Tony Khan Knew From The Beginning Who AEW's First Four World Champions Would Be

With the crowning of Adam Page as the new AEW World Champion at Saturday’s Full gear PPV, it brings to an end plans that AEW President Tony Khan has had since day one of AEW.

Speaking in the post-Full Gear media scrum, Khan revealed that he always knew who the first four world champions would be, saying:

"Chris Jericho. And then Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page. No, honestly, and if you look back, they all set up. Chris wrestled Kenny and then it built to Kenny coming back later to wrestle for the title, teaming with Hangman. Hangman also wrestled Chris. Then it built to Chris and Jon. Jon won the title and while that was happening, Kenny and Hangman had their partnership, their story, and Jon made all those great defences through the pandemic and was such a great pandemic champion. Last winter we did Kenny versus Hangman at this event, which was a very different thing, it wasn't at this great arena with over 10,000 fans packed in this awesome arena. We were in a great venue at Daily's Place and it felt like a big PPV... Last year, Kenny and Hangman had that great match in the Eliminator final and then we came full circle to this and I think it all made sense.

“Kenny won the title and had an amazing reign. He was close to one year as champion, and it was a question, 'Is Kenny going to make it to one year as champion or is Hangman going to be crowned tonight?' People clearly wanted to see Hangman be crowned, but when Bryan Danielson won the Eliminator Tournament, you had to ask yourself, 'Are Kenny and Bryan Danielson going to wrestle again?' I know everybody was thinking in the back of their heads that there has to be a chance. Even when Bryan Danielson won, I knew it was going to make you all think, 'Wait a second,' and it clearly did based on the reaction I'm getting in the room. Yeah, these things are all pretty well thought out in advance, so yeah, the first four I would have told you all in advance would be Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, and Hangman Page.”

Before Full Gear, many wrestling fans pointed to Kenny Omega’s Twitter header image; a poster for AEW All Out 2019. Omega has had the header image in place since 2019, an image which rather prophetically shows Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, and Adam Page, in that order.

H/T: Fightful