WWE veteran calls out Tony Khan's carelessness in AEW leadership
Not everyone has been a fan of how Tony Khan has been running AEW. A certain WWE veteran was one of them, and he recently let everyone know how he felt. Former WCW manager Eric Bischoff claimed Khan was running a vanity project.
Low viewership ratings, empty seats, and an overall mediocre product compared to its competition has been the story for the promotion as of late. This has led to many notable names in the business expressing their disapproval of how management has been leading the company.
On a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff claimed that Tony Khan has always let Dave Meltzer influence his booking. Bischoff was not a fan of Meltzer. He then went on to say how Khan was running AEW as if a vanity project, one where his goal was not simply to profit. Had he been running his company as a business, that should have been one of his top goals.
"I'm not so sure Tony Khan's in the wrestling business. He's in the vanity business. Anybody that's working there is probably banging their head on sharp objects right now because he's not running it like a business. He's running it like a vanity project." [H/T WrestlingInc.]
Another wrestling journalist believes Tony Khan does not wish to profit from AEW
Recently, Brandon Thurston, the founder of Wrestlenomics talked about AEW's predicament with regards to sales, and their product overall.
In his interview with SEScoops, he commented on Tony Khan's possible business ventures concerning AEW, one of which was a possible deal with a different TV network. However, due to his loyalty to their current one, no deal was pushed through.
He then claimed that the company was not profitable at this point. Thurston talked about how they could still earn a profit, but they would have to go over a huge amount. He believed that Tony Khan would be acting like it was business as usual, and doing things whether for a profit or not.
“I’m confident they aren’t profitable now. They need to make $200 million a year in media rights to get to profitability. They’ll get some increase, they could get triple what they’re getting now, it’s not unreasonable. But he’s going to continue to run the company, and do what he’s doing, whether it’s profitable or not.” [H/T InsidetheRopes]
The AEW President has always valued competition in the business, and has even directly challenged WWE. In the end, his promotion has had its short-comings in the way it was run, and that always traces back to his leadership.
How do you feel about the way AEW has been run? Let us know in the comments section below.