More on Tony Khan's big smiles later in this article, but he was more than entitled to be sporting them after AEW's latest money-spinning television venture was revealed at WBD's upfronts just hours before the May 17th Dynamite hit the air.
Collision will launch on Saturday 17th June, and unconfirmed figures circling in all the usual places ahead of the news had the number of zeroes at nine. It's a big figure, a big story and a big moment in the company's history. But we are not network executives (apart from the ones reading in between meetings - hello!) or billionaire businessmen. We are wrestling fans being asked to part with money for a pay-per-view in two weeks. It's possible to celebrate the good news for the long-term health of the company while panicking slightly about the short-term after one of the weaker supercard builds in AEW's history.
May 10th's turbocharged Kenny Omega/Jon Moxley steel cage main event was a statement of intent from build to shocking conclusion, but could Khan build on that and everything else on his show to prove that his creative head was still as switched on as his commercial one?
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
