Tony Khan Says AEW Will Very Rarely Compete With The NFL After WrestleDream

AEW continues to expand its horizons by introducing more shows and events, that many fans didn’t think were possible back in 2019. This includes the upcoming WrestleDream pay-per-view and it appears Tony Khan made it clear AEW will rarely compete with the NFL following the WrestleDream event.

After AEW All In London, Tony Khan was pleased to announce that WrestleDream is coming to AEW, a tribute to Antonio Inoki. It will be competing against the NFL on October 1st, which many fans found odd.

While speaking during the post-AEW All Out media scrum, AEW President Tony Khan was asked whether AEW will compete with the NFL more often. Khan made it clear that AEW will rarely compete with the NFL following the WrestleDream event and explained why the first event is taking place on October 1st.

I don’t want to do it as often as I can, I will not try to compete with the NFL because the NFL is the biggest media property on the planet, most powerful media entity in the world, not just sports but all media. The NFL is king and on October 1st, I felt like there was a special opportunity to honor a special legend in pro wrestling, because October 1st is the day last year that Antoino Inoki passed away and I really dont think I’d be in his position if Inoki hadn’t been a pioneer in pro wrestling and certainly during a period in pro wrestling where there wasn’t a strong challenger promotion, NJPW probably stepped up more than any other promotion and put on great matches with different styles and helped build a lot of great careers and a lot of people in AEW now wrestled for New Japan and many of the great wrestlers in AEW were actually Inoki proteges like Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata.

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October 1st is a Sunday, our next pay-per-view is during the NFL season and I very rarely will put on shows during the NFL season on a Sunday but this is a unique opportunity to honor a unique legend in wrestling. I can’t say every Wrestledream will be on October 1st based on where it falls for hte week, but al least for hte first one I thought let’s do it on Ocotber 1st to honor the memory of somebody who was really special, a great promoter, I think it’s important to honor the legacy of the great promoters before us.

AEW has teased adding more pay-per-views and WrestleDream seems to be just the beginning of a bigger goal in mind for the company. We’ll have to wait and see how WrestleDream will fare against the NFL next month.

What do you think of what Tony Khan had to say? Are you looking forward to WrestleDream? Let us know in the comments!

Transcription by Ringside News