The future of AEW has naturally been brought into question in the past few months due to the news that its parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery, will be merging with Paramount Skydance. AEW’s current media rights deal is set to expire in 2027 at the earliest as there is an option to add an extra year, which would keep AEW under the WBD umbrella until the end of 2028. What follows that deal is still up in the air, especially with Paramount already having links to TKO thanks to its extensive deal with the UFC, and with recent rumors floating around in WWE that the merger will prevent AEW from getting a new media rights deal when the current one expires.

Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select has since reported that while there have been claims of Paramount and WBD merging being a bad thing for AEW, Tony Khan is reportedly very excited about the merger. AEW sources have claimed that Khan is very about potentially continuing to work with WBD post-merger, with one source claiming that Khan sees Paramount as a more favorable option for AEW as opposed to the original deal WBD had with Netflix. Paramount does have a history of working with wrestling companies stretching back to the 1990s, having worked with the likes of WWE, TNA, and even ECW.

As far as the relationship Paramount currently has with TKO, that shouldn’t be a problem for AEW either. Despite having the exclusive rights to air the UFC, a Paramount source told Fightful that there was no exclusivity clause in place with TKO, meaning that nothing would stand in AEW’s way if the company was to be taken on board. The source also made sure to note that the UFC works for Paramount, not the other way around.