AEW All Out 2026 Media Scrum: Paramount-WBD Merger Deal, AEW PPVs Success In 2026, Worlds End 2026 Event Status, Mercedes Mone Broken Nose Injury & Original Plans For Her For All Out, Mara Sade’s AEW Signing Situation, & His Talks With “The Butcher” Andy Williams Prior To His Passing

AEW CEO Tony Khan held a media scrum today to promote this Saturday’s AEW All Out 2026 event at the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Some of the notable highlights included:

• On the topic of Paramount’s acquisition and merger deal with AEW’s broadcast partner Warner Bros Discovery, Khan stated “I think this is exciting because we grew in a situation where the new corporate leadership in 2022, at that time, over four years ago, was something of an unknown entity to us and we really won them over immediately. It’s something I take a lot of pride in. We’ve been through several different regimes here. When AEW launched, AT&T was still in charge and then it’s been a lot of change with Discovery coming in. There was a period of transition there during 2020, 2021, where a lot of changes were made before Discovery took over in 2022 and they’ve made a lot of changes over the years and for AEW, there have been changes for the better, clearly, as we’ve grown the company and expanded. Now, we enter something that I consider more of a known quantity and I’m very excited about it. I think we’ve proven that AEW is a feather in the cap of a media company that we are a great partner, and for me, I’ll work to make sure that AEW fits in any corporate structure. I’ll work very hard, and I think I’ve proven time after time that I am the ultimate corporate soldier, and that is why AEW continues to grow and expand as the media landscape changes and I think that’s why Warner Bros., even as the company has evolved and changed, AEW has always been a very important part of the portfolio for years and years and I expect that’s gonna continue with AEW and Warner Bros. for many years to come.”
• On the topic of AEW’s pay-per-view events success in 2026 and if there has been an uptick in buys for AEW PPVs when a pre-show match continues into the main card, Khan stated “Big time. We have. That’s why it’s worked. I haven’t done it that much.“
• Khan also gave his thoughts about the first time he did that trick for an AEW PPV event. Khan stated “The first time I did it was FTR vs. JetSpeed, it worked fantastically well. There was clearly an uptick, people were watching that match on TV and they were on TNT and they said, ‘Oh, I want to keep watching that match, I’m gonna buy this pay-per-view.’ That worked really well.” Khan also gave his thoughts about how he won’t use that tactic for every AEW PPV show and instead he will choose to save it for the right situations.
• On the topic of the status for this year’s AEW Worlds End event, Khan confirmed that AEW will be holding a Worlds End event this year and an official announcement regarding it will be made soon.
• On the topic of Mercedes Mone’s recent broken nose injury and if her injury caused plans to be changed for All Out, Khan stated ““Yeah. A lot. Absolutely. Mercedes Moné was originally scheduled to wrestle on AEW All Out, and that’s the nature of wrestling. It’s a hard-hitting sport. There are injuries and just like in all sports, you have to have a deep roster and be able to think on your feet and be flexible, and that’s what’s great about AEW… In Mercedes’ case, it’s not a long, long-term injury. It’s something where she’ll be back. I think she’ll be back next month and I’m almost certain she’ll be back next month. That’s the plan; is for Mercedes to return in October. That’s why we have this match on the pay-per-view to determine who will challenge for the World Title at our next pay-per-view, WrestleDream. So Mercedes’ injury did affect plans. She was originally set to wrestle at AEW All Out and I think she very much wants to wrestle on Saturday, but the doctors have not cleared her.”
• On the topic of Mara Sade announcing and then quickly removing the listing of her signing with AEW on her official website and if she might be the mystery challenger for Persephone’s TBS Championship Open Challenge match at All Out, Khan stated ““Well, she’s a great, young wrestler. We have not seen her in AEW to date, but, she’s somebody that we’re definitely very familiar with for many reasons and is a tremendous young talent. So, I would suggest that you stay tuned, and you never know. She’s somebody that is of great interest, and is a very compelling young prospect. So in her case, she’s definitely somebody to keep an eye out.”
• On the topic of his talks with “The Butcher” Andy Williams for a potential return to AEW in a behind-the-scenes role prior to Williams passing earlier his month, Khan stated “Andy (Williams) was very interested in working in the office and he had really good ideas, so, I had set up a meeting with Andy and the AEW official last month to talk about his thoughts on ways he could contribute to promoting, and Andy had ideas that he could do music shows in collaboration with AEW, and build some events outside of the wrestling show that would get eyeballs on the wrestling show and maybe bring some people from the music community into wrestling. That is one of his ideas. He had a number of good ideas, including that, and I thought it was really compelling what Andy was saying, and I was interested in it. So that is why we set up a meeting, and Andy came in last month to talk about it and it was something we were still actively working on and unfortunately, at the time of his passing, it was still something that was in progress, and Andy contributed in many different ways to AEW and he really loved the company, loved the wrestling and I wanted Andy to stay a part of it, and I also really loved the ideas he had. I thought they would add value and also, he was the big contributor there. He was gonna be somebody that would bridge the world of music and wrestling, and to have him say he would play the shows and help bring in the fans and promote AEW that way, I thought it was really interesting and exciting. So, that was one of the main points of Andy’s ideas. He had several good ideas and that one in particular really stood out to me. I thought it was a very strong concept, and when Andy passed… it’s very hard on a lot of the people in AEW. I think a lot of people really, really liked Andy here. He was a very, very well-liked guy backstage, for many, many reasons. He’s a very talented person, very humble, very, very kind, big heart. Just a really nice guy, and I wanted to make sure we did a show in his memory that was befitting stature and… the way that everybody felt about him and I thought that a lot of that came across very accurately in the Andy Williams tribute show and I was very, very proud of everyone in AEW who came together that day and everybody involved in putting that together for Andy, and we’ll miss him very much.”

AEW All Out 2026 media scrum full audio: Fightful.com

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5