AEW President Tony Khan has commented on the recent instance of several AEW stars surprisingly appearing on WWE television.
WWE legend John Cena made his return to Monday Night Raw to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his WWE debut. Mention was made of the Hollywood star’s anniversary throughout the night, and tributes poured in from both present and past WWE Superstars. Shawn Michaels, Trish Stratus, Triple H, and more spoke about their experiences working with Cena over the years.
Surprisingly, two of these tributes came from AEW stars Paul Wight and Bryan Danielson, who are currently contracted to All Elite Wrestling. Using their names of Big Show and Daniel Bryan, the two sent in videos and had high praise for the 16-time World Champion. Chris Jericho also appeared in a video later in the night.
Now speaking on the Battleground podcast, AEW boss Tony Khan has explained how the AEW contingent came to be featured on WWE programming:
“When people ask for a reasonable favor, I’m a good Samaritan. There is no reason why you can’t help people out. In this case, that’s just trying to be a good Samaritan and do the right thing to help out if you think it’s a good cause. In this case, John Cena’s 20th-anniversary show, I think that’s great. Sounded like a classy show and WWE reached out to me personally and asked me if we would send in videos from some of the top stars.”
“They asked me for videos from Chris Jericho, Paul Wight, Bryan Danielson, and Mark Henry. I’m not sure Mark Henry’s made the air, but I’m sure they had a lot of great videos and I understood why they want him. They did show Paul Wight, Bryan Danielson, and Chris Jericho. I thought those were great wrestlers to ask for and I had no problem with it.”
“I also left it up to those wrestlers if they wanted to do it. I sent it to our head of HR and she told them that they had asked about this and if they wanted to do videos, it’s fine with us, but it’s up to them. They sent them in. That’s how it happened.”
“Based on what it was, John Cena’s anniversary, even though WWE and AEW are competitive, it’s a good time to be in the wrestling business and be one of these two national television companies. There are a lot of big things happening in wrestling and there is no reason why we can’t all just be decent people at the same time.”
It is of course not the first time that AEW talent has appeared on WWE programming as Chris Jericho was featured on the Broken Skull Sessions with Stone Cold Steve Austin while part of Tony Khan’s company.