AEW Lost A Huge Supporter At TNT

Update: Cody commented on this loss of support with Kevin Reilly’s firing, and he doesn’t seem worried.

Original: AEW was able to secure a television deal because Tony Khan spoke to his friend Kevin Reilly who was President of TBS at the time. Now WarnerMedia has shaken up their corporate structure in a big way leaving AEW without a big ally on top.

Variety reports that WarnerMedia has fired Bob Greenblatt and Kevin Reilly. WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar made the announcement official today in a memo to staff. Ann Sarnoff has been promoted to oversee a newly expanded group.

Reilly was at TBS since 2014. He met Tony Khan at a Halloween party as Khan was dressed as “Macho Man” Randy Savage. The next year they ran into each other at another Halloween party and Khan was wearing the same costume. This is when a conversation was first breached about Turner Networks airing pro wrestling once again.

Khan credited Eric Bischoff and WCW for AEW’s existence. Reilly didn’t know at the time that WCW was even on TNT before Khan told him about it.

Reilly is responsible for bringing AEW to TNT. There has also been some talk about bringing an additional hour of AEW programming to air which Reilly was overseeing. This could have found its way onto HBO Max. Now the future is a bit uncertain in that regard.