Tony Khan Clarifies If AEW Will Have A Hard Roster Split
Tony Khan has provided some clarity regarding the rumors of AEW actually splitting their roster into two separate brands.
All Elite Wrestling will air the first episode of Collision later tonight at 8 p.m. ET on TNT when it takes place a the United Center in Chicago. AEW’s Owner/President/GM Tony Khan picked Chicago’s United Center because it’s the return of CM Punk, who is from Chicago.
What’s unique about Collision is that with CM Punk returning to the company after nine months off due to injury and the after-effects of the All Out brawl, many important members of the AEW roster won’t be there. Some of those names include The Elite’s Kenny Omega, Nick Jackson, Matt Jackson and “Hangman” Adam Page. That’s because they don’t get along with Punk.
Since the announcement of Collision launching, there have been rumors about AEW splitting the roster into two with a hard brand split similar to what WWE has had for most of the last 20 years with Raw and Smackdown.
One of the current AEW wrestlers set to wrestle on Collision tonight is Andrade El Idolo, who said he wants there to be specific titles on Collision.
During an appearance on Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan made it clear that AEW never had plans for a hard roster split.
“Nope, it’s not a separate roster. In fact, you’re seeing people that are wrestling on this show that just wrestled on Wednesday where we follow up on what happened with Toni Storm vs. Skye Blue match for the AEW Women’s World Championship.”
As he continued, Tony Khan continued to talk about his vision for what Dynamite and Collision will be.
“No, it’s not a separate roster. It gives us an opportunity to showcase a lot of the top stars in AEW and feature certain stars week to week. I never said there would be a hard roster split. In recent media appearances, I’ve been making it pretty clear that it won’t be and it’s a great opportunity for the fans to see featured stars on these Dynamite shows and Collision shows week in and week out. But also we can have rivalries carry over between shows and utilize the shows to make follow-up matches or settle grudges or book big title matches.”
In the main event of tonight’s episode of AEW Collision, CM Punk teams up with AEW Tag Team Champions FTR against ROH TV Champion Samoa Joe, Jay White and Juice Robinson.
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