Tony Khan’s Title Defense Misses the Point of the Criticism

AEW’s president is standing firm on the promotion’s championship-heavy approach — but he’s answering a question nobody’s really asking.

Tony Khan wants us to know that AEW’s mountain of championships is a feature, not a bug. And with all due respect to the man who built this promotion from nothing into a genuine number-two player in North America, he’s defending a position that misses the actual complaint entirely.

In a new interview, Khan pushed back on the recurring criticism that AEW simply has too many titles, framing the belts as opportunities — more championships means more stars get to be champions, more marquee matches, more chances to elevate the roster. On paper, it sounds reasonable. In practice, it’s a strawman. The problem was never the raw number of belts. It’s what those belts mean.

Quantity Isn’t the Crime — Devaluation Is

Nobody sensible looks at AEW and says, “I refuse to enjoy this show because there are six championships instead of four.” What fans actually say is that they can’t remember who half the champions are, when the titles were last defended, or what any given reign is supposed to represent. That’s a completely different indictment, and it’s a far harder one to wave away.

A championship is a storytelling device. Its entire value comes from scarcity, from consequence, from the sense that holding it changes a wrestler’s life. WWE, for all its faults, understands this instinctively — a title win there is a coronation with weeks of build behind it. When AEW spreads gold across a dozen shoulders and then lets those belts sit in the background of overstuffed television, the prize stops feeling like a prize. It becomes set dressing.

Khan’s “more opportunities” argument would land if those opportunities were being developed. But an opportunity you don’t follow through on isn’t an opportunity — it’s a missed one. Giving a talented mid-carder a secondary title and then giving them nothing to do with it isn’t elevation. It’s parking them.

The Booking Problem Underneath the Belt Problem

Here’s the uncomfortable part: the title criticism is really a booking criticism wearing a costume. And AEW’s booking issues aren’t exactly a secret from inside the locker room, either. Just look at recent comments where Jake Hager took aim at AEW’s last-minute creative process while still praising the roster itself. That’s the tell. The talent is there. The stars are there. The consistency of purpose is what’s missing.

You can have twenty championships and it works fine if each one is booked with intention — clear contenders, meaningful defenses, reigns that build to something. Ric Flair’s NWA world title, the WWE Intercontinental belt in the Savage-Steamboat era, the classic Ring of Honor scene AEW itself was partly born from — all proof that gold means whatever the storytelling makes it mean. Khan has the ingredients. What he keeps declining to admit is that scattering them across a crowded table isn’t the same as cooking a meal.

And it matters because AEW is at its best when it commits. This is the same promotion that can put on a match of the year contender at the drop of a hat, that turned free-agent signings and inter-promotional drama into genuine event television. Contrast that with how carefully every belt and every angle gets protected in the way WWE frames something like Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar as a “money match” — a single title collision built to feel enormous. AEW has that gear. It just refuses to shift into it consistently.

So no, Tony, the answer isn’t to insist the titles are good, actually. The answer is to make us care about the ones you already have. Retire a few, elevate the rest, and give every champion a reason to walk out with that belt over their shoulder like it changed their year. Defend fewer things better.

Do you think AEW has a title problem or a booking problem — or both? Sound off in the comments.