Steve Austin‘s podcast, “The Steve Austin Show” returns this week with a major guest in Tony Khan. Stone Cold and the AEW President spend the first part of the episode talking their wrestling fandom and begin to break down AEW Double Or Nothing. A heavy focus is on Dustin Rhodes in particular and what he means both to Austin as a colleague and to Khan as a fan growing up.
Tony Khan also takes a moment to credit Christopher Daniels for all the unsung work “The Ring General” does backstage, and even announced AEW will host a tag team tournament on their television show when they launch on TNT this fall. Khan said teams will compete for a first-round bye, and it will serve as the “main focus” on the yet-to-be-named show.
Tony Khan gives major praise to Christopher Daniels in AEW:
“Christopher Daniels does a lot more for us than people know. Not just a great wrestler but he’s the head of talent relations I mean that’s a really important spot. Super knowledgeable guy and he does a lot of work backstage that nobody really knows and doesn’t get a lot of credit for and he’s an incredible person and a great guy too.”
Steve Austin breaks down Cody vs. Dustin:
“The basic structure, the story that they told, the history, now the blood. The finish at the end, finally, through all the great things that they did, nothing crazy, nothing high-risk. Basic, but the timing was there and it was all there for a reason, then the finish, then Cody picks up the stick (the microphone) and there it is, setting it up for a tag match and said he needed his brother back. Here’s the biggest biggest compliment I can give you about that PPV. That was the most emotion I’ve felt in a professional wrestling match in I don’t know how many years and I believe emotions sell tickets.”
Tony Khan on the match conveying an emotional response:
“To me, one of the best singles matches you’re gonna see one-on-one encounters with a personal issue- Steve Austin and Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13 is what it invokes to me in every way. It’s a very different personal issue, but to me as far as invoking as some kind of emotional response that’s very much to me to that level that was another match that got another five-star rating in the Observer. Yeah, I absolutely think it was one of the great single matches.”
On what that match means to Khan:
“Means everything to me. I’ve been a fan of Dustin my whole wrestling fan life, I mean as soon as I got into wrestling, one of the first angles I can remember was the ten-minute challenge and Dustin Rhodes and the angle on Saturday Night’s Main Event where Ted DiBiase tried to take Dustin’s seat and the match they had at the Royal Rumble and then when they jumped to WCW, it was actually when I first started watching WCW, was when Dusty and Dustin jumped to WCW and then started working with you. I just turned nine years old, it was a few weeks after my ninth birthday and instead of watching The World Series I was watching Steve Austin Dustin Rhodes fifteen minute broadway for the TV Title at Halloween Havoc 1991 and I remember Jim Ross saying that if you could have two top draft picks for your team these would be your two top draft picks for the future: Steve Austin and Dustin Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes I’ve always been a huge fan of.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
More from this episode will be transcribed here on WrestleZone, but you can listen to the entire show with Tony Khan below:
Listen to “Tony Khan of All Elite Wrestling” on Spreaker.
