AEW's Tony Khan on WWE's Alleged Contract Tampering, Battling WWE in Free Agency

Reports of WWE attempting to reach out to contracted AEW stars and get them to try and leave the promotion in order to return to WWE popped up last August, prompting a few public comments from AEW owner Tony Khan. The latest came this week when Khan was on Radio Row for Super Bowl LVII talking with Dan Le Batard. After declining to comment on WWE's own reported internal turmoil, he brought back up the alleged tampering. 

"I can only speak to the challenges we've had and I got a lot of wrestlers come to me and allege that WWE reached out to them to tamper with their contracts and ask them to break their contracts," Khan said (h/t POST Wrestling). "I can't confirm that specifically. I can only tell you what the wrestlers have come to me and said. But I've had multiple wrestlers and staff report that to me. It was very disturbing, and I've had to go out and try to put on good shows despite this alleged tampering, stuff like that. But frankly, I don't think it's stopped us because the quality of the product and the quality of the shows is at an all-time high right now."

Khan also discussed AEW battling with WWE in the pro wrestling free agency market over talent — "...I do know it's a real war between AEW and WWE and the fans are interested in it and that was part of the original business model of AEW was I knew wrestling fans, frankly, are very interested in wrestling free agency and wrestling wars and I believe we could create a free agent market that is definitely a real thing now and that would be a big part of the story. I think wrestling fans, at the end of the day, that a lot of what happens in wrestling shows is sometimes story and that's why people like watching the shows. They like stories and the exciting matches and especially, the combination of the two when the stories lead to exciting matches and vice versa. Now, what's interesting is the story that is the most real, the most intense and the most hatred in all of pro wrestling is that between the two wrestling promotions. I think we truly, truly hate each other and I think it makes for really exciting TV and it makes for an exciting wrestling war."

AEW returns to pay-per-view on March 5 in San Francisco with the AEW Revolution event. Stay tuned for full coverage of the event!