Tony Khan on the AEW All Out time change: "It was the right decision for the fans"

All Elite Wrestling and WWE will hold two of their biggest shows of the year next Saturday, although they will not do it in a direct confrontation. Tony Khan decided to move up the time of All Out, thus avoiding it coinciding with Wrestlepalooza, the new event that WWE wants to promote as one of its major annual PLEs. 

Many saw in this move a solution by AEW to not directly compete with WWE, who has recently started a counterprogramming strategy to "end the competition." However, Khan himself has insisted that the change was due to other reasons. 

"I am very excited about the opportunity to have this show this Saturday afternoon. I thought it was the best decision for our fans. We have had great success with AEW's recent pay-per-view events that started early. Forbidden Door worked very well, and we had some of our best numbers with All In, which marked important commercial milestones for us. I believe we can achieve three great shows and three very successful events in a row," Khan said this afternoon in the media conference call prior to All Out.

"I can already say that this show will be a very successful commercial venture, and I believe it will be a great wrestling spectacle that will maintain this streak of excellent pay-per-views. It was the right decision for the fans to set this schedule, and for us, who are in the pay-per-view business, to continue with this series of great events," he added.

"By making these adjustments based on the current wrestling landscape and our metrics, we thought this would be our best opportunity to reach our best numbers, while still offering a great show to the fans. It has worked well for us, and I think it will also work for us this Saturday afternoon," Khan concluded.

AEW All Out will start at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time in the United States), 9:00 PM in Spain, four hours before the start of Wrestlepalooza (7:00 PM ET), so there is a possibility that the end of the AEW show will coincide with the start of WWE's PLE, which will open with a match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar.