Tony Khan Is "The Wolf Across The River" - Paul Heyman Shoots On EVERYTHING AEW (WWE News)
Paul Heyman is happy that AEW exists; compares Tony Khan's product to his original ECW.
Paul Heyman's words during a chat with Chris Van Vliet's 'Insight' show would've been music to Tony Khan's ears. In just a few sentences, Heyman put AEW over as important to the pro wrestling landscape and compared Khan's product to his original ECW brand in the 1990s.
Above all else, Paul E said he's "glad" that All Elite exists. He's particularly pleased that "a wolf across the river named Tony Khan that had a billion dollar checkbook; that he could afford to pay a lot more money for talent than talent was making back in 2017, 2018, 2019" is around.
That, to Heyman is important - wrestlers need viable alternatives when looking to maximise their gains financially and sit down for negotiations with WWE. That 2017-ish period Paul references was more limited. Sure, workers could jet off to New Japan for lucrative dates/tours or find bookings on the independent scene or for groups like Impact, but they didn't have a company like AEW to bounce to.
On those intriguing 'AEW is ECW' comments, Heyman elaborated by telling Van Vliet that Jon Moxley is basically a modern take on The Sandman or New Jack. He also thinks some matches between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn from 1999 heavily influenced what fans can see on Dynamite, Collision or All Elite pay-per-view today.
To summarise, Heyman is very pleased that AEW exists at all. Khan has a ton of money to play with, "they're on a viable network", and they serve up something different to WWE. For Paul, that should be celebrated.