Tony Khan has a plan in place for Bryan Danielson if he’s ever incapacitated.
The AEW President spoke with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of AEW All In in London and got to give full details on his wrestling fandom and having the support of his father, Shad Khan. Tony Khan is notoriously the main booker of all AEW programming and was asked about the possibility of who would fill his shoes if he ever couldn’t make a taping.
“He hasn’t been around as much lately, because he’s been recovering from an injury. But if I got hit by a bus, or if I was ever incapacitated for some reason, the person I told my father that he should turn to is Bryan Danielson.”
Tony Khan On Earning The Support Of His Father
Tony Khan said in the interview that he intially became aware of wrestling due to a Hulk Hogan appearance on The A-Team and from there he became a diehard fan. Shad was supportive of his interest and even took him to ECW shows in Philadelphia, but when Tony Khan said wanted to start a mainstream wrestling company, it caused his dad pause.
“He basically told me to choke on it, and I did the opposite. And he has been very pleased with how successful it’s been. I was still a guy in my 30s. I had done a lot of things in sports analytics and sports media, but this was a different kind of undertaking, and he thought I was crazy. But now he loves it. And he’s the biggest supporter of AEW, and our marketing and media rights, and he wants to do everything we can to grow the brand.
“He’s been to many of the shows. He was at the first-ever pay-per-view event we did, AEW Double or Nothing in Las Vegas 2019. He’s been to a lot of our great events: All Out in Chicago, the first-ever episode of Collision in Chicago, and the first Grand Slam at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York. He is the biggest supporter of it now but definitely was very skeptical.”