Tony Khan claims AEW is a family friendly product.
AEW
AEW President and CEO Tony Khan claims All Elite Wrestling is a product for ladies, gentleman, boys, girls and children of all ages.
Tony Khan is lying.
During Thursday’s media call ahead of AEW All Out 2025, Khan boasted the secondary promotion as a family friendly alternative to WWE. The well-timed quote was a veiled shot at WWE, particularly TKO COO Mark Shapiro, who recently commented on WWE’s high ticket prices by suggesting they will continue to climb. Shapiro noted former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon “priced for families,” which capped the promotion’s ticket revenue since pricing for families tends to be more affordable.
“We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn’t totally focused on maxing the opportunity there,” said Shapiro to TKO investors on a conference call. “Now that we’ve seen what we can do with UFC, we’re replicating that in terms of ticket yield and holding back and advance sales when it comes to OnLocation on the WWE side and it’s working out really well.”
Tony Khan Falsely Claims AEW Is A Family Friendly Product
Tony Khan fielded a similar question about family friendly pricing, but instead of answering the question truthfully, he simply lied about AEW’s product and its intended audience.
“AEW’s ticket pricing is designed to be very family-friendly,” said Khan. “And it has been from the very beginning. Everyone involved with AEW from the beginning will tell you that we’ve always wanted to maintain affordable ticket pricing for the fans, in particular to bring families and young fans to the show and make it accessible for fans of all backgrounds, of all ages. I think it’s really exciting for us that we’re getting really good feedback about that.”
AEW All Out 2025 emanated from Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. The pay-per-view distributed just over 12,000 tickets, with an average ticket price of $52 CAD, or $38 USD.
AEW has been a TV-14 product since its inception. One of its hallmark matches is called “Blood and Guts.” It’s a stipulation cage match created in direct response to former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, who criticized AEW for being too violent. In AEW, particularly on PPV, there’s almost as much blood as there are belts.
Nobody thinks AEW is family friendly programming. Not even AEW wrestler Ricochet, who has reinvented himself in 2025 as an online sycophantic troll. The zero-time champion in AEW echoed Khan’s comments of family friendly prices before taking to Twitter to clarify that AEW was not, in fact, a family friendly product.
“Actually [what] I said is families can afford to come to our shows. Not that we are ‘family friendly’ you f—king dumbass,” Ricochet said in response to a Tweet.
But maybe Tony Khan was turning over a new leaf, starting with All Out: Toronto. Maybe Tony Khan saw WWE’s high-priced product as a chance to create a more wholesome product that appealed to the families who are being alienated by WWE’s rising ticket prices.
Or maybe Tony Khan was just being a carny. Maybe Khan found an opportunity to weaponize Mark Shapiro’s comments against him by lying about AEW’s content. Because throughout AEW All Out 2025, AEW went out of its way to emphasize that this was far from a family friendly product.
AEW All Out 2025 Delivers A Violent, Bloody PPV
Three matches into a five-hour show, MJF loaded Marc Briscoe’s mouth with thumbtacks like a redneck coin machine. Both pros wore white to a Tables ‘n’ Tacks match because like a 2007 western movie, there would be blood. MJF and Briscoe bled profusely in a match where Briscoe finally prevailed, exacting revenge over MJF’s family friendly comments about Jay Briscoe’s (Marc’s brother) real-life death.
In a 20-minute coffin match, Darby Allin mutilated Jon Moxley by skewering him with a fork. Staying true to form, Mox bled from his ear and head after several violent jabs from Allin. At one point, Darby unveiled a plastic bag and used it to suffocate Moxley, creating a family friendly visual where the clear plastic bag was smeared with bright red blood. This, of course, was a callback to Moxley’s suffocation of Bryan Danielson at WrestleDream 2024. Plastic bag suffocation was not a one-off spot on an afternoon PPV.
It’s part of AEW lore.
Moxley won thanks to help from PAC, who rejoined Jon’s skinhead-adjacent stable the Death Riders (I hear families love skinheads.) Later on in the night, Allin escaped the coffin and got the better of Moxley in a backstage brawl. Allin encased Moxley in a bodybag and literally set him on fire.
You know? For the families.
After promoting AEW as a “family friendly product” designed to appeal to families and young fans,” AEW All Out put forth a TV-14 product bordering on TV-MA. There were literally chants of “This is murder” during the peak of Moxley vs. Allin. Exactly what family is AEW trying to appeal to? The Manson Family or the Adams Family? Tony Khan promoting AEW as a family friendly product is like the MPAA assigning a G-rating to Django Unchained.
I enjoy AEW as a more adult-oriented alternative to WWE. This is how WCW found success in the ‘90s with WCW Nitro. I have no personal problem with a more violent, edgy pro wrestling product. WWE’s mainstream TV-PG product, ironically, is designed to appeal to a broader, family audience. As long as that’s the case, there will always be a place for wrestling promotions willing to push the envelope. Two of AEW’s biggest matches on All Out did just that. And it was about as family friendly as the comment section on an adult website.
During the famed Attitude Era, WWE used edginess to increase ratings. Vince McMahon came under fire from activists, reporters and family organizations for cultivating a violent, sexually charged product that appealed to children. In response, McMahon’s strategy was not to lie like Tony Khan and invite families to his show. Vince actually (and defiantly) told concerned parents not to watch WWE.
“We wholeheartedly would want parents and everyone to exercise their freedom of choice. Damn it, it is America. Go live in your world. Don’t like us. Click us off! Don’t watch us,” said McMahon in an old interview that resurfaced on 2024’s Mr. McMahon documentary.
Even when McMahon was lying, he was still more honest about his product than Tony Khan. “[WWE was] still family friendly,” said McMahon of the Attitude Era. “But maybe for a more adult family. Not for young kids.”
Tony Khan Surrounds Himself With AEW-Friendly Media
Khan faced no push back about his contradictory comments during All Out’s media scrum. This is wholly by design. In an era where authoritarianism and censorship are threatening free speech, this national issue has trickled down to sports media—particularly combat sports media. These days, more authority figures in combat sports are surrounding themselves with friendly media less likely to challenge them, while alienating critics willing to ask real questions. This was a topic of controversy during last weekend’s superfight between Canelo Alvarez and Terrance Crawford, where multiple high-profile boxing reporters were denied their credentials.
“TKO, when it comes to [wrestling media] has not credentialed a lot of people of late based on dissenting viewpoints,” said Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio. “In boxing, essentially the feeling is that—people who have any dissenting viewpoints with Turki [Alalshikh]—you’re not going to get credentialed for any of these fights.”
Meltzer is a vocal critic of combat sports promoters denying media credentials due to dissenting views.
Unless that promoter is Tony Khan.
Meltzer is one of the chosen few members of the AEW softball media who is allowed access to the promotion’s low-rent media scrums. The scrums have faced scrutiny from fans and media, and often go viral for horrible questions, and in some cases, no questions at all.
Khan is an avid reader of Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and fashions his product in Meltzer’s vision. As of this writing, sixth-year promotion AEW has been awarded 53 five-star matches. It’s a meaningless accolade that only exists to notify a niche audience that Dave Meltzer enjoyed a sequence of dangerous wrestling moves. In the 43 years of Meltzer’s star ratings, WWE has 24 five-star matches. Meltzer and Khan’s viewpoints couldn’t be any more aligned. As a pro-AEW reporter, Meltzer went radio silent about Tony Khan’s reluctance to allow his critics into media scrums. And as a petty promoter who has no time for critics with dissenting opinions, Khan is no better than Turki Alalshikh or TKO.
When it comes to inviting real media to his media scrums, Tony Khan runs from his critics faster than he ran from Wrestlepalooza when they took over his timeslot. Tony Khan turns every media scrum into an echo chamber. And as long as Khan enjoys the privileges of alienating his harshest critics, he will be able to lie about AEW being a a family friendly product with no pushback, whatsoever.
AEW All Out 2025 Results
- Cage and Cope (-1500) def. FTR (+1200)
- Eddie Kingston def. Big Bill
- Marc Briscoe def. MJF | Tables ‘n’ Tacks Match
- Ricochet and the Gates of Agony (-250) def. The Hurt Syndicate (+170)
- Mercedes Mone (-2000) def. Riho (+700) | AEW TBS Title
- Kazuchika Okada def. Konosuke Takeshita and Mascara Dorada | AEW Unified Title
- Jon Moxley (+275) def. Darby Allin (-450) | Coffin Match
- Kris Statlander (+600) def. Toni Storm (-2000), Jamie Hayter (+1000) and Thekla (+500) | AEW Women’s World Title
- Brodito def. the Young Bucks vs. JetSpeed vs. the Don Callis Family | Fatal 4-Way Match for the AEW Tag Team Championships
- Hangman Adam Page (-5000) def. Kyle Fletcher (+1200) | AEW World Heavyweight Title