Tony Khan ‘more proud’ of AEW WrestleDream than any show since pandemic

Tony Khan is incredibly proud of the product AEW was able to offer at WrestleDream 2025.

The pay-per-view took place in St. Louis this past weekend and was headlined by Darby Allin defeating Jon Moxley in an “I Quit” match. While speaking to Josh Martinez of Z100 Radio in New York, Khan reflected on the night and called it one of his favorite AEW shows ever. He’s especially proud of the event given that some of AEW’s top stars were unavailable due to injury.

“I absolutely loved the WrestleDream show, start to finish,” Khan said. “And I thought we had such a great night and put so much great action in the show. And I wouldn’t have changed a single thing about WrestleDream. It’s one of my favorite AEW events ever, pound-for-pound, especially with some injuries and some top stars away. I thought this was the absolute best show we were capable of putting on. So I’m more proud of what we did at WrestleDream — probably at least since the pandemic of any show we’ve done.”

Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland are two of AEW’s best wrestlers who are currently sidelined with injuries and could not compete at WrestleDream.

Hangman Page vs. Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship and Kris Statlander vs. Toni Storm for the AEW Women’s World Championship were among the other top matches on the WrestleDream card. One unique aspect of the show was it beginning with a match already in progress, with FTR vs. JetSpeed starting on the pre-show and going into the main card. Khan said it was an idea he came up with while trying to offer the best show possible.

“Like I said, some of the top wrestling stars were away and I said, ‘I’m going to make this the best possible show and everyone’s going to say WrestleDream was the greatest event AEW could put on. And it’s going to be about the people who are here, and they’re going to love this event.’ And that’s how I felt at times in the lockdown, in the pandemic,” Khan said. “If anybody wasn’t available, we would be creative, we would come up with the very best shows we could possibly put on in a unique environment.

“And that’s how I felt about WrestleDream. So we tried a lot of things at WrestleDream, and I really felt like it was very successful. I don’t think anybody had — to the best of my recollection, to the best of my knowledge — had ever had an event carry over [from pre-show into the PPV].”

This Wednesday, AEW will be in San Antonio for Dynamite’s fallout from WrestleDream. The episode will kick off the build to Full Gear 2025, which is being held at the Prudential Center in New Jersey on Saturday, November 22.