Tony Khan is not putting his foot down as the head of AEW, according to Dutch Mantell.
2022 was an interesting year for AEW, which saw the departure of Cody Rhodes, multiple top stars getting injured, and multiple reports of unhappy talent.
Perhaps the biggest AEW story over the past 12 months concerns what happened backstage at last September’s All Out pay-per-view event.
Speaking on his Story Time podcast, Mantell stated that Khan isn’t acting as a leader backstage in AEW to the detriment of his promotion. He said,
“This whole thing’s gotten out of hand. I mean the behind the scenes happenings in AEW is taking precedence over what they’re doing in the ring. But you don’t draw any money with that, it gets people talking about you, but it doesn’t sell tickets, it doesn’t sell merchandise, it doesn’t do anything but kind of paint your company in a bad light.
“Tony Khan is allowing things to happen—because you cannot let the inmates, it’s an old saying, you cannot let the inmates run the asylum. That’s an old saying in wrestling and I heard it the first year I got in, but now if Tony is asking [CM] Punk ‘will you do this?’ Now he’s paying him, so if I’m paying somebody and I’m the boss, I want you to do this and we can talk about how it’s done, but this has to be the end result.”
Tomorrow night’s episode of AEW Dynamite will see four title matches during the two-hour broadcast, and Tony Khan will make an announcement.
The Trios Championships, FTW Championship, AEW Women’s Championship, and the AEW World Tag Team Championships will be on the line.
