WWE has experienced a bevy of changes in the past few weeks, and those started to truly become apparent at SummerSlam and this week’s Monday Night Raw. As fans wait to see how those affect WWE’s other big show SmackDown this week, there’s already a lot to process, and so far the Stephanie McMahon, Nick Khan, and Triple H era of WWE seems to be off to a great start. In a new interview with SportsGrid, AEW President Tony Khan was asked about the major changes happening in WWE, and he thinks those changes are definitely going to change the competition, but that’s a great thing for the industry and a welcome return to the active competition seen during the WWF vs WCW era.
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“It’s going to change the competition, but I think that’s a good thing,” Khan said. “AEW’s got a big fan base. We’re in 130 countries now around the world, and here in the US, we’ve built a great fanbase. And the competition is going to change. It’s a different person in the chair opposite me but I don’t think that’s going to be a bad thing for the wrestling fans, necessarily.”
Khan said the competition will benefit wrestlers and wrestling fans, and should make free agency even better now that there are multiple options.
“Probably more so than ever, I imagine that great wrestlers are going to be in demand. And again, I think this is probably going to be good for the wrestling fans because that’s one of the most exciting things about pro wrestling is free agency. It’s one of those things that was really missing from the sport for almost two decades before AEW came in, because there was not a legitimate competitor in the free agent market, and now there is…one of the worst things, I think, that happened in American sports, in my lifetime, was when WCW closed down,” Khan said.
We’ve already seen a host of former WWE stars head to AEW after their deals ran out or after they were released, and then earlier this year we had our first high profile AEW to WWE move after Cody Rhodes returned to WWE. At SummerSlam fans also saw the return of Dakota Kai to the company, who had previously been released, and Io Sky, who was thought to be leaving the company, was featured in a new faction with the returning Bayley. It remains to be seen what other surprises both companies have for fans, but it should be quite entertaining to see how both companies shake things up from here.
What did you think of Khan’s comments? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
H/T f4wonline
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Image Credit: WWE, Netflix
