Every Wednesday, Tony Khan sets up his makeshift office in the dark. On this particular evening in September, he’s at Arthur Ashe Stadium in the Queens borough of New York, maneuvering through a maze of scaffolding beneath a stage to get to his chair propped in front of a screen with 15 camera feeds. Khan scans between his scribbled notes and the pro wrestlers punching, grappling, and suplexing each other in front of nearly 14,000 raucous fans, checking the clock for the upcoming commercial break and, with it, a rare lull in the drama. Pro wrestling is, after all, as much a sport as an elaborately plotted soap opera.
For four years, Khan’s All Elite Wrestling LLC, or AEW, has operated as an upstart rival to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., deploying its own brand of predetermined mayhem to convert die-hard fans and seduce onetime viewers for whom WWE had become just another PG-rated borefest. Khan’s formula? More blood spilled, more folding chairs smashed, more swearing, and more nuanced storylines. “You genuinely get the feel that AEW is written by a fan for fans,” says Tom Campbell of industry site Cultaholic Wrestling.
This story is from the February 06, 2023 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek US.
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This story is from the February 06, 2023 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek US.
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