, between the Blackpool Combat Club, Bullet Club Gold, the Callis Family and Brian Cage, the whole thing was dragged out and diluted. Omega wrestled countless guys, who were mere pawns, in various combinations. It was hard to believe that true, ticket-selling animosity existed in any of these matches. Khan just inserted any old names against Omega on the spreadsheet to prolong everything. Omega also didn't cut one stand-out, fired-up promo at Callis.

He never sold the idea that the hatred consumed him. He never felt particularly vengeful. Why, then, did he waste months and months doing this?

Also: what was Jon Moxley's problem with the Best Friends and Death Triangle over the summer of 2023, exactly? Why did Best Friends and Death Triangle form a temporary alliance after spending much of AEW's existence in conflict with one another? Khan booked so much soulless, unconvincing TV in 2023, great as many of the matches ended up being, on the thin, repetitive premise of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Whatever happened to enemies colliding directly in matches with deep emotional resonance?

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!