Tony Khan Comments On WWE & UFC Crossovers After Their Merger

WWE and UFC shocked the world when it was announced that they would merge into one new company. Tony Khan certainly saw this go down, but it won’t change AEW’s direction.

On April 3rd, WWE revealed a deal to be acquired by Endeavor, the parent company of UFC. As part of this agreement, WWE and UFC will merge and establish a new publicly traded company by the conclusion of this year.

While both WWE and UFC have stated that there will be minimal to no crossover between talent from the two companies, Endeavor has expressed their intention to apply the successful promotional strategies from the UFC Playbook to promote WWE.

Tony Khan recently got some time on CNBC for an interview, and he answered a question about WWE in the process. WWE and UFC are merging into the new TKO Holdings Group, and it seems that there are a lot of possibilities.

When asked about the impact of the UFC and WWE merger on how AEW does business, Tony Khan didn’t seem too worried. In fact, he seemed excited about the idea. 

“In terms of business, I think both companies are focused on pro wrestling, in terms of AEW and WWE. Working with outside sports is great, but for me in AEW, our primary focus is the fans, and for us that’s the wrestling fans.”

“Whenever you can bring in people from outside pro wrestling, celebrities or athletes or both, it can be very exciting, and there is a lot of history in the business of great cross promotions involving celebrities and wrestling, and athletes from outside of wrestling coming into pro wrestling. Alternatively, there have been some not-great promotions that other people, outside of AEW, at times have done.”

Only time will tell what WWE and UFC do in the future. This partnership could very well result in some big crossover moments.

AEW and WWE will keep doing their own thing, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that things will change. Tony Khan might be influenced, or even inspired, by WWE’s recent surge in popularity, but you also never know what they might have in the pipeline as well.

What’s your take on WWE and UFC merging? Sound off in the comments!