Tony Khan Defends Decision To Introduce New AEW Championship

Tony Khan has been looking ahead to AEW.

In the hours before the November 5 episode of Dynamite, Tony Khan announced the introduction of AEW’s newest championship.

The inaugural champion will be crowned at Full Gear, with the winner of a Casino Gauntlet Match taking home the title. Although the majority of the entrants in the match are unknown, Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin will kick off the action.

The new title is a nod to the NWA National Championship introduced in 1980, and was held by legends such as Jack Brisco and Dusty Rhodes. That title was eventually unified with the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship in 1986, but was revived in 1997 and remains part of the NWA promotion to this day.

Tony Khan Comments On New AEW National Championship

During the pre-Full Gear media call, Tony Khan was asked about the decision to introduce a new championship with several AEW and ROH titles already in the mix. Khan explained that it’s important to look at the title in the context of the structure of AEW and Ring of Honor.

“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…”

To date, 13 matches, including four on the pre-show, have been announced for Full Gear with several major titles on the line. At the event, Mercedes Mone will challenge Kris Statlander for the Women’s World Championship, while “Hangman” Adam Page will defend the men’s World Title against Samoa Joe in a Cage Match.

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H/t to Fightful