While AEW has made a name for itself for putting on some of the greatest wrestling matches in professional wrestling history, with the promotion already having more five-star matches than WWE in only five years, behind the scenes, things aren’t as elite.
From wrestlers complaining about ghosting while injured to backstage politicking that has led to multiple big-name exits, the promotion has been through the IWC ringer more than a few times and will likely continue to be into the future for one reason or another.
Case in point: Bryan Alveraz of the Wrestling Observer’s bombshell allegation that the promotion doesn’t hold production meetings, with Tony Khan instead meeting with AEW producers individually without any group conversations to make sure the show flows smoothly.
“I hear all the time he doesn’t. He apparently says that he does. Well, how can this be? I heard from wrestlers that he didn’t; I heard through the grapevine that he says that he does. So how is this possible? Well, what it is is like a lot of things in life – ‘How do you describe a production meeting?’ What he does is he will meet with the producers over the course of the afternoon, ‘Hey, bring in Daniels,’ and then he’ll meet with ‘this person,’ and then he’ll talk to Mike Mansury or whatever,” Alvarez explained via WrestleTalk.
“To him, that’s a production meeting. To the people complaining, that’s not a production meeting. What they’re talking about is everybody involved should sit in a room together, at the same time, get the format, ‘This is what’s gonna happen at the beginning, this is what’s gonna happen next, this is what’s gonna happen next,’ and go over the show. That is what is not happening. So, for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to do that. Or I don’t know if he doesn’t have time or what the feeling is. But to him, it’s fine to just call in this producer, ‘Here’s your segment, blah blah blah,’ call in the next person, ‘These are your segments, blah blah blah,’ ‘Hey Mansury, we’re doing this.’ So, it’s whatever you wanna say a production meeting is. There are meetings before the show over what’s gonna happen, but there are not traditional ‘get everyone together in a room at 3 O’Clock;’ they don’t do that.”
Now, as anyone who has ever worked on any sort of production, from a play to an indie show, a film, or beyond, not having a production meeting before a performance is borderline unprecedented, especially on a program set to air live on national television. While some things Khan does can be discussed and debated over their merits, like his AEW booking philosophy or how he uses the older wrestlers on his roster, this one feels like a self-inflicted wound that is only asking to produce ugly results for everyone involved and should be adjusted as a result.
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