AEW's Tony Khan Fires Shots At WWE
"You don't create artists by training them all to paint by numbers the same way."
AEW owner Tony Khan has tweeted a comment that looks like it was aimed at WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan, who was interviewed by Ariel Helwani for BT Sport over the weekend.
Part of the Helwani interview saw Nick talk on WWE's new approach to developmental. He stated that WWE wanted to make the system accessible for potential stars to know how to get into the promotion (and vice versa), saying that while making it to the top was always going to be difficult, would-be wrestlers should be able to figure out how to start their journey relatively easily.
Tony tweeted the following shortly after the interview was uploaded to BT Sport's YouTube channel:-
Professional wrestling is an art form. You don’t create great artists by training them all to paint by numbers in the same way.
— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) August 22, 2021
While this doesn't make direct reference to WWE, the comment is clearly related to talent development in professional wrestling - and AEW's drastically different policy to WWE.
WWE held its latest round of wrestler tryouts in Las Vegas over WrestleMania weekend, recruiting several new faces to the Performance Center in the process. This comes at a time of great upheaval for NXT and the PC, with Vince McMahon focusing on younger, bigger wrestlers going forward.
See below for Nick Khan's full interview with Ariel Helwani.