AEW owner, CEO and general manager Tony Khan agrees with fans who have criticized the presentation of Satnam Singh’s debut.
The 7′ 3″ former pro basketball player appeared after the lights went out at the very end of Wednesday night’s episode of Dynamite.
“I could have done better,” Khan told Busted Open Radio on Friday. “It’s like – you know, it’s one of those things. I wish I would have done it a little differently because the fans will always be right. So if the fans don’t like something sometimes – there are some things about where you’re trying to get warmth, which is a situation where you’re trying to get warmth. People won’t always love it. But there were things I probably should have done differently now that I see it.
“And to be honest, turning off the lights wasn’t my idea, but I’m the ultimate filter. I’m the person who goes through everything. I put the show’s outline together and when I walked in on Wednesday I thought it was the best outline I’ve ever put together. At least one of them. It was… as much heavy wrestling as you could fit into the program and I thought the show was excellent up to that point.
“And then that was the one thing that we kind of went for. Maybe people didn’t like it. Satnam is an important person for us. It was important to debut him in a meaningful way at the end of the show. With Jay Lethal, he will be a force to be reckoned with. At the same time, turning off the light for someone people didn’t recognize is a great point.
“And to be honest, when — well, the person who mentioned turning off the lights has over 30 years of pro wrestling experience, and when they told me I was just looking at the pros and I should have thought about the downsides, because that’s my job as the person who decides what goes in and filters out those ideas. We had all these people in the room and somehow not one person brought out the negative when this idea came up. And then when we did it all the negative aspects were suddenly very obvious.
Tony Khan declined to reveal who the person who suggested turning off the arena lights before Satnam Singh showed up was. Singh signed with AEW last September and trains at the Atlanta-based Nightmare Factory managed by Cody Rhodes and QT Marshall.
“I should have seen the negatives before we did it,” regretted Tony Khan. “And I really didn’t see her until it actually happened. And then I thought, ‘OK, sure’. But that’s not Satnam’s fault. It’s definitely not Jay Lethal’s fault. And that’s why I’m really looking forward to it at the same time. I think it got a lot of attention. Satnam’s debut was the most watched part of the show and honestly it got the international attention that I wanted. But I also didn’t want it to tower above a lot of the great stuff on the show, and I don’t think it has or will because there was a lot of great wrestling on that show. I am really looking forward to this.
“But the fans will always be right. So, I think it’s one of those times when I value their feedback, and now that I’m doing this in my third year, I wouldn’t do it the same way again. And those are the things you learn in third year that I would do differently in fourth or fifth year.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio with ah/t to Wrestling Inc. for transcription.
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