Tony Khan Details Why AEW’s Creative Direction Changed In 2025 – Tony Khan believes AEW’s television product has become more focused in 2025 following a major change in how he approaches creative. Speaking with The Takedown on Sports Illustrated, the AEW President acknowledged that in recent years he allowed too many voices to influence the direction of the company’s weekly programming, which ultimately diluted the clarity of the stories being told.
According to Khan, the adjustment came toward the end of 2024, when he decided to eliminate creative meetings between shows and take full responsibility for outlining each episode himself. He explained that the move mirrored a similar decision he made early in AEW’s run, which he felt led to stronger, more cohesive television.
“Since you asked about the focus and some of the stories and putting the TV shows together, yeah, I definitely felt like I had had a good approach that I’d refined in 2020, and trying to be good, trying to listen and be collaborative,” Khan said. “I think I had gotten too collaborative, and it was kind of the same mistake I made at the beginning.”
Khan elaborated on how the process now works behind the scenes.
“It really helped in the end of 2024, going into 2025, I just said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put the outline for everything together myself. I’m gonna eliminate the meetings between shows, and I will put everything together myself between shows. And then I’ll come in with the outline of what I want, rather than have a lot of collaborative meetings where everybody chimes in what they think we should be doing.’”
While Khan has taken firmer control over the initial creative direction, he emphasized that collaboration remains a core part of AEW’s identity. However, he believes it works best when it happens directly between himself and the wrestlers, rather than through large group discussions.
“I don’t want to describe ever being collaborative is a bad thing, because the whole thing that makes AEW great is collaboration,” Khan said. “But the collaboration should probably, at its best, be between me and the wrestlers, and working to find the best path, and not having a lot of people in the middle of that.”
He added that once the outline is established, there is still plenty of room for others to contribute through character development and execution.
“There are tons of contributions to a wrestling show, within a show, that can be found in terms of character work, or once the outline is passed down, implementing that outline. But assembling the outline for the show, I’ve learned, doesn’t necessarily need a lot of people involved.”
Khan’s remarks come as AEW prepares to wrap up 2025 with the Worlds End pay-per-view on Saturday, December 27, followed by the New Year’s Smash edition of Dynamite on December 31 in Omaha, Nebraska.
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