AEW was founded and created in 2019 and since then has given fans a true alternative in the US besides WWE. Owner Tony Khan has been the big reason why a lot of lapsed wrestling fans have come back to watch, Khan gave the wrestling world hope when WWE was falling downhill due to being out of touch with its current audience. That was until Vince McMahon retired and HHH took over as head of creative.
HHH came in and immediately made an impact, booking better matches weekly and overall segment changes to feel more modern and not focused on one demographic being kids. Great news all around for all the fans who stopped watching WWE and wanted to get back into things, good news for everyone except Tony Khan.
Now this is not a Tony Khan hate article, I love what Khan has given to us wrestling fans, we get to see Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks on TV, he has taken a lot of wrestlers fans felt were misused and actually used them. Khan was able to bring in Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson (on the same night might I add) and I can't forget about the biggest of them all, bringing CM Punk back to pro wrestling. The list of moments and fantastic matches Khan and AEW have given us is hard to count there's so many, with that being said now that HHH is in charge AEW has felt a little flat for awhile now compared to what it used to.
Big question is: Is Tony Khan in panic mode?
Answer: Yes and No.
Tony Khan has stated that WWE has picked up there game as of late and knows he has to step it up, but could he be trying to hard? Could he be losing focus on what he was building before? AEW is great, but it has its flaws. There woman's division has been booked poorly from the start, the constant use of the new WWE guys he signs over the originals is starting to bother a lot of the AEW loyalists, Rampage turning into a reboot of Main Event, and the amount of talent that is just stuck on Dark. These are big problems that if turned around and fixed could catapult AEW farther than ever.
AEW isn't going anywhere. There here for the long run and I will continue to watch no matter the drama, the problem is Khan feels he can run everything on his own with tips from wrestlers here and there which that is in fact not the case. Tony could benefit greatly if he hired a legit creative team to help him out, I'm not talking about no hollywood writers or even TV show writers I mean former wrestlers, and former backstage guys who know what there doing. When AEW first started everything was great, Khan focused on the long term storytelling which worked out well for quite a few talents. It all just stopped and everything for awhile now has felt rushed.
In the end, Tony Khan should be a little panicked right now, with HHH taking over creative in WWE a lot of stars are gonna want to go back and get another chance due to Vince never giving it to them and Tony Khan needs to find a way that doesn't happen. I get not everyone can win the big win but with how many talented people are on that roster there's no way we should have to deal with so much filler crap in between. As I said this isn't the end for AEW, but if things don't get fixed sooner rather than later fans will start to turn back to WWE and the decline will begin.
Do you guys think Tony Khan will turn AEW back around? Let me know in the comment section below!