In an interview with Inside the Ropes’ Kenny McIntosh, Tony Khan fired back at the criticism received for Miro’s booking. Miro signed with AEW in September as Kip Sabian’s best man but has not yet made a significant impact on AEW Dynamite.
Tony Khan defends Miro’s booking
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It is an arguable fact that Rusev’s debut in WWE was far more significant than his WWE debut. He made his first WrestleMania entrance in a tank for crying out loud. To this, Tony Khan replied, “then he got kicked in the n*ts and they treated him like s**t for years.”
“Miro’s going to be a big star here. It’s really hard for people to come into AEW when you have a ranking system unless they come in at the start of a new year cycle and I didn’t want to wait till January to bring Miro in.”
Miro is a main event level talent
Fans expected to see Miro being pushed straight to the main event. Given his popularity and wrestling prowess, it would not have been entirely surprising to see Miro go up against Jon Moxley or Cody Rhodes in his first few matches.
Tony did make an exception for Brian Cage but did not want to repeat it for Miro.
“I can’t do that for everybody and I wasn’t going to do it again, and so I couldn’t just put Miro in the main event with no record and no history here, so he’s got to build up and build story.”
Miro is feuding with Orange Cassidy and the Best Friends
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Miro is embroiled in a rivalry with Orange Cassidy. The latter is on the rise after dispatching Chris Jericho by dumping him into a tub of mimosa. Pitting Miro against Cassidy is something Khan has approved.
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“He’s working with some of the top people in AEW, some of the people I regard as the top people – with the Best Friends and now Orange Cassidy in story – and so, we have great stuff going on the top of the card and I just couldn’t cast everyone aside.”
Miro is yet to make his PPV debut for AEW. He has competed in just three matches on AEW Dynamite. His only singles match came against Trent, which we won via the Accolade.