Tony Khan Was Pitched WWE Backstage Format For AEW Rampage

AEW boss Tony Khan says he turned down a pitch to have Rampage run in the format of WWE Backstage.

Rampage airs every Friday night on TNT at 10 p.m. ET. It’s a one-hour show that usually features three matches. Typically, the show airs right when WWE SmackDown wraps up.

Tony Khan spoke to Gavin Bridge at the Monaco Streaming Film Festival and revealed that he had been pitched having Rampage in the style of a talk show like WWE Backstage.

“I didn’t agree with [WWE] Backstage at all. I didn’t think it was a good format. I had actually been pitched to do a format like that with AEW and I refused because I don’t think wrestling fans want to see that format. Wrestling fans when they tune in to watch their wrestling show, they want to watch wrestlers wrestle and Backstage, to me, should be like a lower-budget streaming type show.”

Khan added that WWE Backstage had a very talented cast, but the ill-conceived format likely doomed the show.

“I don’t know if it had the legs to carry as a TV show, even though the people involved with it were awesome and a lot of them work for me now and are huge stars.”

AEW’s flagship show is Dynamite. That show will be moving to TBS in Jan. 2022. Rampage will be staying on TNT. Just a couple of months into its existence, Rampage had to compete with the final half-hour of SmackDown. Rampage beat SmackDown in the head-to-head key demo for that half-hour but fell short in overall viewership.