WWE's Nick Khan Takes Swipes At AEW, Makes Wild Claims In Interview (WWE News)

Despite this week being the busiest, most WWE-centric week on the wrestling calendar, WWE President Nick Khan took time during a podcast interview to take shots at their closest competitor and their financial situation, claim WWE doesn't "bench" wrestlers, and referring to the sports entertainment juggernaut as the "underdog."

Khan appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast on Wednesday and chatted for an hour about a variety of topics, but a few of his comments caught fire and sparked an intense online conversation. Most interestingly, Khan chose to use the platform just three days before WrestleMania 41 to fire off a few shots at AEW and its leadership, and deny that WWE engages in a practice that he intimated that their competitor does.

Speaking about AEW wrestlers coming over to WWE once their contracts expire, Khan - who referred to AEW as "the other wrestling promotional company" - commented that they're happy to have those conversations and "assume a number of them will come over." He then added, "Nothing but respect to the father who finances it and owns the Jaguars and all those other things" - a reference to Shad Khan, AEW President Tony Khan's father.

Although host Bill Simmons called Nick Khan "magnanimous" for that comment, others on social media found it to be dismissively treating AEW as a farm system for WWE while suggesting that AEW survives because it's bankrolled by a billionaire.

It should be noted that after its latest multi-year, multimedia deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, AEW is the second-most profitable wrestling company, behind only WWE.

Simmons then suggested that WWE's biggest issue was "too much talent," which could lead to them "wasting people." This prompted Nick Khan to respond:

"That's something we won't do. We won't sign and bench people. We sign people who we want to use... If another entity signs and benches people now, that's not something we would do," (h/t Fightful)

When Simmons remarked that benching talent is "a thing that happens," Khan simply replied, "That's what I've been told from time to time. Not us."

During Fightful's The Hump later that afternoon, Sean Ross Sapp shredded Khan's assertion about WWE not benching wrestlers, running down a litany of talent that the company has "parked" during the past year, such as Omos, Alexa Bliss, Natalya, numerous tag teams, Hikuleo, Baron Corbin, AOP and others.

This is the good stuff from @SeanRossSapp. Love him coming with the receipts to rebuff an outlandish claim from Nick Khan. https://t.co/7YqzEjxxIh

— Scott Carlson (@ScottCarlson123) April 16, 2025

Also during the interview, Khan claimed that WWE is "always the underdog... that people underestimate us."

It's worth noting that while this is WrestleMania week for WWE, Wednesday also marked AEW Dynamite becoming the longest-running weekly primetime wrestling show in Turner broadcasting history, surpassing WCW Monday Nitro.