The return of Vince McMahon to WWE has put the world of pro-wrestling in notice, especially with the reports indicating Vince McMahon is open to sell WWE to the highest Bidder. While the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Comcast are the two favorites to acquire WWE, there are other name interested on obtaining WWE and one of those names are Shahid and Tony Khan (owners of AEW).
Pro-wrestling, at least in the U.S., are only used to for so long with Vince McMahon’s monopoly under the industry. Going from the McMahon monopoly to the Khan monopoly seems to fitting considering the story of pro-wrestling in the U.S. these last 25 years. Nonetheless, any monopoly is never all good or even all bad, if we consider all perspectives.
The major positive of a Khan monopoly would be that once and for all that the McMahon family would no longer be involved in pro-wrestling, and the damaged they’ve done to the industry can’t be ignored, as well as all the lives ruined because of Vince in particular. Having someone other than Vince might be the fresh start all pro-wrestling in the U.S. needs. Another major positive about this would regarding the revisionist history of WWE being put down once and for all. Other things like WWE’s massive library would be put in good use under Khan, as well as some IPs WWE owns like Starrcade or Halloween Havoc could be used better under Tony Khan ownership.
Creative wise, that depends if you like Tony Khan’s booking or not. His creative and ideas would become the standard for the industry for better and obviously worse too. While these positives sound good, they don’t outweigh the negative consequences on the wrestling industry.
In case of a Khan monopoly, the biggest losers would be pro-wrestlers themselves. Pro-wrestlers themselves would no longer be able to negotiate a better deal by jumping to another promotion with Khan owning AEW, WWE and ROH, especially considering IMPACT can’t compete today or ever to the money AEW and WWE offer.
AEW was meant to compete with WWE and be its own thing, but with a Khan monopoly a merger between both and we could be back to square one with wrestling in the U.S. needing all over again an alternative to WWE-AEW, and it’s hard to say that we’ll ever see that happen again considering how niche wrestling and is, and a billionaire interested on spending that much money on wrestling. We are currently seeing that too, no major third promotion has risen because of the lack of star power, or the fact there isn’t that many station interested on pro-wrestling.
At the end of day, Vince McMahon would not sell WWE to Tony Khan, even if he had the best offer on table for WWE; unless he does it for spite towards Paul Levesque (Triple H) and Stephanie McMahon after years of disappointing him for different reasons; but as mentioned before, Saudi Arabia and Comcast are the favorites to acquire WWE, and the fact the Khan family would need a business partner to make the purchase possible. While the memes of Tony Khan owning WWE are funny, it’s very unlikely to happen unless a major shift happens.
