Note on WWE/Tony Khan

There’s reportedly a feeling within WWE that AEW President Tony Khan will end up losing a significant amount of money in the long run as he tries to compete with the pro wrestling juggernaut.

Khan made headlines this week for a line he made during his New York Post interview. He commented on WWE making the last 30 minutes of tonight’s special SmackDown episode commercial-free, and said he can do the same thing because he has more money than WWE.

“We can take the commercials out of it,” Khan said. “If you want to take the commercials out of it, I can do that too. It doesn’t seem very civil, but I have more money than they do, so I can afford to do that longer than they can. But that’s how we make money at the end of the day, so I was surprised when they took those out.”

In an update, it was noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that there’s a perception within WWE that Khan “will spend so much and lose so much money in the long run” as he keeps AEW going.

There’s reportedly some of the same talk from WWE higher-ups that there was during the Monday Night Wars with WCW, of how this is unfair to WWE because they “have” to make money while they feel like the opposition doesn’t have to. They’ve downplayed Khan and AEW’s success based on the idea that he overspent to get into the pro wrestling game.

It was also noted that internally people are making comments to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon about how “we beat Ted Turner and Ted Turner is smarter than Tony Khan,” and that those comments are prevalent within the company.

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