– As noted, AEW President and CEO Tony Khan has been drawing a lot of attention this week as he was seen wearing a neck brace during the NFL Draft. Nic Nemeth and AEW star Thunder Rosa weighed in on the issue this week on Busted Open Radio, with both of them enjoying Tony Khan selling the attack by The Elite last Wednesday on AEW Dynamite. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):
Nic Nemeth on enjoying Tony Khan wearing the neck brace during the NFL Draft: “As a fan of when things are gimmicky or bad or slap-you-in the face, I’m very disgusted with it most of the time, when you see that handily happen. This happening makes me smile so much, that there is part of our business, one, being talked about. That is fantastic, any publicity is almost always good publicity, especially for AEW. But I live for it. I love it, I love when this happens. A friend of mine had to wear a neck brace in New York for six or eight months for a while. He still got in trouble for it because he wasn’t doing it right. But it didn’t matter. When you live for it and you live to go, this is my job, and I take it very seriously, I will protect it, I love that part. I love that this is happening, it’s like Andy Kaufman wrestling women on TV. Let’s bring it back, let’s make it real, put him on the Tonight Show.”
Thunder Rosa on how this was a perfect example of cross-promotion for AEW: “For me, it’s like we have received a lot of criticism that we’re not doing a great job on cross-promoting AEW. This is a perfect example on how to cross-promote in different companies, especially knowing that Tony Khan is extremely involved in soccer and in football now. The important thing is like, they’re gonna be like, ‘So what happened?’ They’re gonna research AEW, they’re gonna see the video, so they’re gonna get more hits on the video. From that, they can probably get more fans that are NFL fans to watch AEW. I think that’s the very important part on how this is working.”
Rosa on finding the moment funny: “For me, it was really funny. I was not expecting it. I was there when this happened, and I was in shock. I was in the doctor’s room when he was brought into the doctor’s room. Tony Khan collapsed in the doctor’s office after what just happened with The Elite. Also, another thing with the Elite, people were hating them a lot, but I think there’s now a real reason to hate them. The storyline makes sense, and I think a lot of the stuff that was questionable was after that video, where it was like, where’s this gonna go? Well, now I know where it’s gonna go. They’re against the boss.”
