Tony Khan Says He Can’t Renew All AEW Contracts

Tony Khan is living his childhood dream and there’s no denying that. The 39-year-old is currently managing a stacked roster of wrestlers in his All Elite Wrestling (AEW) promotion.

Khan recently sat down with TVInsider for an interview during which he addressed the much-discussed topic of AEW contracts. The deals of several performers are reportedly coming up ahead of the promotion’s third anniversary.

“When we started a lot of people had contracts that were a couple of years long and a lot of them are coming up. I have really tried hard to be very considerate of the people on the roster. Especially going through the pandemic. That encompassed a long period of time where we were still in our first year of television and going into our second.

“I kept a lot of people under contract even though I wasn’t necessarily using them on television because I wanted them to still have paying work, which was hard to come by for wrestling during the pandemic where there weren’t any independent shows. Really only two places were running and the other place was cutting people left and right. I did want to give some job security to people.”

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While Khan admitted that he can’t retain all of his performers due to the influx of talent to the promotion, he said he’ll try keep the best possible roster within AEW for the fans.

“Now with so many wrestlers coming in, I can’t renew all the contracts. I’ve had to make some tough choices based on ability, fan response, or both. I try to maintain the best roster I can for the company and fans.”

In regards to the contracts, Cody Rhodes is currently working with the company on handshake agreement. The former TNT champion confirmed his status with AEW in a post-match interview last month.

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