AEW’s Unprofessional Khan Job

I was all set to write about WrestleMania 40 and my thoughts when I saw that AEW is going to release the “Unaired Backstage Video Footage” of All In Wembley Stadium.

My first thought was “I can’t believe the Young Bucks are this petty”.

My new thought is “I can’t believe Tony is this stupid and unprofessional.”

After all these years, you figured that Tony would have learned his lessons about dragging things out. Scandals happen every day and all you can do is mostly ignore them. What someone says one day is usually ignored or forgotten after a few weeks.

Yeah, the CM Punk interview was bad as I wrote (CM Punk’s Pipe Bomb burns Tony Khan big-time – NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage) for Tony. But you figured that after a week, people would forget it and move on.

But instead, Tony is going to roll the dice and drag this story out even longer. By airing this footage, he wants to try to retell the story and show that he was “In fear for his life” and “It was Punk’s fault”.

The behind-the-scenes footage is going to go horribly wrong and all it will do is drag things out even longer.

I can tell you what any PR guy worth his salt would tell Tony right now: Just move on from it. What is done is done and the more you talk and try to explain it, the worse it will get.

See Prince Andrew’s horrible interview after Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide” for how bad that can turn out.

And of all the people to commentate on the footage, it’s going to be the Young Bucks I get it that they are heels, but this isn’t going to be cheap heat or even Dominik Mysterio heat.

This is “lets change the channel to anything else” heat. These two are a major reason that Cody and Punk left AEW in the first place. Even the Punk-Perry incident was an indictment on them as Perry was a friend of theirs.

So, you’re going to blur the lines of reality and fantasy and promote a shitshow that went down on your watch. But won’t take any blame for how it all went down and instead paint this on a WWE guy.

You can call this another horrible idea in the history of horrible ideas by Unprofessional Khan. Just as Eric Bischoff was calling him a “developing boss” and showing signs of maturing, Tony is pulling this crap move.

Because here is what Tony doesn’t get; he won’t look good coming out of this. No matter what the footage shows, it makes him look all kinds of bad, ten ways from Tuesday as they say.

Imagine being Warner Bros Discovery execs and seeing this getting aired about a “Brawl” behind the scenes that was on your watch. You think they are going to be excited and happy about this?

They are going to be embarrassed and mortified about this ordeal. Because they are in bed with AEW which is promoting the fact that wrestlers behaved badly behind the cameras.

That they had zero respect for their boss or superiors and got into a fracas.

I understand that Tony is embarrassed about the Punk interview, but how do you think WBD will feel about this footage?

“Yeah, we are the network that has a wrestling show where the wrestlers get into fights backstage, and the boss has no control.”

Not kayfabe fights that everyone knows is part of the story but an actual fight.

This footage just gives credence to all of AEW’s detractors who say this company is a joke.

If the owner can’t control things and is even going to promote that this event happened, why should we do business with him.

Meanwhile what do you think this does for potential wrestlers who are free agents and have their pick. They look at this shit shown and are thinking “Do I really want to work for AEW or WWE?”

Right now, WWE is showing that they are a professional company and are looking to do the right thing. Vince McMahon has been effectively pushed out and erased from the company. Paul Levesque has shown that he can squash old beefs with Punk and will put business first.

Look at WrestleMania 40 and you can see the product over like rover. Even the TV production has gotten miles better and people are tuning in while they are going to a historic Women’s & Men’s Final Four in basketball.

They aren’t just “winning the war” against AEW… they don’t even acknowledge that it is even there.

And when people try to bring up any controversial topics with any of the wrestlers, nobody takes the bait. It’s clear they have gotten the memo and don’t want to let the story simmer and drag on.

It is a tactic AEW and Tony should do right now, but they won’t because Tony is that unprofessional. If you’re a wrestler and can go to either promotion, why do you want to be a part of that culture?

If you don’t get along or see “eye to eye” with the EVPs, then your career goes nowhere. Plus, your boss doesn’t seem to understand the business, his booking is all over the place and attendance is spotty.

Any top wrestler right now who has options and isn’t a Young Bucks guy is going to run the other way.

I also feel bad for AEW fans and for some of the AEW wrestlers because it must get tiring.

Every week critics call the company trash and unprofessional and with cause. Week after week, Tony Khan finds more ways to make things worse and cause embarrassment.

Imagine having to be Adam Copeland and being cajoled into going out on TV and doing a promo about Punk and AEW. Deep down it must have been killing him that he has to be a PR guy for his boss. He knew that as soon as he cut that promo that he was going to get mocked.

Imagine Jim Ross, Jake Roberts and Arn Anderson who when they started thought the company was going to be better. That it was a pure alternative in more ways than one to the WWE and would be run as a professional business.

Instead, they hear the “AEW is TNA/WCW without the success” sneers and take it. They must watch as their advice and insight are ignored at times by Tony.

They are getting paid but it’s disheartening at times to know that your boss is going to doom the company by being unprofessional.

I feel for AEW fans who are actually normal and not trolls because their company is going down the wrong path. They are watching as ratings continue to dwindle and an owner who won’t make positive changes.

What started out as hope that AEW would be on par with WWE has turned into “this is WCW light” all over again.

The scary part is that not even Vince or Bischoff would have pulled this even at their worst times. Real businessmen don’t want to show any weakness or signs that things are out of control. They pride themselves on the image that the company and they are professional.

Tell me why Vince or Bischoff would ever want to leak footage of their company being unprofessional? It does nothing to make them look good and just make them look like the bozos most of the IWC think they are.

The only person who will benefit from this will be CM Punk’s lawyer when he sues the company. He can now show evidence that his client’s name is being slandered with tactics like this. Because this is basically being aired to attack Phil Brooks, aka CM Punk.

It’s mindboggling that Tony is doing this after seeing what happened with Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp. Heard wrote a column insinuating that she was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of Depp. They both went to court suing each other and Amber Heard came out the worse for wear. She got exposed for being a liar and someone who was immature and even had to pay big $$$ in damages.

It all leads to once again showing that Tony Khan is just not fit to run All Elite Wrestling. He is unprofessional, immature and has zero business insight on how to run a company.

This move alone shows that it will not do the company any good whatsoever. And even though sources have told me that people have tried to talk Khan out of it, he refuses to listen to them.

Unfortunately, he has not hit rock bottom yet for him to learn any lessons. Maybe, it will take WBD passing on AEW altogether for him to learn something. Or losing a million-dollar lawsuit to Punk for slander.

Either way this latest move shows that for all his talk of being “The only Khan” in pro wrestling, he is not.

He is more an Unprofessional Khan-Job if there ever was one.

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