Tony Khan On CM Punk’s Remark About WBD CEO During AEW Collision Promo

CM Punk made a quick reference to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav during his explosive promo on the premiere episode of AEW Collision. Punk stated that Zaslav refers to him as “One Bill Phil”.

During the recent media call for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door II, AEW President Tony Khan addressed the matter and credited Zaslav for making Collision a reality.

You can check out some highlights from the media call below:

On the Zaslav mention: “It was a throwback in many ways to the wrestling that I grew up on. I remember being a teenage kid in high school and watching wrestling on TNT, a two-hour wrestling show every week on TNT, and seeing a huge wrestling star of the time come out and reference Ted Turner on TNT. I thought it was pretty cool to turn forward the clock to present-day and have a big wrestling star of the moment on TV referencing Mr. Zaslav, especially given the way this show came to be. In the 90s, Ted Turner said, ‘I want to give a slot on Monday night on TNT to pro wrestling.’ Here we are in 2023, and Mr. Zaslav, he runs the Turner networks and a large percentage of entertainment. He’s the boss of Warner Brothers Discovery, movie studios, TV channels, and so many things. It’s amazing to see how far that Turner empire has come and what it’s become from what we, as wrestling fans, knew as the empire of TBS, TNT, TCM, CNN, and those great channels.”

On Zaslav making Collision happen: “Now, with wrestling on TNT on Saturday nights, this was Mr. Zaslav’s idea. He was the one who said, ‘give two hours, 8 p.m. eastern, every Saturday night, to AEW.’ We created Collision, and it was, I thought, very fitting to see Phil give a shoutout to Mr. Zaslav. It’s no secret that AEW, we’re trying to grow revenues, chasing that media bag, I thought that was very cool and a nice nod to the growing business that is AEW where we’re doing now multi-million dollar live gates, sell-out international shows, have a video game launching, and we already have nine-figure revenues. We’re growing and growing, and pushing to hit that magic number that Phil referenced. It was very cool and a nice nod to what a hot time it is in the wrestling business and how exciting it is for pro wrestling in the media space right now.”

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