AEW Full Gear 2025 Media Scrum: Wrestle Dynasty Future, Reason for No Continental Classic Field Announcement Prior to Full Gear, AEW’s Future with WBD, Women’s Blood & Guts Future, AEW National Title, Talks for Kazuchika Okada for Hiroshi Tanahashi’s Final Opponent, The Briscoes

AEW CEO Tony Khan held a media scrum on Thursday to promote this Saturday’s AEW Full Gear 2025 event at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Some of the notable highlights included:

• On the topic of future Wrestle Dynasty events being held after one was not scheduled for January of 2026, Khan stated that he believes that another event will not be taking place in 2026. Khan also stated that the inaugural event this past January was successful and is open to holding another co-promoted Wrestle Dynasty event with NJPW in the future.
• On the topic of this year’s Continental Classic tournament, Khan stated that he would have loved to announce the field for this year’s tournament before Full Gear but he wants to gauge health of everyone in the hours following this Saturday’s Full Gear event first. Khan also stated that he felt last year’s tournament was better than the prior year’s. Khan also stated that he is very proud of the Continental Classic in its young history and has only had to make one change in its history due to injury, which was in reference to Juice Robinson.
• On the topic of AEW’s future in relation to all of the recent Warner Bros Discovery sale rumors, Khan stated that he has to be careful in how he answers due to its talking about people’s jobs. Khan stated that AEW has continued to both grow and integrate into WBD through their changes and that support has been reciprocal. Khan also stated that AEW is in an advantageous position and they are a hugely grateful beneficiary of WBD’s support. Khan also stated that he is very optimistic about where this is all going in the future for AEW.
• On the topic of future Women’s Blood & Guts matches, Khan confirmed that there will be another Women’s Blood & Guts match in the future. Khan also stated that the first one had “knocked it out of the park” and WBD was “so happy” with it and the fans really enjoyed it. Khan also stated that he was relieved there were not more injuries coming out of that match. Khan also praised the women for the amount of preparation and time they put into it to make it successful. Khan also gave his praises for the effort and relief over no serious injuries in the Men’s Blood & Guts match.
• On the topic of the introduction of a new AEW National Championship to the large existing list of title belts in AEW and Ring of Honor, Khan stated “I think it’s important to look at the content that any wrestling promotion is producing, and what the model for the business of that company is and for AEW, the revenue is primarily driven from TV and pay-per-view, and we produce many hours of TV and pay-per-view. We also produce a lot of live events and we produce over 100 shows per year and several hours per week. This is different than the beginning of AEW because at the beginning of AEW, we only had two hours of television and I had no association whatsoever with Ring of Honor, and certainly was not the owner and promoter of that company. So, you mention the Ring of Honor Championship, so that changed of course when I acquired Ring of Honor and I have largely kept the championships at Ring of Honor intact, except for adding Women’s Championships, and expanding the Women’s Championships of ROH. I’ve made no changes to the men’s championships in ROH… I absolutely think that it’s important to look at the ecosystem of a wrestling company…”
• On the topic of the talks for Kazuchika Okada being the final opponent for Hiroshi Tanahashi’s in-ring wrestling career at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20, Khan stated “I think that the timing of the announcement was important because as I understand, Tanahashi was involved in some big matches up to that point with major stakes, and his spot might have — he may have been in different matches, including championship matches in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, based on how some of his other bouts went. This is always what we’d talked about. It made sense on the AEW calendar for a number of reasons. But also, it made sense on New Japan’s calendar as I understood for a number of reasons so, we were all very happy about the huge, huge buzz around the announcement and the great ticket sales for New Japan Pro-Wrestling with the announcement of Okada versus Tanahashi at the Tokyo Dome… For us, Okada was always the plan — that he would travel — and it’s an honor that AEW and Kazuchika Okada are in a position to work with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Hiroshi Tanahashi to promote Tanahashi’s final match and for Okada versus Tanahashi to be that match, and that’s always what we’d talked about and I had met with President of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Tanahashi, and he and I had talked and we were really excited about this, and he had come to a number of AEW events this past year, and we’d had some really nice discussions, and he was at Double or Nothing and we had dinner and this was what we talked about, and he was very excited about the possibility and when I spoke with Kazuchika Okada, he was very excited about the possibility and everybody thought that this was the biggest possible opportunity to make this not only an incredible business success but also, most of all, a well-deserved tribute to Hiroshi Tanahashi who is one of the legends of worldwide pro wrestling and in particular, for New Japan Pro-Wrestling.“
• On the topic of ROH airing more shows on YouTube in the future, Khan stated that fans might see more ROH events on YouTube due to the success of Death Before Dishonor 2025, Global Wars Australia, and other recent events.
• On the topic of one of his biggest regrets in wrestling, Khan stated that he regrets not having The Briscoes appear on AEW television prior to Jay Briscoe’s passing. Khan stated that he did the best he could trying to make it happen but this is something he still thinks about every day.
• Khan also stated that DC Comics is “possibly the most significant sponsor” AEW has had.

AEW Full Gear 2025 media scrum full audio: F4WOnline.com

Source: F4WOnline.com, Fightful.com 1 & 2