As previously reported, AEW President Tony Khan appeared on Busted Open Radio and revealed that he is working on something massive for the promotion and hopes he will have it done soon, but he’s not sure if it is what the fans would expect, though he knows it would be a big deal for pro wrestling. It was then mentioned that Tony Khan was in meetings the entire day this past Friday as he was trying to put together the “massive” deal, but no other details were given as to what that “massive” deal is. Prior to last week’s episode of AEW Dynamite, Khan noted that he can’t yet reveal the announcement as their legal team has put them under NDAs, but hopefully he will be able to soon.
Tony Khan then returned to Busted Open Radio and provided another blockbuster update on the “massive” announcement, saying the fans should not miss this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite as aside from a lot of great wrestling on the program, the announcement he has been talking about for a while now will be revealed.
The opening segment of last Wednesday night’s episode of Dynamite saw AEW President and CEO Tony Khan kick the show off with a bang by first thanking the fans inside Daily’s Place and promising them that the in-ring action will get started soon. Tony Khan then said that this would be the biggest night in the history of the company and revealed that the major announcement is he signed a deal to become the new and official owner of Ring Of Honor. Earlier in the week, there were reports that ROH and another promotion were in talks about a possible sale and it has now been made clear the deal was between AEW and Ring Of Honor.
Dave Meltzer revealed more details in regards to Tony Khan purchasing ROH as he mentioned on a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Radio Program that the deal was put together two weeks back and the following day Khan started to talk about the “massive” announcement and how it will soon be revealed. Dave Meltzer also noted that both AEW and the WWE were contacted regarding ROH being put up for sale, but with Khan announcing that he is now the owner of ROH, he obviously put up the better offer.
Tony Khan mentioned on a press release that the influence ROH has had in pro wrestling will always be a part of the industry’s history and with his acquisition of the promotion, he will ensure that their legacy will be kept alive and treated with the utmost respect. The new owner of ROH also said he will immediately begin exploring opportunities to make ROH’s video library available to fans, so that they will have the opportunity to witness how the careers of some of AEW’s biggest stars began.
One of the things that AEW wanted as part of their purchase of ROH was the tape library as it was the most important part of the deal for them especially since the company wanted some sort of a streaming service and since ROH has a lot of footage, that is definitely a huge factor in that happening. Also, Ring Of Honor owning the footage for ALL IN, which was an extremely important night for AEW’s history played a big factor in the sale going through.
The belief is that if the WWE ended up buying ROH, then they wouldn’t have run it as a separate brand just like they have been doing with RAW, SmackDown, NXT 2.0 and NXT UK. Back in 2018 when ROH was one of the hottest brands in all of pro wrestling, the WWE put up an offer to buy the company as Triple H wanted what ROH had to offer, but the talks went nowhere especially since Vince McMahon wanted to buy something bigger. WWE was also interested in buying NJPW, Stardom, Pro Wrestling NOAH and AAA, but it would not go through as not even one promotion wanted to sell to them for the price they were willing to pay.
