Tony Khan on AEW releases: I really spent more than I’d planned going into this year

After their Supercard of Honor PPV ended with a great moment for Mark Briscoe and his entire family, Ring of Honor held a media scrum.

When Tony Khan fielded questions at the end of the scrum, the ROH and AEW owner was asked about his company’s talent releases earlier this week. Specifically, Khan was asked why he opted to lay people off rather than let contracts expire as he’s done in the past — and as he’s indicated was his preferred approach while criticizing previous WWE’s cost-cutting roster moves.

Khan pointed to his own recent financial choices while again saying he needed to make moves to ensure he can continue to spend moving forward

“I think that this year I have been very active not only in the free agent market, but in the production budget. There are things tonight, like for example, on one song alone, I spent like a year’s pay for most pro wrestlers in this business.

“And the budget not only with free agency, but production, is very high. And also we’re going into a contract year. And I plan to continue on being very active not only in free agency, but in the production of the show and producing great content.

“Going into this year, I have to look at where we’re at. I’d really spent more than I’d planned going into this year.

“So I really love our roster and where we’re at, I’m very supportive of everybody we have here and everyone who’s ever worked here.

“I think I really appreciate everything they did when they were here.

“And this particular group, it was not an easy set of choices to make, and in particular with this group of wrestlers we just released, I would be happy to take any of them back under the right circumstance. I have no bridge burned with any of them.”

Two talents who would disagree with that last sentence are Brandon & Brent Tate, aka The Boys. After Khan said on Thursday’s pre-Supercard media call he had to make “a tough call” to fire the Tates due to their failing to show up for work “on more than one occasion”, on Friday evening they posted a statement on Twitter/X documenting a travel issue that caused them to miss a show, and said they received assurances from AEW’s Human Resources department that that wasn’t the reason for their release:

Khan said at –Supercard scrum that he was “not moved” as he thinks there are “two sides to that story”. He also said he likes Brandon & Brent personally and would work with them again, something he returned to as he closed out his answer on the releases:

“And like I said, even with The Boys, I disagree with the point on travel and that in the history of ROH and working with us that there hadn’t been a couple times where they didn’t make it and made me change stuff, but on the other hand I really like both of them.

And whether we agree or not about that point of contention, I think it’s regardless, I think they were great. They were a great part of Dalton’s act. I like both the Tates.

I like everybody we released in this last batch recently and I’m wishing nothing but the best for any of them.”

You can watch the entire scrum in the video embedded at top of this post. Khan’s solo portion starts at approximately the 1:08:50 mark.