AEW Will Always Be #2 In Wrestling, Unless...

He's a wrestling fan doing this because it's the thing he wants to do most, but with other hats to wear at the same time. Wrestling is the closest thing to fun he has in his hyper-functional world.

He's spreading himself thin across these multiple roles in multiple businesses, but he's still the son of a billionaire, an elite-tier nepo baby, and probably relishes the opportunity to be closer to the outlaw status of an ECW product he loved rather than a monopoly-era WWE one he barely tolerated. There's no real comparison on a similar scale with Fulham or The Jacksonville Jaguars. No Wrestling Observer to specifically rank his work the same way, nor one he'd read with quite as much passion.

AEW is neither ECW nor monopoly-era WWE, but then neither of those things were ever #2 either. He might well have occupied the perfect space where he is. But he's also incredibly driven. He doesn't have all the jobs on privilege alone. He's a data guy, a sports guy and a competitive guy, and at some point or another the little voice inside him will be thinking about if All Elite Wrestling can win more than just a perception battle with smaller and more dedicated audience.

But again, what is the net positive of this if every other aspect of the business is in good health? Especially if he can keep doing what he very clearly loves.

All Elite Wrestling will always be #2, unless Tony Khan is forced by powers beyond him to make it that way. Not that there are many of those within AEW, but the aforementioned Warner/Other Network executives might one day ask some stupid questions about stupid aspects of the business that force stupid motivations such as trying to topple the WWE empire by compromising the quality of the content.

It's not quite as simple as that and never has been, but only then will we see if the market leader has an actual challenge on its hands. By the - and the hope and the theory is that Khan understands this more than most - there's as much chance of us mourning what we've lost, rather than what there is to gain.