AEW Stars Refusing To Follow Tony Khan’s Creative Plans

The AEW locker room stands on the verge of open rebellion against Tony Khan.

AEW is just days away from its first pay-per-view of 2024 and one of its biggest events of the year as Sting prepares to retire. However, it seems all is not well behind the scenes, and some talents are simply refusing to follow the creative laid out for them.

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez claimed that on top of talents finding out what they’re doing very late in the day, some are getting these plans changed. To add to the confusion, when someone decides they don’t want to follow the plan, Tony Khan doesn’t make them do it, leading to even more changes.

“I don’t want to compare this to like WWE back in the day but it is very, very much like that and a lot of people are very frustrated because they don’t find out the Tuesday before. Some people do, some people will know what they’re doing because there are a couple of matches usually advertised in advance. But most people are showing up the day of the show and finding out if they are doing anything or not.

There’s very little communication. I’ve been hearing about this for months, people are very frustrated. They show up, ‘Here’s what you’re gonna do’. Lots of people will complain and it gets changed which is also a big problem I hear about all the time. People don’t want to do something and Tony doesn’t make them do it. There’s a lot of this,”

Alvarez added there’s a lot of frustration, and the days of long-term booking are gone — something the company had previously been praised for.

“People aren’t gonna come forward and talk about it publicly, they will someday. This is one of those things where people will say I’m wrong now and then someday people are going to talk and you’ll realise that I’m actually not wrong. I hear about this every single day.

Trying to put together these shows is just a whirlwind of ‘Will this person do this? They don’t want you? What can we do? Will you do it?’. There’s a lot, a lot, a lot, of frustration. There’s also injuries that he deals with and no there’s not shows put together a week in advance or two weeks in advance. The days of long-term booking, they’re gone,” he continued.

He has an idea. I’m sure he had a card for the pay-per-view but as far as week to week how they get there, every week is like what are we going to do this week? He wants to do things but people don’t want to go along with it, people are hurt. Whatever.”

AEW Stars Left Frustrated By Tony Khan

The comments come after it was reported that many people within AEW are frustrated with Tony Khan’s leadership. There is said to be a growing feeling backstage that Khan is burying his head in the sand over declining attendance and a perceived dip in popularity. The dissenting voices feel Khan is too focused on painting a positive picture of the company in public instead of trying to fix the issues.

AEW Revolution is set to take place on March 3rd.

H/t to Cultaholic