Report: How WWE Perceives AEW's Tony Khan Revealed

While WWE had been without competition since the company bought WCW in 2001, that all changed when Tony Khan and The Elite launched All Elite Wrestling in 2019.

Within 18 months, the new promotion defeated WWE NXT in the Wednesday Night Wars and AEW's flagship show, Dynamite, drew a higher viewership in the key 18-49 demographic than Monday Night Raw for two weeks in September 2021.

Competition has only continued to grow, though, and a supersized edition of WWE SmackDown will go head-to-head with AEW Rampage for the first time on October 15.

Tony Khan has very much been the money behind All Elite Wrestling and the AEW president recently took a shot at WWE in the New York Post for the final 30 minutes of SmackDown being commercial-free, during which he pointed out his wealth.

"We can take the commercials out of it. If you want to take the commercials out of it, I can do that too. It doesn't seem very civil but I have more money than they do so I can afford to do that longer than they can. But that's how we make money at the end of the day, so I was surprised when they took those out," Khan said.

Following the comment, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter provided some insight into how WWE perceives Tony Khan.

According to Meltzer, WWE believe Tony Khan will "spend so much and lose so much money in the long run" funding AEW. There has even been talk within WWE that Khan being able to spend so much money is unfair on them because Vince McMahon's company "have" to turn a profit while they believe AEW doesn't have the same restrictions. WWE have also played down AEW's success so far as they believe Khan has simply overspent to start the promotion.

WWE made the same claims about Ted Turner and WCW during the Monday Night Wars and tried to portray themselves as a plucky underdog taking on a mammoth corporation.

WWE perceiving Khan and AEW in a similar way to WCW doesn't end there, though, and comments to Vince McMahon that WWE "beat Ted Turner and Ted Turner is smarter than Tony Khan" are prevalent within the company.