Tony Khan had reservations about Cody Rhodes’ big decision.
When the American Nightmare challenged Chris Jericho for the AEW World Title at the very first Full Gear PPV, he proposed the stipulation of never being able to challenge for the title again if he lost the bout. The idea was not common in wrestling at the time, and fans were left surprised when Cody ended up losing the fight.
The AEW President opened up about the decision during his recent interview with Q101. Tony Khan admitted that he had reservations about the idea, but he went with it because Rhodes felt pretty strongly about it:
In the case of Cody, it was Cody’s idea to do that. I did have some reservations about it at that time. He felt pretty strongly about it, and that’s how it came to be. I went along because I can see why he wanted to have that, and it would certainly build unpredictability around the event.
It’s A Huge Risk: Tony Khan
The same stipulation was seen again recently when Hangman Page put his AEW title future on line against MJF at 2026 Revolution PPV and lost. Discussing the difference between the two calls, Tony Khan explained that he had different reservations about the two matches.
The AEW owner mentioned that the company was pretty new, and they did not have as many stars when Cody made the request. Khan thought the stipulation made a lot of sense when Hangman asked for it based on where the promotion is now and how much time has passed since then:
It was a major change when Hangman asked for it too, but there were a lot of positives and I understood to build the unpredictability, but it’s a huge risk and in each case, the wrestler asked me about it, and I had some reservations, but they were different reservations and the company was in a different position each time and it added unpredictability to a huge world title fight.
The same stipulation will be in play again at this Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite when Kenny Omega challenges MJF for the World Title.
