AEW President Tony Khan was a recent guest on the Swerve City podcast where he talked about Tay Conti.
Khan believes Conti is the AEW wrestler who has made the most progress from the pandemic era to today. He also addressed the recent heat she has gotten on AEW TV since being paired with her real-life boyfriend, Sammy Guevara. It was just last summer that Sammy took to one knee to propose to his then-fiance and Khan concedes he misread how fans would react to the two as an on-screen act.
“Tay Conti, she came in and she’s great,” he said. “In NXT she seemed like she had a ton of potential. So, I thought since she’s come into AEW she’s had great matches. Obviously, her presentation has changed and changed. Now it’s continued to evolve with Sammy, and they’ve really found something special on and off-screen, honestly.
“It’s great, and I am really happy for them. I was really happy for them, so maybe I misread how happy the fans would be for them. So, I think I have course-corrected that. You don’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole. I like Sammy, I like Tay, the fans like Sammy, the fans like Tay. I like Sammy and Tay together, the fans do not, and that’s where we differentiate, so that’s what I have come to accept.”
Tony Khan also talked about signing different wrestlers, and how their backstage attitude is part of his decision. While he is not going to turn someone down if they have an issue with just one person, if they cause possible danger it is an issue.
“Look, people have problems, and you 100 percent of the time say, ‘look, I am not going to hire a huge star because they have a problem with a person.’ But, on the other hand, if the problem is something where the person is going to be a danger to the people backstage, or create an unsafe environment, or the person is going to spread a message that is dangerous or bad, then you don’t want that,” he said. “But I think we have a really good locker room.”
