Tony Khan believes that AEW’s creative process in 2025 has become sharper and more focused, thanks to a significant change in how the sausage is made.
Speaking with The Takedown on SI, the AEW President admitted that in recent years, he had allowed the booking process to become “too collaborative.” He compared the situation to mistakes he made during the company’s infancy, where too many voices diluted the final product.
“I think I had gotten too collaborative, and it was kind of the same mistake I made at the beginning,” Khan explained. “And it really helped in the end of 2024, going into 2025, I just said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put the outline for everything together myself.’”
Khan detailed his new approach, which involves eliminating creative meetings between shows and constructing the outlines entirely on his own. He stressed that while he still values collaboration, it works best when he deals directly with the talent rather than filtering ideas through a committee.
“The collaboration should probably, at its best, be between me and the wrestlers, and working to find the best path, and not having a lot of people in the middle of that.”