How Vince McMahon's Biggest Nightmare Hid In Plain Sight

A lifelong wrestling fan who - by his own admission - was given a load of his Dad’s money to enjoy on the sh*t he likes before the old fella passes away, Tony Khan’s putting an obsession to good use. And it effectively began for real that night in Chicago.

Rather than simply being funded by putting enough a*ses in seats or relying on resources and good will from others in the industry, it later emerged that the whole thing existed as a soft-launch of sorts. A proof of concept with some extremely substantial backing from the man that would later sit at the head of the AEW table.

Khan's simultaneously been the Arthur Fortune and Tony Blair of pro wrestling ever since, and in truth it’s created a slightly nauseating narrative on Twitter as a result. In stark contrast to Eric Bischoff in the 1990s, Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter in the 2000s and Vince McMahon (always, forever and ever), he's a regular feature in the world the majority of his punters reside in. This results, understandably, in him playing cheerleader for the product on social media and semi-regular boy-popper if he thinks he can pick at some low hanging wrestling war fruit or land the odd blow during the latest bird app skirmish. A trend has emerged out of that too - in near-pavlovian devotion to his/AEW's cause, his supporters bend the knee as if they’ve never been burned by a wrestling promoter before.

WWE and AEW ultras are more alike than either side would like to admit, and it's a shame any of them are there sh*tting up what could instead otherwise be a voyage of great discovery. Tony Khan might have as much riding on Fulham's success (and holy sh*t does Football Twitter treat him differently than Wrestling Twitter) as AEW's, but in the case of the latter, he's a fan.

And a big one. As evidenced by the most perfect of tweets that was exhumed from the archives by several fans that had remembered the goals of the billionaire's kid when he was just that...

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