Tony Khan talks working with STARDOM.
Over the years, AEW has built a strong working relationship with NJPW. However, STARDOM was not a prominent part of this collaboration, despite being owned by Bushiroad, the same parent company as AEW. After STARDOM founder Rossy Ogawa's contract was canceled in February, AEW and ROH started working with STARDOM, as company president Taro Okada attended AEW Dynamite: Big Business. ROH Supercard of Honor will feature a STARDOM trios match where Mina Shirakawa, Maika, and Mei Seira will face Saya Kamitani, Tam Nakano, and AZM.
On the ROH Supercard of Honor media call, Kristin Ashly of USA Today Sports Media Group asked Tony Khan about ROH's working relationship with STARDOM and how detrimental Rossy Ogawa had been to it.
“[Laughs] Well, it’s a much better relationship now, I can tell you that. It’s been a real pleasure working with the new STARDOM management. I’m very grateful to our partners at Bushiroad and very grateful to STARDOM and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Really, I think, it’s a new day, for sure, with STARDOM and AEW, and the new management has been tremendous to work with. Very grateful to them, and very excited to have STARDOM represented in ROH. Again, I think in ROH, you’re seeing, a lot of the best women’s wrestling is happening in ROH right now, and President Okada, from STARDOM, has been a great friend to us, and it’s a young relationship, but Taro’s just a great guy and very honest and he’s been very open, and it’s been 180 degrees, what it had been like working with STARDOM up to this point. When I worked with Bushiroad in the past, when there were wrestlers interested in coming to America, I believe the parent company, and specifically in our past dealings with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, if there’s a wrestler interested in coming here, typically they’ve been very open, and I have never wanted to go behind their back and work behind their back, and I’ve always been very open about the deals. I felt like that was a good relationship with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and there’s always been the understanding that if somebody was going to come to America, I think everybody would rather have those people in AEW, where they are still part of the family, they can still come work at the shows. In all these cases where people have come over, I have never gone behind their back. I always go through the front door, and that is something I would appreciate the same l kindness and the same courtesy, and it’s a real relationship, and we’re real people, and nobody’s perfect, but I think we’ve really come together and built a great working relationship where there’s so many positive things happening, and now I’m really excited that that’s gonna be able to happen with STARDOM too," Khan said.
Khan went on to describe how he recruited former STARDOM star Mariah May. He detailed how he had to contact her himself, which was a different process than what he experienced working with NJPW. Khan noted that AEW had a different relationship with STARDOM at the time, but now it's a new day, and he stated that it was great to be working with them.
"When I recruited Mariah May, and Mariah May was somebody I really wanted to bring here, and had a plan for her, and ideas for her, and I had to get in touch with Mariah myself, which is very different from what it’s been like working with New Japan, and that was because we had a totally different kind of relationship with STARDOM at the time. Now, here we are, and STARDOM is sending great talent over, working with us, they want to partner with us. It’s a very new day, and a different time, and it’s great working with STARDOM, and President Okada at STARDOM has been an awesome partner for us, and I’m very grateful to him, and I’m very glad that they made the change that they made," Khan said.
Ogawa has claimed that he did not poach talent. Check out his comments here.
Click here to see what Tony Khan had to say about AEW's media rights negotiations.
Fightful will have coverage of ROH Supercard of Honor as it airs on April 5.
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