The strange feud between Ariel Helwani and AEW President Tony Khan shows no sign of slowing down.
The issues between the pair seemingly began back in late 2022 when Helwani was less than impressed with an interview he did with Khan. The host of the MMA Hour criticised Khan for refusing to answer any questions involving CM Punk. Fast forward to the February 17th episode of WWE SmackDown and Khan took to Twitter to call Helwani a fraud for appearing on the show, sarcastically wishing him luck with his “unbiased journalism.”
Helwani responded on Twitter calling Khan “the snowman,” while Peter Rosenberg, Michael Cole, and Corey Graves have all had fun with the situation on WWE programming.
Speaking on the latest installment of the MMA Hour, Helwani opened up further about the situation. He began by describing the backstage reaction to Khan’s initial tweet.
“The amazing thing was how the whole thing spread backstage. Everyone, ‘you see the tweet? You see the tweet?’ I’ve just been here for four hours. I don’t even know a lot of these people. This is a amazing. ‘How could he…was that really him…blah blah blah.’ Yeah, I guess it was really him. He doesn’t follow me, but I guess it was really him. I kind of feel bad for Tony Schiavone; he was insulted in the process. Bizarre,
Ariel Helwani Fires Back At Tony Khan
Continuing on, Helwani said that all Khan was trying to do was impress his friend and UFC President Dana White.
“He’s just trying to do that thing and it hasn’t worked for Dana and it ain’t going to work for…
I know he’s [Khan] trying to get himself over on me because lord knows he needs it, I wasn’t going to let that happen. I could tell you a lot more about that interview that we did about how weird and bizarre that whole thing was, but I’m not going to do that.
The thing and that explodes and the best thing is all the freakazoids now come to Tony’s defense and start to tell me about my career, about my life, about journalism. Let me explain to you because poor Dave Meltzer I see continues to get compared to me, I am not Dave Meltzer. I’ve never claimed to be Dave Meltzer.
I don’t cover pro wrestling for a living. I don’t have a wrestling show. I don’t have a wrestling website. I don’t have a wrestling newsletter. Why do you guys keep comparing me to this guy? Because I’m that guy in MMA? I never been that guy in this sport. When I signed with BT Sport, the sole thing I was hired to do was mainly UFC. Go back to the announcement, it was UFC.”
Helwani then reiterated that he doesn’t consider himself a wrestling journalist.
The point is I don’t consider myself to be a wrestling journalist. I don’t know why all of you are all up in arms. I’m having fun. I’m living my life. I feel sorry if you can’t have this kind of fun. It was great.”
Tony Khan is yet to respond to Helwani’s latest comments, but he will be back on AEW television on the February 22nd edition of Dynamite to make an “important announcement.”
H/t to WrestlingNews.Co