Tony Khan: ROH Deserves Better Than a YouTube Show
Tony Khan wants a TV deal for Ring of Honor
Nov 21, 2022
Since purchasing the promotion in March of 2022, Tony Khan has struggled to secure a TV deal for Ring of Honor and the company has instead had a presence on TV through All Elite Wrestling, with ROH championships being defended alongside AEW's belts. Ring of Honor's titles are also mostly held by AEW talents, including Chris Jericho, Samoa Joe, and FTR.
ROH's consistent presence on AEW TV has drawn criticism, with many believing it has made All Elite Wrestling's product worse. That doesn't mean Tony Khan is willing to ditch his plans for a TV deal, though, and he stated during the post-Full Gear media scrum that Ring of Honor deserves better than a YouTube show.
"I've definitely considered a lot of options, but I think it would be hasty when there are other options out there, to jump into something. It's a pretty valuable property. For example, even the pay-per-views, for an ROH pay-per-view, it would be 25% or so of what you might get for an AEW pay-per-view or less than 25%. Say a number like 35,000 buys, at the pricepoint for Ring of Honor, which is also a lower price point. On the one hand, for AEW, it's not bad revenue, but on the other hand, it's not something I see cannibalising the AEW pay-per-view product because the AEW pay-per-view buys have been pretty stable while we've done the Ring of Honor pay-per-views," Khan said.
"For the TV, I really would like to get that going and I see it as a weekly series. Because it's such a major leap, I've been holding off on...yeah, I could easily just do a YouTube show, but I think it deserves something better than that. It would be like going from, doing a YouTube show as a place holder...it would be a trade-off because it would be beneficial by not having some matches that could take away from other matches that would feature people in AEW, but I also think a lot of people from Ring of Honor that would feature like the champions happen to be some of the biggest names in AEW like Chris Jericho, Samoa Joe, FTR. At times, those have been good to show, but I also try to keep it balanced to where it's not the whole show."
Tony Khan promised "great news soon" about ROH TV in October. A decision will be made following Final Battle on December 10.
H/T to Fightful