Tony Khan Fires Back At Eric Bischoff Telling Him To Be Quiet

Tony Khan has been running AEW to ensure that both profits are made and fans stay entertained. Despite such a tremendous job that has led to AEW Rampage emerging as the more watched show than SmackDown in the 18-49 demographic, many are speaking against Khan.

Booker T recently gave his critique saying AEW should focus on shows like Grand Slam. While that was a positive take on AEW’s trajectory, Eric Bischoff told Tony Khan to “shut up“ and not compare AEW with WWE in terms of competition. However, Khan has a response for Bischoff.

Khan told Busted Open Radio that while he didn’t expect Bischoff’s comments like that, he said that being quiet is the last thing the president of a company should do. He also pointed out that AEW didn’t aggressively enter someone else’s time slot and created a competitive situation. AEW did emerge victorious in this unexpected event, which is why they’re interpreting the angle as competitive, said Khan.

I really like Eric and I was kind of surprised by Eric’s comments, because they were coming from Eric Bischoff. I think Eric Bischoff is probably the last person anyone would expect to say that a President of a wrestling company should be quiet. But when it comes to head-to-head competition, we were in one this past week. It was only 30 minutes and I didn’t ask for it. We were in our time slot, and somebody came into our time slot aggressively. And it wasn’t the first time they’ve made a pretty aggressive move like that. We generally responded pretty well and are very successful. This is the first time on a Friday we’ve gone head to head like that.

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Khan said that he had to consider the move by WWE as an aggressive one. While they loaded their match-ups using some of their biggest superstars, Khan chose to stuck with the match-ups that were decided for the show. That worked like a charm for AEW, and he added that he was rather amused by Eric’s comments.

I thought it was pretty aggressive what they came in with, they loaded it up with the biggest stars they had. And I had to make a choice; do I change up the card we have? You have CM Punk, who’s one of the biggest names in all of wrestling, and he’s wrestling Matt Sydal, who’s a great high flyer and great technical wrestler and very respected, but not the biggest box office name in all of wrestling. That’s a great match for the fans. I had to think ‘do I change that to a crazy box office match to try and go head to head?’ And no I didn’t. I stuck with the matches we had because I believe in our wrestlers. Even if it wasn’t the dream or stacked matches. I was amused by Eric’s comments. I like Eric when we’re together, but this is the ultimate example, I think, of glass houses in some ways, knowing how Eric conducted himself as the President of WCW.

Tony Khan was recently approached by another crossover feud from IMPACT wrestling. He announced a college football themed AEW countdown show to Dynamite. Booker T criticized Khan by saying that he sounded like a little girl while doing the AEW rant.

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Thanks to Wrestling Inc for the quote