Tony Khan has publicly called out WWE over their recent booking decision.
As was seen on the January 8th broadcast of WWE Raw, Jinder Mahal confronted World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins. It was later agreed that Mahal would challenge for the title on the January 15th episode of Raw. While no one is expecting Mahal to win the match, there has been some support online for Mahal and fans jokingly predicting that a similar finish to Backlash 2017 may take place. However, not everyone is as thrilled with what took place.
On AEW, rising star Hook recently called out World Champion Samoa Joe on an episode of Collision. While Mahal has not won a match since 2022, Hook has been picking up multiple victories with recent appearances, something that Khan wanted to point out.
Taking to social media, Khan called the move a “double standard” as fans had questioned why Hook should challenge Joe but there is support for Mahal:
A double standard:
@730hook28-1 career record, on winning streak calls out the Champ, a logical challenge sparks online outrage Jinder has literally lost every single match he’s in for the past year, immediately gets title shot, where is the rage #AEWDynamite TOMORROW on TBS
Khan, clearly angered by the whole situation, continued his rant for all to see. In late 2023, Khan touted the success of AEW Programming by using ratings from Cagematch, a database from which fans can also give their thoughts on the show. USA Network, who broadcast Raw, alluded to this following a recent broadcast of the Monday night show. Khan also took issue with this:
A moral victory for USA is one win more than their World Title challenger Jinder Mahal has in the past 364 days… because it’s been literally a full year since he won a match. You really put AEW in our place getting Jinder Mahal in a big match on your tv show. Do it more often
Khan would continue to cause drama throughout the evening as he argued with Eric Bischoff and continued to defend his promotion. In a since-deleted Tweet, Mahal responded to Khan with the following comment:
Who tf is Hook?
WATCH MONDAY NIGHT RAW ON @USANETWORK MONDAY 8PM EST!!!
Tony Khan’s Latest Social Media Meltdown
This is not the first time that Khan has publicly fired shots at the competition. A head-to-head broadcast between NXT and AEW Dynamite back in October 2023 saw Khan call out Triple and Shawn Michaels and also made reference to allegations of misconduct directed at Vince McMahon. Furthermore, when the head-to-head ratings showed a clear victory for NXT, Khan still attempted to take the moral high ground by mentioning that a show with The Undertaker and John Cena on could not draw more than 1 million viewers.
