AEW President Tony Khan comments on WWE counterprogramming

Tony Khan believes 2025 is “the best year AEW has ever had.”

In a recent appearance on Going Ringside, AEW President Tony Khan addressed the recent trend of WWE counterprogramming AEW.

Khan said that AEW is having a strong year in 2025, highlighting the company’s ability to adapt and thrive amid tough competition. He praised the quality of AEW’s shows, noting the strong TV ratings and the continued growth of their audience.

“Well, we’re having a great year. We’ve been able to stick and move and make it work really well for us. There’s always going to be tough competition, and in this sport, it’s very tough competition, a kind of competition that makes you work really hard 52 weeks a year,

For AEW, we’re having a great year. We’ve been putting on great shows. The TV shows have gotten great ratings. We’ve got great support from our audience. And we’ve really grown the audience in 2025.”

Khan highlighted the growth of the TV audience for both Dynamite and Collision (the two weekly shows from AEW), despite the shows also streaming on HBO Max, an outcome he described as the “opposite of what analysts had expected.”

Khan emphasized the quality of AEW PPVs, suggesting that if anyone looked at the top 10 AEW pay-per-views from the past six years, five or six could be from 2025 alone.

“The pay-per-views, you mentioned pay-per-views, we’re doing our best pay-per-views we’ve ever done. If you say… from the past six years, what are the top 10 AEW pay-per-views? I think there’s a good chance five out of the 10, six out of the 10 would be from this year,

So it’s definitely a great year for the product of AEW and we’re very focused on how we can make AEW the best wrestling company it can be.”

[H/T: SEScoops]

WWE continues to escalate counterprogramming measures

WWE has escalated its war with All Elite Wrestling throughout 2025. The promotion has counter-programmed several of AEW’s major pay-per-views with NXT premium live events, as well as Saturday Night’s Main Event.

However, WWE recently hosted the Wrestlepalooza Premium Live Event on September 20, the same day as AEW’s All Out pay-per-view. This was the first occasion on which a WWE main roster PLE took place on the same day as an AEW pay-per-view.

AEW moved the PPV to a special start time of 3 PM ET to avoid clashing with Wrestlepalooza. During the AEW All Out Media Scrum, Khan expressed that he’s open to making the afternoon start time a regular feature for future pay-per-view events.

For more updates, follow Khel Now Wrestling on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; download the Khel Now Android App or IOS App and join our community on Telegram & Whatsapp.