Did AEW Dynamite's Ending Attack Set Up Tony Khan's In-Ring Debut?

Khan said in February that he would not wrestle "anytime soon."

By Liam Crowley

The Elite have made a power play. Following his return at AEW Dynasty, Jack Perry closed this week's AEW Dynamite by calling AEW President Tony Khan to the ring in an effort to get his boss to reinstate him to the company. Perry had been legitimately suspended since August due to his involvement in a backstage fight with CM Punk at AEW ALL IN: London. Khan joined Perry in the ring, smiling at the former Jungle Boy's positive comments about AEW, and nodded in agreement to reactivate Perry to the AEW roster. After raising Khan's hand, Perry slammed his microphone into Khan's stomach, kickstarting the first physical wrestling angle that Khan has been involved in.

From there, The Elite joined in on the attack. With Kazuchika Okada cheering on, the Young Bucks hit Khan with a somersault piledriver. The four men posed together over Khan's prone body as referees, medical officials, the AEW locker room, and even Khan's father checked on the unconscious AEW founder.

This storyline has the structure of an age-old professional wrestling angle. Top wrestlers feuding with the boss has been a staple of programming since WWF and WCW in the 1990s, as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin battled then-WWF owner Vince McMahon and the NWO initially ran roughshod on WCW executive producer Eric Bischoff before Bischoff joined the faction himself. 

The 2010s has seen plenty of it as well in the form of CM Punk vs. WWE Chief Operating Officer Triple H, Bully Ray vs. TNA President Dixie Carter, and the unit of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn vs. WWE SmackDown commissioner Shane McMahon and WWE SmackDown general manager Daniel Bryan.

THE-ELITE-VS-TONY-KHAN-MATCH-AEW-DYNAMITE-JACK-PERRY
(Photo: AEW)

While the majority of those aforementioned examples led to boss vs. wrestler matches, don't expect Khan to get in the ring himself.

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"I don't think anybody really wants to see that," Khan said in a February interview when asked if he would ever wrestle for AEW. "Not anytime soon. That's not anything I think we're going to do. I would rather try to put the best matches and we have exciting rivalries building in AEW right now."

That said, this AEW angle is likely leading to a The Elite vs. Team AEW match, where Khan will be represented by AEW loyalists. Over the coming weeks, babyface stars from the AEW roster could emerge as those who want to defend Khan's honor and dispose of what The Elite is doing to the company. Two immediate names that come to mind are Kenny Omega and Daniel Garcia, as Omega has built-in history with The Elite and Garcia has been championed by Khan as someone who is planned to have a big 2024. As for those remaining two spots to make it an even four vs. four, Adam Copeland makes sense given his recent AEW promo and a returning MJF would solidify himself as a company guy going deep into the future.

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