Most of the year, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) owner, promoter and founder Tony Khan has a week or so between events. As his company returns to San Diego on Wednesday, though, it’ll be just three days’ turnaround time — which suits him just fine.
“I love pro wrestling,” said Khan, who explained that his work as an executive with both the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC of the English Premier League has helped him acclimate to wrestling’s travel demands. “We’re having a great 2026. I love it.”
Wednesday’s episode of “AEW Dynamite,” set to air live on TBS from Viejas Arena at San Diego State University at 5 p.m., will spin out of the promotion’s most recent pay-per-view event, “Forbidden Door,” this past Sunday in San Jose. Whatever happens at this show, though, will be designed to have implications possibly far into the future.
From ‘Forbidden Door’ to a new ecosystem
One match already announced for Wednesday, “Survival of the Fittest,” has been built up over the preceding weeks with six women qualifying for the chance to win the promotion’s vacant TBS Championship; the title is named after “Dynamite’s” home network and defended more often on such compared to the Women’s World Title, held by the villainous Austrian Thekla (a.k.a. the “Toxic Spider”).
While not directly connected to the “Forbidden Door” show, the match can be seen as an outgrowth of the spirit behind it.
The term was first coined by New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) President Hiroshi Tanahashi in 2019 when he was an active talent, to describe the mystique of inter-promotional matches; during Khan’s tenure with AEW the show itself has become a place for it to showcase working agreements with not only NJPW but its all-women sister company Stardom and Mexico’s Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL).
Though Khan had previously admitted that some talent he intended to book for the San Jose event could not make it due to “visa issues,” Sunday’s event featured wrestlers from all three promotions. The TBS title match will also have an international mix of contenders.
Hikaru Shida (Japan) and Kris Statlander (US) are both year-one AEW talents and former world champions; Queen Aminata (Guinea) and Harley Cameron (Australia) joined the promotion in 2021 and 2022, respectively; rounding out the field are Stardom veteran Maika and El Paso native Persephone, who is one of several CMLL talents working under dual contracts both there and with AEW.
“I think this is a perfect way to crown a TBS champion,” Khan said. “The roots of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ go back to Ring of Honor wrestling [which Khan acquired in 2022]. In this particular wrestling match, it’s six fighters all out for themselves and only one can survive.”
More recently, AEW has opened a digital door of sorts; its streaming service MyAEW now offers events from some independent US promotions on top of the promotion’s own TV content, with Khan saying that he is working on a case-by-case basis in building the hub.
“We want to make sure we’re featuring quality wrestling and working with good people,” he said.
The road to ‘Redemption’ — and beyond
On Sunday, the promotion announced that the San Diego show would also feature a Men’s World Title match between the gleefully, evilly rich champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman (or MJF to us poors) and challenger Mark Briscoe, a roughneck Delaware native who earned the match after his team won a special tag match against Friedman’s squad, where all this happened:
The last time MJF defended on TV on short notice, he lost the title in less than two minutes to skater punk underdog Darby Allin on April 15. But Khan shut the (metaphorical) door on the champ weaseling his way out of facing longtime rival Briscoe.
“It’s an airtight contract,” Khan said. “And Mark Briscoe and his team were the winners at ‘Forbidden Door’ in the incredible 6-on-6 ‘Death’s Door’ cage fight.”
Because pro wrestling television doesn’t have season beginnings or endings like other genres — “it’s the only sport that goes 52 weeks a year with no time off,” Khan is happy to confirm — whatever happens at these shows also starts the path toward not only the next installments of “Dynamite” and sister program “Collision” (with the latter also being taped on Wednesday and airing on TNT on Thursday). Looming in the distance are international events like “Grand Slam Mexico” in Mexico City on Aug. 5 and AEW’s centerpiece show, “All In London” on Aug. 30 at Wembley Stadium.
“I do think it’s very important in wrestling to have new rivalries and unique fights developing and building from show to show,” Khan said about the process of starting a new promotional cycle. “I like to think months ahead in pro wrestling. It’s important to look at major events like pay-per-views as important milestones. It’s a very unique perspective shared by wrestling fans, from event to event.”
This year, the promotion is adding a 10th pay-per-view show, “AEW Redemption,” scheduled for July 26 in Montreal, Canada.
“Throughout this year I’ve been planning for a new event in July with the expectation and understanding that we would have ‘Double of Nothing’ in May and ‘Forbidden Door’ in June, and those were just fantastic events,” he said. “Of course with ‘AEW All In London’ in August, it fit our plans perfectly to debut ‘AEW Redemption’ this July.”
Of course, if he’s already planning ahead, how far along are negotiations for a host city for “All In” 2027?
“I’m very excited for 2027,” is all Khan would say. “It’s gonna be a tremendous year for AEW.”
- What: “AEW Dynamite” airing live on TBS, followed by a taping of “AEW Collision”
- Where: Viejas Arena, 5500 Canyon Crest Dr.
- When: Wednesday, July 1; doors open at 3:30 p.m., with matches starting at 4:30 p.m. and “Dynamite” starting at 5 p.m.
