AEW President Tony Khan Reveals He's Spoken With Top WWE Executive

By Liam Crowley

The forbidden door between All Elite Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment remains shut, but the two powerhouse promotions do have somewhat of a relationship. Earlier this year, AEW allowed Bryan Danielson, Chris Jericho, and Paul Wight to send in video messages for a Monday Night Raw celebration of John Cena's 20th anniversary in wrestling. Aside from that brief crossover, the two companies have referenced each other multiple times on their respective shows, including Edge alluding to an MJF promo in a MizTV segment and MJF himself outright name-dropping WWE co-CEO Nick Khan on a recent episode of AEW Dynamite.

That Friedman oratory exhibition was not the first time that Nick Khan has been referenced in an AEW segment. AEW President Tony Khan cut a promo on the WWE executive in a May 2021 social media segment, saying that "there's only room for one Khan in the wrestling business."

In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, Tony gave context to the promo, noting that he spoke with New Japan's Rocky Romero about the rumblings that NJPW was having conversations with WWE. Romero confirmed to Khan that there was "nothing" to the rumors and that NJPW was "with" AEW.

Regardless of the validity of the rumors, Tony addressed them directly in his promo because he wanted to draw attention to AEW Dynamite.

"I said, 'Well, it's getting a lot of press, and today's Wednesday, so I'm thinking I should probably do a promo to get some buzz,'" Tony said (h/t Fightful). "Because also Dynamite had been, that night there was a time shift. It was during the playoffs, so it was on at a different time, so I was looking for something anyway to get a little bit of buzz. So we did that before we went live, and it definitely got people talking because it's been a year and a half, and you're talking about it.

"The promo was saying like hey, every wrestling site basically today reported that WWE is gonna work with New Japan. Yet here I am with the [IWGP] US Champion [Jon Moxley] on the show tonight. I've got Yuji Nagata coming to Dynamite. I just reunited Roppongi Vice. We're the ones working with New Japan, so I think all the wrestling sites need to cool their jets because this isn't true, and maybe watch Dynamite tonight." 

Tony revealed that he spoke to Nick about the promo, noting that he gave context to the then-WWE President.

"I had heard Nick called [New Japan], and that was why I did it. I've also told him this since," Tony said. "Not in person. I don't wanna get into it, if I may. I haven't met him, but I have talked to him."

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