9 Promises AEW Have Made Since Launching (And HAVE Kept)

8. Creative Freedom

That AEW would offer more creative freedom to its performers was one of its more enticing selling points and critical in establishing the promotion as an alternative to WWE, where everything is micromanaged to a fault.

Speaking to Keller in October, Khan said that wrestlers would be actively encouraged to be themselves and given greater leeway to work their own ideas. This harked back to the way American wrestling used to be. Management would pass skeletal idea frameworks to wrestlers and trust the performers to flesh them out, leading to characters that feel more like an extension of the man or woman behind the gimmick rather than a stunted TV personality concocted by someone else in a writers' room.

Khan also acknowledged that there'd be situations where this might not work out, pointing to Kenny Omega's direction before Dynamite kicked in, saying his downtrodden star shtick wasn't true to him as a person. In those situations, intervention may be required.

Looking at the AEW product so far, it's safe to say that Khan has been true to this, allowing the likes of Darby Allin, Hangman Page, and Sammy Guevara to get organically over by showing the audience who they really are. Long may it continue.