Today’s professional wrestling landscape boasts an incredibly diverse palette. For the first time in decades, multiple major promotions have television deals, while international companies draw full stadiums of fans. One of those big players is All Elite Wrestling, a young promotion of just four years that has already established itself as a titan in the professional wrestling industry. That said, Tony Khan’s white and gold company still sits behind global sports-entertainment leader WWE in television ratings, revenue, and other business metrics.
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WWE CEO Nick Khan is aware of the lead that his company has on the industry, recently telling Bill Simmons that he does not fear his competition.
“I don’t feel threatened by anyone on anything,” Khan said. “It’s just not how I do business. I don’t care what anyone else is doing. I care what we’re doing. As long as we can have the best product on with the best talent and the best writers, I think we’re going to be in good shape.”
Nick’s dismissal of AEW is in line with how WWE has addressed the Jacksonville-based company.
“People put so much pressure on this competitive war, it never was that. Look, first of all, they beat our developmental system? Good for them, right?” WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said in September 2022 regarding AEW Dynamite‘s defeat of WWE NXT in Wednesday’s 8 PM time slot. “No it was never that [competitive war]. There was never even a pressure of ‘You have to beat that.’ It was never that. It was put on the best product that we could. Like I said, it [NXT] shifted over time, in the pandemic all of that shifted over time.”
WWE is in the midst of a corporate shift once more following Vince McMahon’s return to the board of directors. WWE Chairwoman and co-CEO Stephanie McMahon resigned from her positions earlier this month, leaving CEO responsibilities solely in the hands of Nick Khan. Since then, Vince has been re-elected to chairman of the board, and employees such as Adam Hopkins, JoEllen Lyons DIllon, Jeffrey R. Speed, and Alan M. Wexler have all departed the company.
