Tony Khan Denies He’s Had Talks Regarding Britt Baker Leaving AEW, Claims He’s The Only Person Who Has Complete Creative Control In AEW
During today’s media call to promote AEW All In: Texas, AEW President Tony Khan commented on Mercedes Mone and others having complete creative control in All Elite Wrestling, Britt Baker’s current status with the company, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the media scrum below:
On Mercedes Mone and others having complete creative control in AEW: “That’s definitely not true at all. I would love to talk about that. Mercedes Mone is an incredible talent. I have wanted Mercedes Mone in AEW and she is a big star on the show. I really enjoy working with her backstage as a talent and she has done great things for the company doing media. She’s a great person. Mercedes is a great addition to AEW. I also think it’s ridiculous, the idea that people would think because she’s a strong wrestler on the show that she must be the one dictating that. That is the complete opposite of what happens here. We’ve done a really great job, this year in particular, with a really focused build and we’re on the best run of television we’ve ever had through the past six months in 2025. It’s been a great year for the company. I’m the only person with creative control over the show. At the end of the day, I’m responsible for what you see. I’m really proud this year because this has been one of the best years, six months into the year so far, we’ve ever done of television. Philosophically, since the start of the year, in particular this year….I’ll go back. I’ve had the final say since day one of AEW. I’ve had the final creative control since the beginning of the company. We launched very successfully. When we started doing Dynamite those first few months, I was pretty open that around the holidays, I planned to comeback with tighter focus in 2020. It was a New Year’s Resolutions. In January, like a lot of New Year’s Resolutions, it takes time to make a good transition into something you want to do. In that case for me, going into 2020, I said I was only going to do things I believe in and I’m not going to be talked into something I don’t believe in. I’m going to focus on AEW doing things that I come in and bring to the table and say, ‘This is what I want to do’ or if somebody has an idea and I hear it and I say, ‘I strongly believe in that. That is the way to go. You’re right.’ If I don’t believe in it, I’m being talked into it, I’m being dragged across the finish line, I have just found that those things are the things that don’t work. What’s even worse is when they don’t work, there is nobody to blame but yourself. In 2020, I said that’s what I was going to do. I feel like the shows in early 2020, at that point, were the best we had done and the build to the original Revolution in 2020 was some of our best work. Fast forward, several years later, we’ve done a lot of great work. We’ve built the company and secured a media rights deal that was really important for our future. In 2025, we’re having so much success, yet I am finding at times that I’m having so many great people with ideas and I’m listening to so many ideas and I found there was a lot of input that I would take from people and I would listen to a lot of suggestions. I made a resolution, five years later, around the holidays of 2024, that I made in 2019, which was that AEW is going to have a great year and I believe 2025 was going to be that great year, and I wanted to take a similar mindset and approach. This year, you’re seeing the most focused AEW in many years and the best AEW in many years in part because there are less voices. I’m taking less input. I’m still listening to ideas, but if I don’t feel 100% about it, I’m not going to do it. That’s been a really positive change for the company and the shows in 2025, the way things have come together, reflect that positively. I have such a high opinion of Mercedes in particular, I also have a high opinion of her opponent Toni Storm. They are two of the best wrestlers on the planet. They are two people I meet with every single week. At least once a week, but usually multiple times a week and hear out ideas they might have and they hear out ideas I have. For both of them, I’m very involved in the direction of their character personally. They have people they work with. In Mercedes’ case, someone she worked with for a long time which is Jen [Pepperman], and I work well with Jen and Mercedes. In Toni’s case, I found somebody to help me work on it, which is RJ [City]. In the case of Toni or Mercedes or so many of the other great talents that I work with closely, I have the final say on what they do. In the case of this match, it’s something I really wanted to have in AEW for a very long time and it’s something the fans have wanted to see in AEW for a long time and we’ve done a great job, in my opinion, building to this for over a year as a match the fans absolutely are going to want to see. The idea that anybody in AEW has a creative control card and that’s why anybody would get a push here because they dictate it: that’s not how it works. We have a great company and we’ve having a great year and it’s because of, first and foremost, the people I mentioned earlier. The group of people that all work together to make this happen. It’s a team effort between the wrestlers, the staff, and the fans all working together 52 weeks a year and none of us can exist without the others. Mercedes is a great wrestler. She’s a focus on the show. She’s the TBS Champion because she’s hugely followed and a hugely talented star who brings so much to the table. I’ve seen people infer she must have some kind of creative card because she’s such a feature on the show, but that’s ridiculous to me because when you have somebody of that stature, you would want to feature them and push them strongly. That’s why, frankly, in the case of Mercedes Mone, she is not only one of the biggest stars in AEW, but backstage she is a great person to work with. I found her to be very receptive and even if she comes in with an idea that points in one direction, I might have an idea that takes it 180 degrees in the total opposite direction. If I really feel strongly about it, I found that she is somebody that is going to do what I believe and is very trusting of AEW. She is somebody that likes working at AEW and likes being here. One of the great things we’ve done in 2025 was try to focus AEW, this entire year, around the people that want to be here and care about AEW and the people that work really hard for us every week. I think Mercedes is a great example of that. Somebody is really hard working and a very talented pro wrestler.”
On Britt Baker’s AEW status: “I’ve never had a conversation about Britt departing AEW. I like Britt a lot. One of thing we’ve done really well with AEW is build a tight focused show around a really strong roster and it’s been very consistent. I think we’ve had a very good year of pay-per-view and TV. Absolutely, there have been some people that have not been featured. We have a great group of wrestlers that have no necessarily been on the show a lot that are very talented that we would like to work back in when the opportunity presents it. On a baseball team, you use nine players at a time. In the NFL, you can put 11 in at a time and rotate across the snaps, but each play is only 11 players. NBA or college basketball is five-on-five. Pro wrestling is unique because you can use a different number of people, but there is still only so many slots to fit into a show. We’ve done a great job using a lot of the roster this year. We haven’t used everybody, and there are some really talented people on our bench that we can call in that would be a great part of the show. I absolutely think that applies to a number of women and men that are not necessarily being featured right now that we could bring in that could be a great focus on the show as those spots open up and the timing is right to integrate different people into the show. Just like you make substitutions with a sports team. One thing we’ve done very well this year is not try to force everybody on the show every week. What we have had is a really well paced, excellent television show week in and week out with a really focused crew. I really want to continue that. Britt is a great example of somebody that is very talented and we could utilize in AEW with the right situation and at the right time. Just like in pro sports, when you have some really talented people that aren’t necessarily starting every game at that point doesn’t mean they won’t be starting in the future. It makes sense for me to look at the AEW roster like a sports team and trying to manage the minutes and rotation. We’ve done a good job with the people we’re focusing on right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t focus on other people or rotate different people in going forward.”
On the AEW Unified Championship carrying the lineage of the International and Continental Titles: “I have never said I’m retiring the championships. I never said that. The Unified AEW Championship is new to us. Never before have two AEW singles championships been held by the same wrestler at the same time. It’s something very new. We’re very proud of what we built with the International Championship and what we built with the Continental Championship, which is most closely identified with the incredible Continental Classic Tournament, which has been one of the real strong points of AEW in the past few years. The Continental Classic will absolutely be back. The lineage of this Unified Championship would be intact with the International Championship and Continental Championship. I created one Unified Championship belt to represent not only the significance of this match, the winner take all nature, that there would be one person carrying the lineage of these two championships after the match. The belt itself represents the two champions who have gotten us to this point. Those two championships remain, their lineages remain, and the champion may even choose to carry all three championship belts. I wanted to create something special around this match and event.”
On the Jon Moxley-AEW lawsuit: “I definitely can’t comment on pending litigation. In this case, we really do care about the safety of everybody here, whether it’s the talent, fans, or people working backstage, in the truck, around the ring, the production team, and we all work together. That is first and foremost. It’s a family of wrestlers, staff, and fans all working together to make these shows great 52 weeks a year. We all need each other. Beyond that, I can’t comment much on pending litigation.”
(h/t – Fightful)
