On Tuesday’s media call, Tony Khan, founder of AEW and owner of ROH, shared his excitement over the upcoming television special, AEW Blood and Guts and ROH’s Death before Dishonor pay-per-view.
“Blood and Guts is certainly a pay-per-view worthy event. AEW Dynamite Blood and Guts have been one of our highest rated episodes in the show each of the past few years, so I think we found a very successful formula with that event,” said Khan.
“I think it’s a great part of AEW television, but certainly it’s a kind of great event that could be a pay-per-view show. I think for now, it’s really a strong part of the TV lineup, at least certainly this year I expect it will be and past years.”
The third annual Blood and Guts show is set to take place on July 19 at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. The 20th anniversary Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view is to take place on July 21 at the CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton, New Jersey.
Khan is pumped for the event, though disappointed that an injured Mark Briscoe is unable to wrestle in the main event against ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli.
“I’m very excited for the Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view. The card I have slotted right now is very strong. We’ve announced a few matches and more in recent days. Because of injuries leading into the event, I’ve had to make changes upon changes,” said Khan.
Regarding the main event, Khan called the whole situation a challenging process. The thought of Eddie Kingston being in the main event was an idea that Khan was hoping could happen.
“There’s people you have relationships in this business with and then there’s people you have really, really strong relationships in this business with and Eddie is one of the latter for me. He’s more than somebody I just work with in wrestling, he’s a good friend and I really care about him and his well being,” said Khan.
Unfortunately for Khan, Kingston’s participation in the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), made him unavailable to participate in the ROH pay-per-view.
“Eddie and Claudio, their rivalry, and the hatred they have for each other is far from over. Claudio has been a dominant champion, but certainly I would love to see another match between Eddie and Claudio at some point,” said Khan.
“I was looking to get the best possible challenger for him and given the situation, I was hoping even maybe some possibility that Eddie could fly back to participate in Death Before Dishonor and then go back to Japan. I would certainly would have accommodated the travel if that was possible. It wasn’t possible.”
Khan had high praise for Briscoe and wanted this match to be a big moment for him.
“I knew he was dealing with some injuries but honestly he’s been dealing with them for a long time, but I think the pain had become too much to manage and I think it was getting really challenging for him and to be honest he hadn’t really told a lot of people, including our doctors,” said Khan.
“He was really beat up and it was starting to affect his life, so when he came to me said, ‘Look, it’s been worse than I’ve been letting on and I’m not sure I can do this.’ Well that meant changing everything. We had shot a lot of stuff. We had shot weeks of promos and put all the pay-per-view materials together with Mark. But if Mark Briscoe comes to me and says he needs something, I’m going to do it no matter what it is, and if he needs time to heal up and needs me to pivot the pay-per-view, I’m going to do that for him, with out question. I do that for pretty much anybody, but I’ll do it with a smile for Mark Briscoe.”
In terms of who Castagnoli’s challenger would be, Khan teased that would be announced later in the week.
“We’ll address Claudio’s opponent and who the champion would face for the world title this week, but as I referenced in there, Claudio had shot a lot of stuff for the Mark Briscoe match,” said Khan.
With a major injury altering the main event match, the topic of safety was brought up during the media call and pushing the boundaries regarding moves that are used during pay-per-views — and the leaked list of banned moves in AEW.
“I do think that there are things you can do on a pay-per-view and in a big match that can push the boundaries, and I’m one who likes to push the boundaries on many things. Safety is not the best thing to push the boundaries on though,” said Khan. “It’s a situational thing and there’s some people in a certain situation, to be honest, I would let do something that I probably wouldn’t trust with other people.”
“If Kenny Omega wants to do something, I think that’s a lot different than one of the kids who has come up through AEW Dark. Or, you know, somebody in a dark match wanted to do something that’s a 180 degrees different than somebody again like Kenny Omega, who has done a lot of stuff that other people would consider that it looks very dangerous, but I don’t think people really understand what he does or how he does it.”
Khan said in some cases rules are to be examined or changed and in other scenarios it should be viewed as common sense. He said it comes down to who’s performing and what they’re doing.
Khan ended the media call again sharing his excitement for the upcoming events.
“This is a huge week for us, Blood and Guts is going to be an amazing event,” said Khan. Regarding Death Before Dishonor he concluded by saying it will be one of the best ROH pay-per-view cards.
TOP PHOTO: Tony Khan at AEW Dynamite at the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. Photo by Steve Argintaru, Twitter: @stevetsn Instagram: @stevetsn
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