Around 10:05 p.m. ET Saturday night, the live TV presentation of AEW “Collision” having just wrapped, Tony Khan came out onto the entrance ramp to kill time for the ring crew to change out the apron and mat for the last hour of the night, which was going to be a Ring of Honor TV taping.
The already small crowd – WrestleTix pegged the tickets distributed number at 2,321, less than a quarter the capacity of the Berglund Center, the old Roanoke Civic Center – was noticeably thinning out as he talked.
I couldn’t get out of my head as he thanked those of us who were staying behind: he doesn’t have to be here.
TK is the son of Shad Khan, net worth: $15 billion; Shad Khan is known for having turned a $50,000 SBA loan into an auto-parts empire, and in addition to being the guy who puts the bumpers on the cars and trucks you drive, he owns the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and the Premier League’s Fulham FC.
Tony Khan, before he launched AEW in 2019, had jobs heading up the analytics department for the NFL team and was director of football operations for the EPL team – roles he still holds, on top of his wrestling venture and two sports-related companies that provide clients with analytics and talent management services.
He could be in Monaco on vacay right now, was one thought that went through my head, as he hyped up the ROH taping to the 800 or so of us who hung around for the final hour of wrestling.
Khan certainly could be literally anywhere but an arena built in 1971 that has long since seen its best days, in a middle-of-nowhere city that was once a wrestling hotbed, back in the Crockett years, the 1970s and 1980s, but that’s a couple of generations ago now.
Those were the days when the likes of “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Dusty Rhodes and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express drew sellout crowds throughout the Carolinas, the Virginias and Georgia.
Roanoke was a monthly stop for Crockett; the Star City has gotten two AEW shows in the past two years, after hosting four WWE house shows and a “Saturday Night’s Main Event” in a stretch from 2019-2023.
I can see why we’re not more in demand on the circuit – even that “SNME,” on Jan. 14, 2023, drew just 4,466; the last time I attended a show at the arena, in 1998, when it was still the Roanoke Civic Center, WCW had 7,561 on hand for a house show with Kevin Nash, Scott Norton, Sting and Lex Luger in a tag match in the main event.
Khan’s two shows at the venue have averaged just under 2,800; I’m guessing the gate last night was in the range of $125,000 to $150,000.
Maybe that pays the cost for the TV broadcast truck; but then you factor in the talent and the crew, and transportation, and, you know.
Khan, seven years into his AEW venture, is at least not losing money hand over fist anymore, after signing his second TV deal in 2024, which pays the company a reported $175 million annually – a nice bump from the $45 million a year he got from his first TV deal, which ran from 2019-2024.
What makes Tony Khan stand out here, and he has his detractors for this, is in his insistence in being hands on with AEW – serving as the head of creative for the company, sitting at the Gorilla position as the executive producer for live broadcasts, and serving as the hype guy between live broadcasts and TV tapings on a Saturday night in a middle-of-nowhere city in an arena that could benefit from a fresh coat of paint.
He could be anywhere but here, probably should be anywhere but here.
I’m often critical of the guy’s booking decisions, but one thing you can’t criticize is his commitment to wanting to make AEW work.
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Chris Graham
