Tony Khan on WWE Counterprogramming AEW Events, Praise of MJF’s Acting Work, & “Timeless” Toni Storm Being an Icon and “Iconic Presence Was Always Inside Of Her”

A recent episode of News4Jax’s Going Ringside podcast featured AEW CEO Tony Khan as a guest. One of the topics discussed included Khan’s thoughts about WWE’s counterprogramming attempts against AEW events.

“Well, we’re having a great year. We’ve been able to stick and move and make it work really well for us. There’s always going to be tough competition, and in this sport, it’s very tough competition, a kind of competition that makes you work really hard 52 weeks a year. For AEW, we’re having a great year. We’ve been putting on great shows. The TV shows have gotten great ratings. We’ve got great support from our audience. And we’ve really grown the audience in 2025. Not only have we added HBO Max and put new viewers on streaming, we’ve got more people watching the shows on cable than we did last year. For Dynamite and Collision, the audience has gone up. If you look where we ended up in Q4 of 2024, each quarter we’ve been going up, building our audience on TBS and TNT, while there’s also people watching on HBO Max. It’s kind of the opposite of what the analysts had predicted when we started simulcasting. So we’re still seeing great returns, great audiences on cable, and I’m really excited about it because I think that 2025, right now, this year, has been maybe the best year of AEW ever. The pay-per-views, you mentioned pay-per-views, we’re doing our best pay-per-views we’ve ever done. If you say… from the past six years, what are the top 10 AEW pay-per-views? I think there’s a good chance five out of the 10, six out of the 10 would be from this year. So it’s definitely a great year for the product of AEW and we’re very focused on how we can make AEW the best wrestling company it can be.”

Khan also gave his thoughts about his praise of MJF for being a “huge” wrestling star and him expanding into becoming a star in his acting career.

“Yeah, MJF’s a huge, huge wrestling star, and now he’s becoming a star of movies. He got a great role playing Happy Gilmore’s son in Happy Gilmore 2. Happy Gilmore 2 is the most watched movie in America this year, and MJF’s a big part of the movie. If you remember his four- his very rowdy four sons, the main lead boy is MJF. He’s the most prominent one and they’re supposed to be hard-hitting brawlers, and he’s definitely the tough guy of the four Happy Gilmore boys.”

Khan also gave his thoughts about if there is a buzz around backstage at AEW shows because of MJF’s acting roles recently.

“I mean, MJF’s not the most popular guy backstage. Most of the wrestlers don’t really like him very much. So I would say that among some of the villains of AEW, there is some camaraderie. A guy like maybe Don Callis or Okada, I think those guys are probably happy for MJF. But a lot of the fan favorites in AEW really don’t like MJF very much. So that being said, everybody is very impressed with what he’s doing. He is a really hardworking guy, and I am very impressed with MJF. I think he’s an incredible wrestling talent. When he focuses on the wrestling… I think MJF is one of the best, but he always takes shortcuts. He’s always trying to cheat his way to the top. I don’t even think he needs to, is the truth. He’s really gifted wrestler and a student of wrestling, a student of the history of wrestling and a student of technical wrestling. Also MJF is a student of acting now and he’s doing a great job with it. He’s filming another movie right now. For AEW, the executives, we are proud of what MJF is doing. even if he’s not the most popular guy with some of the fans or the other wrestlers. He’s a huge part of AEW, and he’s working really hard. He just had two incredible matches last weekend in two different countries. He had an incredible match Friday night at the CMLL anniversary show in Mexico City against Mistico. It’s one of the best matches I’ve ever seen. Then he went up to Toronto and had another classic, hardcore, hard-hitting fight and the tables and tacks match with Mark Briscoe at AEW All Out, which is one of the best shows we’ve ever done in AEW. So kudos to MJF big time.”

Khan also gave his thoughts about his praise of “Timeless” Toni Storm for becoming an icon in wrestling and his belief that she always had an iconic presence inside of her.

“I think that she is an icon, and I think that that iconic presence was always inside of her, and that’s what I told her when we started this, is that she has that presence. She was at the time in her mid-20s, yet she had this timeless presence that she was gonna clearly have throughout her career. This aura, this way of speaking, all these things that Toni Storm brings, and she’s an incredible wrestler, and she’s so charismatic, and the fans respect her. This transition she’s made to Timeless Toni Storm, she’s found the classic movie star inside of herself, and she’s become the first wrestler, not only of all the AEW stars who are on TBS, who are on TNT, but also the first wrestler now, Toni Storm, to be on TCM, Turner Classic Movies. She is truly a timeless fighter, movie star, a timeless wrestler, and a great, great charismatic presence. You mentioned Mercedes Mone. At AEW All In, one of the best matches we’ve ever had was Timeless Toni Storm versus Mercedes Mone. They showed why they are maybe the two best on the planet, and I have to say, they are two of the best, but now we have a new world champion, Kris Statlander. Toni Storm was very shocked, surprised, and it seemed like impressed when Kris Statlander pinned her at All Out, upset her in that four-way match for the world title, that was a great four-way match. At some point, I would love to see the one-on-one rematch, Timeless Toni Storm versus Kris Statlander. But you’re very correct, Scott, that Timeless Toni Storm is one of the biggest stars in wrestling, and she is one of the great reasons why AEW is having a great 2025 right now, and it’s the tremendous wrestling of Timeless Toni Storm.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3