My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 217 - TONY KHAN RETURNS!

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Tony Khan joins Robbie Fox in the Basement to discuss tonight’s episode of Dynamite, the success of Forbidden Door, the decision to put the AEW Interim Championship on Jon Moxley, his philosophy on how to best handle titles in wrestling, how the Claudio Castagnoli deal/debut came together, being heavily involved in the creation of entrance themes, and more. 3Chi: Use code STOOL5 at checkout to receive 5% off at 3Chi.com **************************************** Subscribe to My Mom's Basement on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIeZ96PqdsJYQ7DFLRx6MHw My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basement Intro Music: “Basement Noise” by All Time Low Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/basement-noise/1499013757?i=1499013968 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/3Aq9W9BBCjsFOQqcYyO6IA?si=d9d0f74cf54a48deYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey, My Mom's Basement listeners. You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Just stupid boys making basement noise in the basement, noise in the basement. Just stupid boys making basement noise in the basement. Hello and welcome to My Mom's Basement presented by 3C and Barstool Sports. I am your host, Robbie Fox, and this is a special Tony Khan interview edition of My Mom's Basement. Tony Khan, the AEW president, is back on the podcast today. It's July 6th, as we're putting this up, just a couple days after the 4th of July.

I hope all of the listeners had a great holiday with family, whoever you celebrated with, friends, whoever it may be. And this was actually recorded on show day. This is Wednesday at about 1 p.m., so it's kind of in the middle of chaos, but I got to ask him about that, how it all goes down. Before we get into it, let me tell everyone about our presenting sponsor, 3Chi. You can skip out on the dispensary, get THC delivered straight to your door with our friends at 3Chi, whether it be Delta 8, Delta 9. They've got the THCV, the HHC. They have everything at their website,

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This is a sale exclusive to Barstool listeners. 3Chi gives you an amazing buzz and a great body feel, but with a clear head and less anxiety and paranoia than normal weed. Take 5% off all products now at 3chi.com. Get that free sticker. Use the promo code STOOL5. All right, now let's get into this interview with Tony Khan. Hello and welcome back to My Mom's Basement presented by Barstool Sports. It is Robbie Fox and I am back with Tony Khan right after 4th of July weekend and it is show day, Tony. We're doing this interview on the day of Dynamite. There's a

great episode of Dynamite tonight, so if you're listening to this on the day it dropped, make sure you tune in for that. How are you? How was your fourth? How are you doing? I'm doing awesome. Thank you for asking. I had a great fourth. How was yours? It was fantastic. It was, you know, celebrating America with cheesesteaks, hot dogs, spaghetti and crabs. That's actually a Fox family thing. That sounds awesome. Spaghetti and crabs. Yeah, it was pretty great. So thanks for taking the time on a Wednesday afternoon. Like I said, show day, we're actually doing this. What is a typical Wednesday entail for you, Tony? They're pretty crazy.

It starts very early because I'm usually up pretty late Wednesday morning, Tuesday night, working on things with injuries. And now in the COVID era, there's always some changes and surprises. Also checking to make sure everybody's travel is okay. Everyone's getting in okay. And who's checked into the hotel. And if anybody's going to have difficulties,

if we needed to reschedule, or if there's anybody, since maybe if somebody's flight got canceled or somebody's sick, we might need to bring somebody else in as replacements and plan those for the morning. And then after we get all of our travel figured out and any adjustments I need to make to the formats, we then start working on the show. And it's a pretty busy day.

And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of craziness backstage, but we're coming off such an awesome week for AEW. There's a great vibe backstage right now. After we had a big Forbidden Door pay-per-view, Blood & Guts, the number one show on cable last Wednesday, and then Rampage, we did our biggest number in months, biggest total audience since April, and the best finish for the show finishing top three first time since october so really big week for aw so it's a really good vibe backstage in particular today yeah congrats on those numbers that's amazing to hear and like you mentioned we have a great show tonight

interim aew champ john moxley versus brodie king we've got a street fight for the tnt title scorpio sky versus Wardlow, Butcher and the Blade versus Keith Lee and Swerve, one of my favorite new tag teams in AEW. Talk to me about everything that went through your mind, though, when CM Punk gets injured, and you have to think about the title picture now, where Jon Moxley, we know, is the interim champ from Forbidden Door, but what was that like for you as the booker? Well, it was very complex. I also had to make sure that CM Punk's getting the best medical care. And really, that was the most important thing. So it was on a Wednesday, June 1st in Los Angeles when he was injured.

And we got him in, got x-rays. And it wasn't really till Friday, I knew for sure that he was going to be out for a significant amount of time. I was really crossing my fingers and probably in denial on Thursday. And then on Friday, when we realized he was going to be out sometime, he went out and, of course, addressed the championship and addressed that I would not accept his resignation. I would not accept him relinquishing the title. He's going to come back and he's going to wrestle for us, but he's going to be facing a very tough challenge. We crowned an interim champion and tonight we have an interim championship match. So already there are two potential major obstacles in his way. John Moxley won the interim championship, of course, at Forbidden Door, defeating Hiroshi Tanahashi, a match wrestling fans around the world have been waiting years to see.

And when Punk went down, I had to do some calculations in my head very quickly. And I just kind of spit it out like the light bulb went on. And I said to Punk and other people in the room that, OK, we're going to go with Moxley versus Tanahashi. We'll crown an interim champion. And going forward, we're going to have a great unification match. And it sets up something really big on Punk's return. Now Moxley beat Tanahashi, but tonight he's facing the winner of the inaugural Royal Rampage, Brodie King, who won an awesome, awesome match on Friday and did it in brutal fashion, taking Darby Allin and choking him out, leaving him hanging off the apron and dropping him

like a dead body on the ground. And it was just brutal, brutal, and really a great match and a big win for Brody King and now a big opportunity for him to win the interim championship tonight on Dynamite versus Jon Moxley and take it back to the House of Black. When it comes to Jon Moxley, like when CM Punk announced his injury and everything like that, I thought immediately in my mind that Jon Moxley would be the perfect guy to step up and win that interim title. What was it for you in your mind where you felt the same way? Well, he's been a great champion for AEW in the past, and he's absolutely one of our biggest

stars. One thing that the fans in the arena really never got to see, and now tonight in Rochester and all the fans around the world watching Dynamite on TBS tonight and wherever you watch it in different countries around the world, but here in America, it's TBS 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central on Wednesdays. And Jon Moxley defended the title on Dynamite many, many times in a closed arena situation on closed sets. And then during the COVID era, we really started to let fans back in. And so he would have, you know, 1,100, 1,200, 1,250 maybe fans at some of his defenses, maybe 1,300.

And the way we worked it was we had 25% capacity. So we were creative about how we got fans into daly's place we took each section of seats and basically gave each group of people a family or a group of friends their own section so there would be nobody near them around them and it was a great way to get the fans back to the wrestling matches and for over a year it was the only way to watch wrestling on tv here with fans and john was a great champion throughout that era. And really, he got robbed of the title. And the way Kenny Omega won it from him at Winners Coming in 2020,

it was not becoming of a champion. And John really deserved better. And I always thought the fans really deserved to see John out defending the title on the road. And now to be here in Rochester, John's the interim champion. It feels very right. And he's faced a lot of big, brutal challengers, you know, monsters like Lance Archer and Brian Cage as champion in the past. I think he's facing one of the toughest, most just absolutely terrifying monsters he's faced

as champion tonight in Brody King. And he represents the Kings of the Black Throne and the House of Black. And it is going to be very, very interesting tonight, I believe, to see those two in the ring. I love seeing John. He's a bigger man. He's a heavyweight. But whenever he's the underdog in a fight is when you really see the best of Jon Moxley come out. We've seen that in the past, like I mentioned, against some of those big monsters he's faced as champion in the past. And I think we'll see that again from him tonight, that he's got a lot of heart. And this is a very different test than he's faced before.

So I'm really excited for that. And I just thought John would step up and do a great job. So as soon as I heard that Punk was down, I called John. We were in Ontario, California, and John was at an Airbnb with Rene. And I told him about it and he he was very excited about it but he also asked he's like so you don't need me to drive to Ontario right now and I said no no it's okay I'll see you soon you can enjoy your day off yeah yeah yeah so uh that was cool and since then he hasn't had a day off and we really appreciate Jon Moxley. And tonight, he's not going to be going into the fight at 100% coming out of that blood and guts match last week.

Yeah. And going back to Forbidden Door, where he won that interim championship, I thought that was a tremendous show. Start to finish, the actual quality of the wrestling in ring, it's hard to find a pay-per-view where you have better wrestling than that one. What was that like putting it together with New Japan now that it's all in the past? And do you think that we're going to see more collaborations with New Japan? I hope we collaborate more with New Japan and I expect to collaborate more with New Japan. The Forbidden Door was a really successful partnership and we work very closely together. I was on the ground quarterback in this

thing. And I talked regularly to ghetto in Japan, and talked to him through Rocky Romero, who works right under him. And we're both close with Rocky. So he was the perfect intermediary. So I spent literally, you know, dozens of hours, hundreds of calls, thousands of text messages between Rocky and myself in the recent months. Lots of changes we obviously had to make due to injuries, travel. And really, I think both of us were thrilled with how it came together. And it was great to finally have Ghetto here in the flesh, meet him in Chicago and shake his hand. Is that the first time you guys actually met was in chicago yeah there's a great photo there's a great photo that mox took to

commemorate it actually uh mox asked for it it's on his phone and uh so mox took a photo with ghetto and me to commemorate uh the meeting of the minds as he called it i love that and i would also love to know more about the claudio deal because because Claudio has been one of my favorite wrestlers for so many years. As soon as we heard he was a free agent, I thought it would be the perfect fit for AEW. And how did that come together? Really? We haven't heard a ton about it other than maybe he was going to debut at death before dishonor. And then the Brian injury obviously happened and put a wrench in plans. Well, it was terrible to lose brian danielson who's one of the world's best wrestlers but claudio is also one of the world's best

wrestlers and we're very fortunate he was available i called claudio on june 2nd on thursday june 2nd in la in between those aforementioned shows at the forum and ontario we'd clearly been hit by an injury bug. I wasn't sure how long CM Punk was going to be out, but I knew he wasn't going to be back immediately. And I was concerned about Brian Danielson. He would go on to have really a few good weeks where he was feeling pretty great, but I wanted to have a contingency plan in case Brian Danielson didn't come back. And if he did come back, then I figured, hey, I've got a great top star for Ring of Honor, somebody that is one of the biggest stars in the history of Ring of Honor, and really somebody who's very closely associated with all the great

things about that company. And so we brought back Samoa Joe and many of the great stars who've been top stars on all the top promotions and now back in Ring of Honor and also in AEW. So I thought that could potentially be a very unique way for Claudio to come in if Danielson came back 100% healthy for the Zack Sabre match at Forbidden Door and for the Blood and Guts match last week. When I talked to Brian about a week before Forbidden Door, he'd had a setback. He wasn't feeling as well as he'd been feeling a few days earlier. At Road Rager in St. Louis, I talked to Brian on show day, same as we're talking now, catching up with people before the chaos really begins. And he told me in Brian brian danielson fashion he

he gets really fired up and he said tony i feel fucking great i feel awesome i'm excited for this saber match i can't wait to come back blood and guts fuck i feel great i'll see you soon and then i talked to him on saturday the weekend before Forbidden Door, and he wasn't feeling as good. And he said, I don't feel as good today. I'm just a little concerned. I told him, Brian, if you're not feeling 100 percent, we're eight days out from the pay-per-view. There's no way I want you to even consider wrestling. Please just relax. And he said to me, OK, that's great. I think Claudio could be awesome for this. If there's any way we can work it out.

And I told him, it's funny you mentioned that, Brian, because I have Claudio under contract already. And I had anticipated we might need him and he's here for us. So Brian was so relieved to hear that. And of course I called Claudio and told him, hey, you're in and we're going to do this. And it worked out amazingly well. After the blood and guts match, I stood up out of my chair and gorilla and he walked back through and shook my hand. And Claudio said, this is amazing. I could not have asked for a better first week. I've never had a better week. This is awesome. And I really took that to heart because like you, Rob, I think he's one of my favorite wrestlers and he's a great person in real life. to wrestle Zack Sabre and Forbidden Door and then to have that blood and guts match and for him to

get the big win and the way it came came off together it was perfect and I'm glad it made him happy I know it made me and it sounds like you and a lot of fans all over the world happy and it was a big box office success for us you know it is a business and business wise, it was very good. It was the number one show on cable. We had over a million live viewers just in the United States and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of fans all over the world also watching. And it was one of our most special days and Claudio made it happen. I love his theme as well. He's been a guy who has kind of bounced around a

bunch of themes over his career and people have always said he hasn't landed on a good one, but I thought Ruckus did a great job with this. Are you involved in that process or do you kind of leave it to Ruckus and the wrestler? How involved with themes are you? Super involved. That was my call. And most of the themes that you really liked in the past year are ones that I worked with Mikey on and Mikey composes the music he is the brains of that and I just try to come up with concepts so I'll give you different examples of some of them Claudio who we're talking about is a really good example of this I talked to him it was the same day Brian called me about a week before forbidden door and told him you know

brian's not going to be able to do this can you step up and do and wrestle these matches zach saber and blood and guts this is the contingency plan we're activating the contingency and he was very cool and very excited about it and i said to him okay i'm gonna have to get your music together a little bit quicker than i would have otherwise. I remember you had a classical song in Ring of Honor. I'm trying to remember what it was. And he took a minute and then he mentioned he had Sledgehammer, which is a great song. We don't have the rights to it, but it's a great song. But it wasn't what I was thinking.

And then he hit me back and he said, oh, when we were on HGNet, I had that 1812 Overture. And I said, that is absolutely what it was. That is what I was trying to remember, the 1812 Overture. That is a perfect song. I would do a different interpretation of it. And that's where I told Mikey I want to have a really celebratory, like exciting fun loud rocking version of the 1812 overture probably 97 of the times i've heard that song were either claudio's entrances in ring of honor and even more so i've seen the last part of Caddyshack like five times.

In college, we used to, in the summer, we would watch the last like 20 minutes of Caddyshack and then go out and play golf. And every time, you know, Bill Murray blows up the golf course and the 18-12 overture plays, and it's fun. And so it reminds me of that a little bit. It reminds me of seeing Claudio in HDNet, and Mikey did a great job with it. So I really wanted the rock in the 1812 Overture.

That's a good example of that. When FTR, I felt like needed an overhaul, repackaging, and I really wanted to get behind them and signify that it was going to be a new era for them in AEW and that we're really getting behind them. I wanted to change their song. And since I was going to try to book them stronger than I had and do a better job than I had done with them. And really, I wanted to make them one of our top acts. And one of my favorite entrance themes is the old Midnight Express theme. And it's different, but it's probably more similar to the knockoff of the midnight express theme than it is the original theme but that's by design so uh it's it's very similar to the song i grew up on because i you know in the

in the early 90s especially with beautiful bobby and then going back and watching vhs tapes of bobby and stan they always had that song and and i went back to bobby and dennis they had the original song but i i'd imagine that might be a little bit more expensive and we wouldn't be able to create our own content there. So I asked for a theme inspired by the Midnight Express song. And I thought it was perfect. And I took it to Dax and Cash. At first, they were not sure, but they said, OK, we'll try this. I mean, it seems like a cool idea. They love the Midnight Express more than anybody. And it's worked out really well and it's become a calling card for them. And, you know, FDR is in the house when you hear that theme. So that's a that's a good example of it.

A lot of the licensed music. I work with Mega to try and bring in licensed music whenever we can. And we've had a number of licensed songs. Finally secured the rights to Jane for Orange Cassidy. That was a big one. So I work really closely on the music. In particular, a lot of these new songs are licensed songs. And I really enjoy it. I think Mikey does a great job on these.

Adam Cole has probably the theme that has been the most successful. I talked to Mikey at length about that, about concepts and ideas when he put that one together, and he did an excellent job on that one. Samoa Joe's theme is another one that's done really well on the charts that I talked to Mikey a lot about before we put it together. He does great work, and I really enjoy working with him. Yeah, shout out Mikeyy ruckus all right i'm also curious about your philosophy when it comes to titles in wrestling because we just had the introduction of the all atlantic championship in aew and that of course anytime you create a new title in wrestling it causes the fans to go oh there's too many titles there's not enough titles

there should be this title there shouldn't be this title what is your overall kind of broad strokes philosophy on how to handle titles in wrestling? I believe you have to make the championships important and treat the champions with great respect. We have a great all Atlantic champion in pack. And the way he's defending the title now is going to be a little different than the way some of our other champions have. Pack is defending the title around the world. He's a fighting champion. We have a lot of fighting champions in AEW who are fighting on Dynamite, Rampage every week, and also on pay-per-view. Pac won that title on pay-per-view at Forbidden Door, but we'll see if he comes back to America as the All-Atlantic champion because he's

scheduling defenses overseas that I've signed off on and really encouraged. I wanted him to go over and defend the title overseas. So I'm excited. We've been able to put it together. And his first defense for Rev Pro is against somebody we saw at Forbidden Door that had a star making performance in Shota. And so I really like Young Shooter. We talked a lot about Mox. That is a protege of his and he's really coming to his own, and he would be a great All-Atlantic champion, too. People ask me why I have the flag of Japan on the All-Atlantic title, and I said, well, the wrestlers are going to come from all over the world to fight for that.

They'll probably fight more so in the Atlantic region, maybe over in the UK or Ireland or here in the United States, but I know a lot of wrestlers are going to come from Japan and compete for it. Clark Connors, of course, was at Forbidden Door. Ishii originally had competed in that qualifying tournament. Now we've got Shooter, Shota Amina from New Japan. And Shota is absolutely somebody who could come back and be a great all Atlantic champion for us. So that's going to be a great match overseas for PAC. Is there any plans for AEW to tour overseas, whether it be the UK or even Canada? I got a lot of questions about when I put the call out for fan questions on this interview. Yes, I plan to go to both of those

places and hopefully both of them in the next year. Oh, wow. That'd be amazing. UK may be a little bit further off, but next summer, I don't think it's that crazy. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. And it gives us a lot of time to plan it and make it really special. So I have some ideas for events and things we can do in the UK that would still not cut into our business revenue in America and create new inventory and new revenue in the UK. So I'm excited for that. So I think next summer would be a really exciting time for that, but not kicking it down the road another year and

another year after that. I hope we can really lock in some plans now that travel has finally become more stable and reliable. Two other things that I saw a lot of fans asking about in my replies. Any update on an AEW streaming deal or an ROH weekly show? Great questions. They may be associated with each other. I do think that if there was a platform for all the AEW content and the historical libraries of both AEW and Ring of Honor, that having new content from both companies would make a lot of sense. And that could entail weekly TV from Ring of Honor. But I also think that that could land in a number of great homes. So there's a lot of great places we could put Ring of Honor TV. They are two things we are

actively talking about and working on. We have one of the greatest media partners on the planet. I think the best media partner on the planet now after the merger of Warner Brothers Discovery, they are the largest content creator on earth. And it's great to be part of that family and to be a prominent part of that family. And going forward,

I believe the libraries of AEW and Ring of Honor could have a lot of value, but also new content from AEW and Ring of Honor would have a lot of value in that ecosystem. So it is absolutely something we're looking at as far as a streaming service and also looking at bringing weekly Ring of Honor back. I'm excited to bring Ring of Honor back on July 23rd to pay-per-view on Bleacher Report and Cable and Satellite with Death Before Dishonor, which is a great Ring of Honor event. We're going to announce more tonight on Dynamite about Death i honestly believe can be and this is saying something because we've had great events ourselves this year aw and ring of honor i think this can be as good of a show as we've seen this year there's going to be great wrestling this is going to be a great wrestling show and i promise it will be one of the best ring of honor events they've had

we've already really had in my opinion the best ring of honor event in years at supercard of honor and now we can build off that have another great show hopefully even better and continue ring of honor and then go from having these pay-per-views keeping the brand alive and keeping it strong stronger than it's been in years and then parlay that into weekly tv i can't wait july 23rd everyone look out for that pay-per-view. What are you doing? You want to come? I'm going to be in London for UFC.

But luckily it's a daytime UFC thing. That UFC is going to end and I'll be able to watch that before Dishonor afterwards. That's amazing. Well, we knew there was a UFC by day when we scheduled the pay-per-view and I think it's a great compliment. And please give my best to all my friends over there

when you see them. Of course. Another thing I remember hearing in 2019 about your five-year plan for AEW. And it was a lot of things that it seems like you guys have already done in three, you know, establishing a roster, establishing yourself as a main brand in wrestling, as a real competitor, making wins and losses matter in wrestling. Do you have like a new five-year plan? Did you crumple that up and throw it away when you reached everything on it and kind of re-strategize for AEW? Well, we still have a little under two years left in that five. And I think it's important to maintain everything we're doing and continue to grow. I think we've expanded AEW with Rampage

now, and we have now Dynamite and Rampage, two great shows every week. And now with last week, we did our best viewership for Rampage in a long time. So I think for AEW, the five-year plan, we've lived up to most of everything we wanted to accomplish in these years, but it's important to keep fighting every single week. This is a business where you cannot take your eye off the prize for a moment, certainly not for a day, definitely not for a week. And it's amazing how quickly things change in pro wrestling. But one thing that's been steady is there's been a lot of support for AEW, but it's continued. It's gotten stronger. Our pay-per-view business has gotten stronger. We've expanded. We've built new relationships. We had this partnership with New Japan. Forbidden

Door was a huge business success, and the fans loved the show, which is great because a lot of times there's things in wrestling that make money, and then it turns out the fans didn't like it. In this case, we had something that was incredibly well-received, one of the best-reviewed shows in not just this year but in many years and on top of that we made a lot of money so that's the best of both worlds in this business and i'd like to keep doing that doing shows that the fans like and that make money and do good ratings for warner brothers discovery and hopefully we can keep them happy and keep aw strong for a long time i think the last time Warner Brothers

Discovery was like in the house, we saw that explosive MJF promo on television. Is there any update on where MJF and AEW stand? No, I don't have anything to add to that. It was at the forum and it was with all the top representatives of Warner Brothers Discovery there. They were very kind to host us. I don't have any update on him right now, but it's a very fair, probably good question to ask, and I understand why you asked it. Another thing that I want to know, this is more of a fun question. Rank your enjoyment of these three wrestling eras as a fan.

Like when you were watching as a fan, how did you enjoy these? The golden era, I would say the early 90s kind of the hulk hogan era of wrestling the attitude era which we all know and then the ruthless aggression era wow what great questions um they're all very different i had a different perspective on all of them i would say i probably enjoyed them in the order you said because uh from childhood i was soaking up as much as I could during that golden era. But then the attitude era, it was like there were unquestionably things happening that were more exciting. I'd grown up a little bit and I understood a lot more about the wrestling business. I was an early user of the online wrestling communities and I learned a lot from that and we've talked about that before tony flair yeah tony flair and uh so i really i think it's very tough to put them in

order but that golden age i don't think i would be here be a fan if i hadn't picked up wrestling around 1990 and you know kind of on the back of what might have been the real golden age might be the 80s honestly and i think we're getting their late late 80s into the early 90s you know transitioning and kind of a changing period for the business as things got a little bit darker in 1993 94 before getting really bright again into 96-97-98 and 98 being kind of I think one of the peak years of the wrestling business and one of the peak years of a lot of things a lot of cool stuff happened I was born yeah and I think we talked about this before you look at all the stuff that happened in 1998 you know Robbie Fox was born a lot of great things in sports it was

of course the home run chase in baseball. Yankees won the World Series. Yankees swept the World Series against the Padres. That was probably one of the best Yankees teams of that era. And a lot of exciting things. A lot of great movies came out. There's something about Mary. Great.

Shawshank, right? Armageddon. Shawshank was 94. Armageddon was 98. But definitely a lot of big movies. And then in wrestling, it was the year where both companies were really just making a hand over fist. WCW was their last huge, great, successful year. And the WWF, it was the most successful year they'd had, certainly in many years and possibly ever.

And they only continued to get stronger after that. So, 98 was a crazy year. In the golden era itself, WrestleMania VI, were you a Hogan guy or were you a Warrior guy? What an interesting question. I watched WrestleMania VI on tape, so I already knew what happened. I started watching wrestling in 1990. And when I picked it up up the warrior was already the champion and he was wrestling Ted DiBiase I believe on Saturday night's main event and they were setting

up to go to Hogan and Savage and before that there was the Hogan slaughter match at Royal Rumble 91 so I kind of picked it up and I would 1990. I was watching more and more on TV. I remember Survivor Series 90 was a big deal, and I got the VHS of that. But the first pay-per-view I think I watched live was Royal Rumble 91, and then I watched all the 1990 pay-per-views on tape after that. So I kind of already knew what happened in Hogan Warrior, but it was a great, great match, especially now with the benefit of hindsight. It's kind of amazing how great the match is. And it was one of great match especially now with the benefit of hindsight it's kind of

amazing how great the match is and it was one of the ones I watched a lot there was this pay-per-view that was like a best of show called Hot Ticket and on Hot Ticket they it was like uh it ran in the summer of 91 I think between WrestleMania 7 and SummerSlam 91 and i i watched hot ticket and it was like a best-of show it had savage and steamboat it had hogan and the warrior and a lot of the great wrestlemania matches it was kind of like a best-of wrestlemania essentially and i didn't know about that never heard of that hot ticket yeah and uh some of these matches I had rented, and I'd seen WrestleMania 5 and 6 already. So Hogan Warrior, I'd already seen that on VHS, but I watched it again on Hot Ticket. And I believe that was the first time I saw the Savage and Steamboat match, which is probably my favorite wrestling match.

I've definitely seen it more times than any other match. I watch it at least once a year and I definitely for the first time saw that on the hot ticket show then went back and rented Wrestlemania 3 and some of the older shows but Wrestlemania 5 and 6 right right around Wrestlemania 7 I went back and watched those and I since I already know what happened um I don't know if I was rooting as much. But I also feel like it was kind of like, depending on what week it was, what month it was, I could have gone a few way on that one. That was like the wrestling pay-per-view that my brother raised me on. Because growing up, he was such a big Ultimate Warrior fan that for him, that was the Super Bowl. Ultimate Warrior winning the title against Hulk Hogan and everything.

So he just raised me to be like, we're going to watch Wrestlemania 6 every day and we're gonna root for the Ultimate Warrior so that's why I was curious you know I was born so many years later you're one of the quintessential cool older brother guys yeah you're such a cool I have he's 12 years older than me which helps as well it's kind of I got like the era before me in the way he raised me. I can tell it's in it's in your taste in movies and music and wrestling and in a very good way. And all of these things that you have a really good understanding, especially for somebody your age of those eras and really good taste, if I may say. And a lot of it must come to having a cool older brother like you did. Like 99 percent of it comes down to the cool older brother, I would say. All right, Tony, thank you so much for the time on show day.

Nonetheless, have a great Dynamite. Hope everything goes smoothly tonight, and I can't wait to watch. I can't either. It's going to be a big night on Dynamite tonight. I'm very excited about Mox versus Brody King for the interim world title. Very excited about Wardlow versus Scorpio Sky in a street fight for the tnt championship lot of exciting stuff on tap tonight on tbs uh you can check it out 8 p.m eastern 7 p.m central luchasaurus and christian cage as well they're gonna be on the show maybe more to that too they

may uh i haven't uh unrevealed everything they might do tonight so they're they might have a busy night too so there's a lot more to come. Stay tuned to AEW social media today, tonight, and I'm really excited for dynamite tonight. And as always, thank you for giving me a chance to comment plug the show on your show with you. Of course. Anytime. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Rob.