Tony Khan Says Wembley Was “First Choice” For London Show

After announcing they’d go All In at Wembley Stadium this year, Tony Khan gave the reasons why the iconic venue was top of his list.

Although there was always going be a market for such a monumental show, many were surprised at just how quickly tickets moved for AEW All In on August 27th, with over 60,000 tickets already sold. This easily smashed the company’s previous attendance record, making sure it will be a historic night in London.

However, with much speculation over recent years that Tony Khan would bring his promotion to the United Kingdom, some were surprised that he didn’t use the venue he has a much closer association to, Fulham FC’s Craven Cottage.

In an interview with TalkWRESTLING, Tony Khan admitted that the Cottage had been considered, but Wembley had provided a much better solution for their production.

Those are two of my favorite places in the world. Craven Cottage is literally a home to me. I would love to do any big event in Craven Cottage. Wembley offered several things that we just couldn’t possibly do at the Cottage. In this case, the load in, logistically at Craven Cottage was going to be pretty much impossible. It would have been really hard to make it a big scale event there based on how challenging it would be load set, the ring, and all the elements for a big wrestling show into Craven Cottage.

Continuing on, Tony Khan also explained that if they’d used Craven Cottage, they would have extremely limited on ticket sales compared to what they’ve already achieved.

The Cottage was built in 1879. We’ve done a lot of renovation, to say the least, on the riverside in recent years, but Wembley offered us a less challenging load in, and also the ability to sell many times more tickets. We’ve already sold twice as many tickets as we could have sold at Craven Cottage. I really wish that would have come off, but Wembley is also one of my favorite places in the world. This is, to be honest, my first choice of where to do the show, at Wembley Stadium.

Whilst no matches have been confirmed for the show yet, it has been reported that one popular worldwide star who isn’t contracted regularly to AEW is already signed to appear.

With thanks to Fightful for the transcription.