Tony Khan Surprised By WWE WarGames Video Featuring William Regal

Relations between All Elite Wrestling and WWE seemingly continue to sour, with Tony Khan noting his surprise that a WWE WarGames supercut featuring William Regal was posted on WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H's Twitter account after Khan had agreed to not renew The Gentleman Villain's contract.

Khan revealed on the ROH Final Battle media call on Wednesday that Regal will leave AEW at the end of 2022 and return to WWE in a coaching role. Regal is not allowed to appear on-screen in WWE in 2023.

Regal's AEW departure had been in the works since mid-October and Triple H hinted at his WWE return ahead of Survivor Series WarGames, tweeting the aforementioned supercut.

Speaking about Regal's situation further later in the ROH Final Battle media call, Khan admitted his surprise at the supercut, noting he didn't think it was in the spirit of how accommodating AEW had been to Regal and WWE.

"The way I believe it's written, is that after this year, he would be able to go back and coach, but I believe we have it written that he would not be appearing on-screen next year. I wouldn't expect to see him as an on-screen person next year. Honestly, given the spirit of the thing and how accommodating we were being, I was really surprised by the tweet with the supercut of him on it, especially since he's still been with us and part of the shows. We're still addressing him on the show [Dynamite] and going into last week's show, especially, he's still a big part of our show," Khan said.

"I was a little surprised by the supercut of him on Triple H's Twitter, and given how accommodating we were being to the whole thing, I was not necessarily expecting to see that. I didn't necessarily think it was in the spirit of how accommodating we were being about the whole thing, but whatever. The important thing is that it's a situation that will be resolved and he will be able to be there and do the coaching and work with his son and the stuff that's important to him, that he said, he was cool and okay with it being a release that he would not be appearing on TV next year."

Relations between AEW and WWE appeared to have thawed during the final months of the Vince McMahon regime, with Chris Jericho, Bryan Danielson, and Paul Wight having all appeared on WWE programming in some capacity. That improvement in relations ultimately ended after McMahon's retirement, though, and WWE reached out to AEW talent about returning to the company in the summer before they broadcast NXT Worlds Collide ahead of AEW All Out, something which prompted Khan to say, "I'm not gonna sit back and take this f*****g s**t" during the post-All Out media scrum.

H/T to Fightful