Tony Khan mocks WWE for featuring former champion on RAW
Tony Khan has taken to social media to mock WWE for featuring a former champion on television.
Triple H promoted the return of a former WWE Champion on the Day 1 edition of RAW, and it turned out to be Jinder Mahal. The returning star cut a heel promo before The Rock interrupted. The Great One got the entire crowd to poke fun at Mahal before hitting him with The People's Elbow.
Last night on RAW, Jinder Mahal interrupted World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins. The two stars traded words, and it was announced that Mahal will battle The Visionary next week for the title. Seth Rollins defeated Jinder Mahal twelve years ago to become the first NXT Champion in the company.
AEW President Tony Khan took to social media today to go on another one of his infamous rants. USA Network recently poked fun at Mr. Khan for referencing Cageside ratings in discussing the match quality in his promotion. Khan then reposted the message and mocked the company for giving Jinder Mahal a title shot without him winning a match in the past calendar year. Mahal's last victory came over Julius Creed on the January 10, 2023 episode of NXT:
"A moral victory for USA is one win more than their World Title challenger Jinder Mahal has in the past 364 days... because it's been literally a full year since he won a match. You really put AEW in our place getting Jinder Mahal in a big match on your tv show. Do it more often," Tony Khan wrote.
WWE veteran claims Tony Khan has lost his mind
Former WWE writer Vince Russo had some harsh words for Tony Khan after his comments last week.
Speaking on Sportskeeda Wrestling's Legion of RAW show, Vince Russo reacted to Tony Khan mentioning WWE's ratings being down when asked to comment on the ratings for AEW shows being down in 2023. Russo noted that Khan tried to rationalize the down ratings for AEW television this year and spin it into a positive:
"So why in God's name would you be comparing yourself to the WWE and all the other television shows? I couldn't give a crap bro, if this were a good show the ratings wouldn't be down. [...] Bro, you're still down and that's not a win, that's like Yankees are playing a last place team and oh well we only lost by one run, we could've lost by 10. Bro, you still freaking lost, this guy is out of his mind with the things that he does and says bro." [59:58-1:01:36]
You can check out Russo's comments in the video below:
Tony Khan has positioned All Elite Wrestling as a "challenger brand" to WWE and has taken several shots at the company over the years. It will be interesting to see if Khan's latest rant will do anything to improve the ratings for AEW Dynamite this Wednesday night.
What are your thoughts on Khan's comments about Jinder Mahal? Let us know in the comments section below.