AEW President Tony Khan has announced a rule change for the world title shot contracts that are earned by winning the annual Casino Gauntlet match. Moving forward, the winner will be required to give one week\'s notice before executing their contract for a championship match.
Speaking at the post-event media scrum for the AEW x NJPW: Forbidden Door pay-per-view, Khan explained the reasoning behind the new rule. He stated that the change is being made to add more \"integrity\" to the championships and to allow the company to promote its world title bouts.
“I want AEW to be different and I’ve been listening to the feedback and the voice of the fans and I think people want the championships in the sport of pro wrestling to have integrity,” Khan said. “I don’t want to have a big ticket championship match that we are unable to advertise and also I don’t really want to necessarily utilize a stipulation here that’s being utilized other places.”
He added, “That’s why going forward, I want to set the tone that from now on I think the right thing to do is all contract executions should be on at least a week’s notice so we can properly promote the matches.”
The change comes after several instances of the contract being used in a \"Money in the Bank\" style. Most notably, Christian Cage attempted to cash in his contract during the main event of the Revolution pay-per-view in March, turning the AEW World Championship match into a three-way.
The current holder of the men\'s Casino Gauntlet contract is MJF, who won the opportunity at the All In: Texas pay-per-view. Athena won the women\'s version and executed her contract in advance to set up her match with Toni Storm at Forbidden Door.
