Questions about who truly steers the creative direction in All Elite Wrestling have lingered for more than a year, especially after high-profile signings sparked speculation about backstage influence. This week, Tony Khan offered his clearest explanation yet, drawing a firm line between collaboration and control.
Appearing on the Battleground Podcast, Khan explained that while AEW talent are encouraged to bring ideas to the table, the final call always rests with him. He described AEW’s creative process as an open workshop rather than a democracy, where wrestlers, coaches, and producers actively pitch concepts that are then evaluated against the realities of timing, pacing, and long-term planning. Khan emphasized that many ideas are strong on their own, but not all fit the broader structure of weekly television and pay-per-view storytelling.
Notably, Khan’s comments appear to directly address last year’s controversy surrounding Mercedes Moné, when online speculation suggested she had been granted unusual creative authority after joining the company. Khan pushed back against that perception without naming any individual, reiterating that no performer, regardless of star power, has unilateral creative control in AEW. Instead, he framed the promotion’s philosophy as one of shared input under centralized leadership, a balance he believes has produced AEW’s strongest creative stretches when executed correctly.
What Fans Should Know
This clarification matters because wrestling history shows how quickly perceptions of “creative control” can spiral into locker-room narratives. From Hulk Hogan’s WCW contract to Shawn Michaels’ late-’90s influence in WWF, fans have learned to associate star power with backstage authority—sometimes correctly, often not. Khan’s comments reinforce that AEW operates closer to a traditional showrunner model: wrestlers pitch, collaborate, and influence direction, but one person ultimately decides what fits the larger puzzle. That structure helps explain why AEW storylines sometimes pivot abruptly—not because a wrestler “lost control,” but because timing, TV flow, or long-term plans required adjustment.
For fans, the value here is understanding how collaboration actually works in modern wrestling. AEW’s appeal has always been its openness to talent voices, but openness doesn’t equal autonomy. The Mercedes Moné discourse last year revealed how easily creative freedom can be mistaken for creative ownership. Khan’s stance suggests AEW is consciously trying to avoid the pitfalls of past promotions where blurred authority led to inconsistent storytelling. Going forward, when angles evolve or ideas disappear, it’s worth viewing those changes through the lens of centralized booking—not backstage favoritism or star-driven power plays.
