Tony Khan Admits His Biggest Regret Running AEW

Tony Khan has commented on what he regrets the most about his time running AEW.

When AEW launched in January 2019, Tony Khan wasn’t a household name in the wrestling world. His father, Shahid Khan, is a billionaire many times over who financially backed his son’s vision to start a wrestling company.

AEW launched in part thanks to big-name wrestlers like Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega being free agents at the same time, while former big names in WWE like Chris Jericho and Jim Ross were signed to huge deals to join the new promotion.

As a lifelong wrestling fan, Tony Khan didn’t have experience running a wrestling show or a promotion, but he surrounded himself with the right people and has learned on the job over the last six years.

While there will always be critics of AEW, they also have a loyal fanbase that has supported the company, and they are the number two wrestling promotion in the world behind WWE. Having a lot of money helped, but also being on TNT/TBS gave them credibility right away, and now they are putting on great shows all over the world.

Tony Khan’s Biggest Regret Involves Not Using A Popular Wrestler

The Briscoe Brothers duo of Mark and Jay Briscoe are one of the greatest tag teams of their generation and the best in Ring of Honor history. Tony Khan bought ROH in March 2022. After buying ROH, The Briscoes had a legendary rivalry with FTR over the ROH Tag Team Titles.

Sadly, Jay Briscoe died in a car accident in January 2023. Since then, Mark Briscoe has been a regular in AEW, but Jay never got to wrestle in an AEW ring, even though he was at many of their shows. The Briscoes weren’t allowed on AEW TV because of homophobic remarks that Jay made on social media a decade earlier. Even though Jay apologized numerous times, AEW didn’t put them on their shows.

When Tony Khan was asked by Barstool Sports’ My Mom’s Basement podcast about his biggest regret running AEW, he thought about Jay Briscoe.

“I fought really hard to get Jay Briscoe on the show. There were multiple times where Mark and Jay Briscoe came to Dynamite and didn’t do anything. And they just came and I brought them, and I was trying to — I kept pulling moves.

It was a different time. It was a different management, it wasn’t Mr. [David] Zaslav. I could have now literally gone to him. I fought really, really hard to get Jay Briscoe on the show, but I really wish I’d been able to have Jay Briscoe on Dynamite just one time. And he came to the show many times. That’s my biggest regret by far.”