All Elite Wrestling’s Tony Khan: 'We’ve Wanted to Come to Phoenix For Years'

All Elite Wrestling is staging its long-awaited Phoenix debut on Wednesday night, February 22, something that’s been years in the making.

The upstart pro wrestling promotion, which launched in 2019 as an alternative to the WWE, will broadcast its flagship television program, AEW Dynamite, live on TBS from Footprint Center. A second show, AEW Rampage, will be taped afterward and shown on Friday night on TNT.

Professional wrestling is a big thing in Arizona, and local AEW fans have been clamoring for the Florida-based company to bring its events to Phoenix since its launch. After years of mainly running events back east or in the midwest, AEW has begun visiting west coast cities within the last few months.

What took so long? AEW president and co-owner Tony Khan tells Phoenix New Times it wasn’t from a lack of desire.

“There are a lot of AEW fans in Phoenix and around the area who watch [our] shows on TBS and TNT that are connected with our company and follow the wrestlers,” Khan says. “It's one of the best markets in the US and the way we're being embraced has been great. And it's been fun to come to new cities like Phoenix where we've never been before.”

AEW’s visit to the Valley on Wednesday night will help build to the company’s upcoming pay-per-view, AEW Revolution, on March 5. Matches scheduled to take place during AEW Dynamite will include Jon Moxley taking on Evil Uno, Wheeler Yuta battling the sunglasses-wearing slacker Orange Cassidy, and a massive tag-team battle royal. Maxwell Jacob Freeman, AEW’s biggest villain and its current world champion, will also make an appearance.

Khan will also reportedly make “an important announcement” during Dynamite on Wednesday about something big regarding AEW. New Times asked him about what he has planned during our interview, as well as when the company will be returning to the Valley.
What took AEW so long to come to Phoenix?
We’ve wanted to come to Phoenix for years. It's a great town for pro wrestling. It was actually in our plans a long time ago and then we got hit with the global [COVID-19] lockdown. We kept our shows going, but had to do them out of Florida for almost a year and a half. Phoenix was the first city we circled on a lot of our west coast tour dates in 2020, got pushed back by the lockdown, and we didn't resume touring until July 2021, and [by] then, a lot of our dates were taken. So we really were very eager to get a date in Phoenix, and we wanted to come to the Footprint Center because it's one of the best venues in sports. It's going to look great on TV. And we've got a great crowd coming to the show, we're expecting tremendous attendance, so it should be a great show. [It] definitely been one of our most anticipated events.

Over the last year, AEW has expanded to more West Coast cities, like Seattle and Portland.
Yeah, absolutely. We started doing more live West Coast events. Again, like I was saying before, we had planned to do a number of these West Coast cities in 2020, and our touring schedule got pushed back, and everyone was trying to get the same dates when we went back on the road. It was very important to us to make a great debut in Phoenix for AEW. I think it's a certainty that we'll be returning after this because the interest in the debut has been tremendous.

AEW largely visited East Coast and Midwest cities since its launch. Was there a danger of diminishing returns from running the same cities too many times?
Well, to your point ... we have a lot of cities where we'd run events [since] the launch of AEW and with the hauling [of the ring setup and other gear], there can be a high cost to running events back-to-back that are far apart in terms of geographic proximity. So it's been really great having more west coast events, including some of the markets [where] we've debuted this year, like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco coming up [for AEW Revolution] on March 5, and, of course, Phoenix, this week for Dynamite and Rampage.

So what's the big announcement you're making on Wednesday night in Phoenix?
Hah. Well, I can't tell you right now, but it's something I'm very excited about and it's great for the company.

Is it going to be about AEW doing another Forbidden Door pay-per-view with New Japan Pro Wrestling?
There are a lot of exciting things in the near future for AEW. All I can say is we have an important announcement coming at this show in Phoenix. And it's an exciting development for the company, and I'm excited to share it with the fans in Phoenix and all over the world.
Will MJF be at Wednesday's show?
Yes. He's contractually obligated to appear in Phoenix, whether he likes it or not.

He always insults every town AEW appears in. Any idea of how he’s going to put Phoenix on blast?
I'm not sure what insults he has prepared for the people of Arizona, but he always finds a way to drive people crazy. He’s one of wrestling’s biggest villains. I'm sure everyone in Phoenix is going to have an opportunity to find out why.

You've been a lifelong fan of wrestling. What's the appeal and how does AEW tap into that?
I've always enjoyed the matches and stories and the way they just flow together into one show. It’s always fun to watch. And what's amazing to me is how the internet and social media connected wrestling fans into one community. They call themselves the IWC, or [the] Internet wrestling community. And I really was an early adopter of the IWC in the early '90s. I think it's amazing how it's grown and how many wrestling fans [worldwide] are connected to each other now and can talk about what they like and don't like about wrestling. And there's a lot of fans who like AEW.

Speaking of the IWC, do you ever check out the wrestling sections on Reddit, like Squared Circle?
I've seen that group, yeah. I'm not on the message boards and on Reddit as much as I used to be before I had so much full-time work, but I still do follow along with wrestling on social media.

What did you think of that recent Bloomberg Businessweek feature with you on the cover? A lot of people have lampooned it online.
Hah. That was great exposure for AEW and it was [a] great opportunity. Seeing the finished product, it was very positive coverage for the company and everyone who works here.

Any chance Phoenix will get an AEW pay-per-view event in the future?
Well, it's a great question. I don't know. I can't say for certain what's in the future, but I think based on the great support for our TV in Phoenix, there's certainly now [the possibility] we could run bigger events in Phoenix. Right now, the way tickets are moving, it's certainly possible that we'd consider bringing some of our biggest events in the future to Phoenix.

AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage will take place at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 22, at Footprint Center, 201 East Jefferson Street. Tickets start at $29.