Tony Khan has pushed back against criticism of AEW‘s media scrums — specifically the practice of allowing alternative media personalities, bloggers, and social media figures to participate alongside traditional journalists. The topic was raised by Vince Russo during Khan’s appearance on The Coach and Bro Show, with Russo arguing the practice is hurting the business. Khan disagreed and offered a thoughtful defense of keeping the scrums open to voices from across the wrestling media landscape.
“There’s a difference between working in one job in wrestling and working in another job in wrestling. There’s a difference between a wrestling fan versus working in the wrestling industry year-round. But I do think the lines get blurred — more than ever,” Khan acknowledged. Rather than viewing that blurring as a problem, he framed it as a reflection of how wrestling connects people from all walks of life. “People with big followings and medium-sized followings or small followings, people from all different backgrounds — I think it’s good that all of these people are connected to wrestling.”
Tony Khan Says He Will Answer Every Question at AEW Scrums and Wants to Hear Everyone’s Perspective
Khan also addressed the specific criticism that fan-adjacent media ask softball questions, offering a nuanced response that acknowledged the grey areas while defending his open-door philosophy. “The outlets that some of the legitimate journalists in wrestling work for — there’s shades of grey amongst these outlets. It’s not all the worldwide leaders in sports journalism competing for these spots.” He made clear that his personal approach to the scrums has always been one of total openness. “I generally have said, ‘I’ll answer every question. I’ll stay until somebody’s gotten to ask something, and I want to hear everyone’s questions.’ I’m always open to hear what everyone thinks.”
Khan closed by reframing the softball question criticism entirely. “Fans of wrestling are going to receive wrestling positively — but those are also a lot of the people who have chosen to cover wrestling. I want to encourage people to cover wrestling and share their thoughts, whatever they may be. That’s one of the things that makes wrestling great — it brings so many people all over the world together so consistently every year, all year, forever.”
