Tony Khan Defends Adam Cole After Criticism Of His AEW Booking

There is no doubt that Adam Cole achieved a lot of success during his 4-year run on NXT. He helped elevate the black and gold brand to the next level and had some of the best matches in recent memory as well. It seems Tony Khan addressed Adam Cole’s booking criticism as well.

Adam Cole decided that he wanted to be All Elite and so made his debut at AEW All Out and utterly shocked the pro wrestling world to its core. Cole has already become one of the mainstays of the AEW television and fans are always excited to see him every week.

As of late, fans have been very critical of Adam Cole’s booking in AEW as they feel Cole feuding with the likes of Orange Cassidy is beneath him. While speaking with PWInsider, AEW President Tony Khan addressed Adam Cole’s booking being criticized by fans. He used Britt Baker’s rise to the top of AEW’s women’s division as an example to explain his point as well.

“The Adam Cole that’s here has main evented numerous Dynamites and Rampages, has been one of our biggest drawing wrestlers. The Adam Cole versus Orange Cassidy program is one of the biggest drawing programs we’ve ever had in the history of AEW. They have done big numbers on every show they’ve been on. And it’s been a big part of our rating success in recent months, has been the matches they did with each other.

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Before Orange Cassidy and the Best Friends, Adam Cole wrestled a number of matches also against Jungle Boy. He beat Jungle Boy. Of course, Orange Cassidy and Jungle Boy, both number one contenders. He beat both of them and he’s beaten everybody else he’s wrestled in a sanctioned match. Including a lot of main events.  So wherever he’s been before this, he’s never been presented to as wide of an audience as consistently as a main event wrestler.

The lights-out match being an exception to that, but that was not a sanctioned match, did not go on his record. You mentioned Britt Baker. Britt Baker had a similar arc where Britt Baker had really come into her own as a wrestler. She had won a match against Thunder Rosa under kind of dubious circumstances. But that’s a win on her record,” he added. “So she had beaten Thunder Rosa, ironically at Beach Break in 2021, and then later at the St. Patrick Day Slam, Thunder Rosa won the lights-out match. But it wasn’t long after that where Britt Baker ended up with the best record and went on to Double Or Nothing and won the world championship.

Of course, this is coming off just weeks after losing this lights-out match. And it hasn’t slowed down Britt at all. Frankly, Adam Cole, all the great matches and all the great wins he’s had. I don’t think that’s going to slow him down at all. We saw on Rampage, he looked better than ever.  I thought his promo was very strong and I expect more of that from him, convincing performances, strong promos. So he is a very highly regarded person who has been incredibly valuable since he arrived in AEW.”

Adam Page is likely to enter into a feud with Adam Cole, which will culminate at AEW Revolution next month after what happened on AEW Dynamite. It remains to be seen how the feud will be booked till then.