How Tony Khan's AEW Booking REALLY Works
A rundown of how Tony Khan (and his team) book All Elite Wrestling.
This week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter features an interesting insight into how All Elite Wrestling's creative process really works.
Dave Meltzer writes, as was already understood, that company founder and CEO Tony Khan serves as the booker, and works with Vice President of Show and Creative Coordination QT Marshall on formatting AEW's weekly shows.
AEW creative isn't a two-man job, though. The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, Pat Buck, Sonjay Dutt, Tony Schiavone, Marshall, and others attend meetings, allowing Khan to bounce ideas off them. Different personnel are sometimes brought into the conversations as well, while AEW's main event talents have input on their creative as well.
Khan would obviously have the final say on matters. The AEW owner reorganised the company's creative process towards the end of 2019, making changes coming into effect in early 2020, telling PWInsider the following:-
I felt like I needed to take over and be more accountable as the CEO and as the Booker. I was the final say, but there were probably too many different people with input on segments and this show wasn't as organized at the end of 2019 as I thought it could be. So for the past two years, we've been a lot more organized and I've written every show by hand, which allows me to know which segments are where and I think the shows have gotten significantly better.
This clarification coincided with reports of AEW's team of Executive Vice Presidents "losing power" in the process, which Khan effectively refuted.