Tony Khan Talks About WWE/UFC Merger, Addressing Chicago Crowd About CM Punk

Tony Khan recently spoke with Insider to promote this week's Grand Slam episodes of AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage from Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York.

During the discussion, Khan spoke about the WWE and UFC merger, as well as his speech to the AEW crowd informing them of CM Punk's release from the company.

Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.

On the WWE and UFC merger: "It is fascinating. It will be interesting to see what happens in the world of sports, combat sports, and pro wrestling. I love pro wrestling, it's an amazing business. I think there are a lot of really exciting things happening with sports media rights."

On his speech to the Chicago crowd from the stage instead of the ring about CM Punk's AEW release: "You can't see everybody's face from the center of the ring. You have to choose one side of the crowd to face when you're in the ring. And I wanted to be able to see everybody. I felt like, I'm not a wrestler and I don't need to be in the ring, and for this moment, I thought I would just sit down and talk to everybody. That's why I brought out a chair."

On what Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat told him after the speech backstage: "And when I was done and walked backstage, the first person I saw was Ricky Steamboat and he said, "That was great, you turned the crowd. You turned them around. That's so hard to do, and you did it." I felt I at least owed that much to the wrestlers and the fans, to go out there and talk to everybody."

Check out the complete interview at .