Tony's a big student of wrestling history, and one of the major things that doomed JCP is they backloaded everyone's deals expecting to get tons of PPV money which didn't happen when the WWF cockblocked them from most of the PPV systems. I'm sure he's aware anything can happen even though everything seems to point to AEW getting a substantial rights fee raise, and doesn't want to commit to spending money he doesn't have in hand yet.