It sounds like Tony Khan turned down ‘great offers’ for a ROH TV deal

AEW" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.cagesideseats.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2025/12/tk005.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100">

AEW President Tony Khan was on a call with the media today ahead of ROH’s Final Battle pay-per-view on Friday night (Dec. 5).

Right off the bat, Khan was asked for an update on what’s going on with a potential Ring of Honor TV deal, especially now that TNA has a landed a TV deal with AMC. Let’s see what Tony has to say about it.

“I have had great offers to put ROH on TV. Right now we have a streaming service, and I have had opportunities at times to move ROH to TV, and from great media partners.

But right now, we have to look at the AEW situation. AEW’s got a media rights deal with a half a billion dollar contract. And given that I have a half a billion dollar contract to produce wrestling television, I really want to make sure I get good rights fees, and that the situation for ROH is not necessarily equal to what we get with AEW, because it’s fairly historic for a challenger wrestling brand to have the kind of media rights that we do, and the kind of following that AEW has.

I’m very interested in having an ROH TV show. I think that the media rights have to be, certainly not necessarily equal, or definitely not greater than [AEW], but I do think I want to get a rights fee that makes sense, and the perfect situation with a media partner. And we’ve had really good conversations with big companies, and then we’ve had conversations that did have some good money behind them, but I didn’t think was the right partner.”

Later in the call, Khan reiterated that it will take a perfect combination of money and the right media partner “for me to pull [ROH] out from a paywall where it’s doing very well.”

It’s a little confusing to parse Tony’s words, at least in terms of why AEW’s big money media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery would play such a big a role in his decision to decline what he calls “great offers” and “great media partners” for moving ROH onto TV. It sounds to me like either the “great offers” are not so great after all, maybe Khan’s financial expectations are not realistic if he thinks ROH media rights should be in a similar ballpark to AEW, and/or maybe WBD is the only great media partner he’s interested in working with.

But I’m just speculating about Khan’s decision-making when it comes to not yet pulling the trigger on a ROH TV deal. Now it’s your turn to do the same in the comments below, Cagesiders. What do you make of Tony Khan’s update on his long and elusive search for a ROH TV deal?