Tony Khan figured that since AEW fans cheered Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti separately, they’d like them even more as a power couple. Imagine his surprise when the reaction was exactly the opposite.
Indeed, fans have been lustily booing Guevara and Conti in recent weeks, leading Khan to switch gears with them creatively. It’s had a ripple effect as well: While Scorpio Sky, partner Ethan Page and American Top Team head honcho Dan Lambert were clearly supposed to be the heels when they first started having issues with Guevara and Conti, Sky has pivoted to be a fan favorite, and Page seems to be teetering on the edge of a switch as well (Lambert … not so much, at least to date).
As Khan explained on a recent appearance on the Swerve City podcast, he simply didn’t expect fans to react the way they did when presenting the two wrestlers as a couple (h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription).
“I was really happy for them, so maybe I misread how happy the fans would be for them,” Khan said. “So, I think I have course-corrected that. You don’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole. I like Sammy, I like Tay, the fans like Sammy, the fans like Tay. I like Sammy and Tay together, the fans do not, and that’s where we differentiate, so that’s what I have come to accept.”
It would be easy to criticize Khan after the fact for thinking that Guevara, who had proposed to his then-girlfriend Pam on AEW programming not that long before, would be greeted warmly while parading around with Conti. But the important thing is that the double turn has been made, giving Guevara a chance to capitalize on his knack for saying things to get fans riled up. This is one “course correction” that likely will prove to be the right one.