Tony Khan explains how the partnership between AEW and AAA eventually soured.
All Elite Wrestling President Tony Khan was a recent guest on Q101. When asked about the new partnership between WWE and AAA, Khan said he thinks it’s a great thing, but after the situation with Dragon Lee, it wasn’t a surprise to him.
“It’s great, it’s a great thing,” Tony Khan said. “We started working with CMLL in 2023, and things have really, really looked up for us. I have a great, great relationship with Salvador, and frankly, that’s not unexpected to me. I’d kind of been expecting that ever since the way the Dragon Lee signing was announced on December 30th of 2022.
“From then on, I said, okay, then I think it’s highly likely that’s the way this thing’s going, because that was certainly a big surprise to me. It’s not like, you know, FTR were there and they saw the WWE cameras and it’s like, ‘okay, something’s up.’ I had not agreed to that, actually.”
FTR tipped Tony Khan off to something strange going down in AAA
When asked to go into detail on the situation that went down that night, Khan painted the picture of what took place that night in AAA when Dragon Lee defeated an AEW talent and then announced he had signed with WWE.
“Well, we had agreed that FTR would go down and wrestle RUSH and Dralistico,” Tony Khan recalled. “And then something happened during the day where Dragon Lee was in there. I was up doing a show in Denver that day, and… I remember I was with Samoa Joe, and Samoa Joe had a match that night.
“It was December 30th in 2022, and I talked to FTR and they said, ‘there’s some kind of strange stuff going on here.’ Then, right after Dynamite ended, that match went off, and they announced that Dragon Lee was signing with WWE, and he still had FTR’s name on the plate. So it was really a double cross, and that would never happen now.
“That’s one of those things that would never happen now. Salvador and I are brothers. I have a very close relationship with him. I don’t believe he would ever betray me like that, and I would never betray him like that, and if we wanted to do something on a show, we would talk to each other. We wouldn’t be making subs or change stuff out or switching allegiances mid-show.” [H/T: Fightful]
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What do you make of Tony Khan’s comments? Does this shine more light on why the partnership between AEW and AAA ended? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
