Insight Into AEW Creative Process Led By Tony Khan

Some new details have been provided as far as how the AEW creative process takes place and who are the key members of Tony Khan’s team.

From day one when AEW launched in January 2019, AEW’s Owner Tony Khan has been General Manager and Head of Creative of the company. Tony gets the final say on all the things that happen on AEW television.

While Tony Khan also has other businesses related to his father Shahid Khan owning the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham of the English Premier League, he is dedicated to run AEW programming along with ROH as well. With Collision coming to TNT in June, Tony will be booking for Dynamite, Collision, Rampage, and ROH’s weekly show as well. However, he can’t do it all alone.

There is a team behind the scenes in the AEW that also involves newcomer Will Washington, who used to be a podcaster/reporter with Fightful. On May 3rd, AEW announced they had hired Washington with Tony Khan announcing that Will would be the new AEW Wrestling Administration Coordinator, working in many areas of wrestling: live events, social media, creative, PR, and so on.

In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer provided some details on the current AEW creative team.

“Tony Khan is the booker and comes in with the outlines for the show. Will Washington was brought into the meeting last week for the first time and has a seat at the table so to speak. The two key guys assisting Khan in booking are QT Marshall and Sonjay Dutt. People like Pat Buck, Jerry Lynn, Christopher Daniels, Dean Malenko and Washington were also brought to the creative meeting for input but a lot has been reported leading to the belief Washington is No. 2 and really the co-No. 2’s are Marshall and Dutt. But Washington is part of the team.”

“The top talent like Kenny Omega, MJF, Chris Jericho, The Young Bucks, Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson, FTR, and obviously CM Punk will have significant input into their own programs and directions as well.”

The next major AEW event is the Double or Nothing pay-per-view on Sunday, May 28th headlined by MJF defending the AEW World Title in a four-way match against Jack Perry, Sammy Guevera and Darby Allin.