This article was also published for Wrestlenomics subscribers. Signup now on Patreon or Substack to unlock access to paywalled and ad-free reporting and analysis on the business of pro wrestling.
Imagine Tony Khan as an architect who designed an amazing new skyscraper but refuses to hand over the blueprints to the engineers, insisting that he be the engineer as well. His reluctance to delegate creative leadership has turned AEW into a glass palace with structural flaws that have been untreated for so long that now only a few professionals can fix. What’s worse is that in this imagined world, there are only maybe two or three skyscrapers, and no consensus about who the professionals are that can truly remedy the problem.
AEW’s initial success was built on two key foundations:
1) its anti-establishment positioning against Vince McMahon and
2) the emotional investment of fans in CM Punk’s decade-long redemption arc.
Both of those things are gone now with the industry leader benefiting in both cases.
The collapse of Punk’s relationship with AEW and McMahon’s removal from WWE have left AEW adrift and without a clear galvanizing purpose to attract fans, which, in my reading, is largely why Dynamite TV ratings were down by double digits (for the second consecutive year) and average attendance sunk for the third straight year—trends that cord-cutting nor any other excuse can rightly explain.
Nonetheless AEW laid such a strong foundation early on that it was able to secure a lucrative media renewal with Warner Bros. Discovery last year—an agreement that should enable its path to profitability.
How many more strong TV deals are in AEW’s future, though, will depend on how Tony Khan meets the challenges in front of him, if he recognizes them at all.
AEW’s leadership
Khan’s inability to impose discipline mirrors a parent who wants to be their child’s best friend. He loves his roster. He wants the best for his roster. He truly believes in them. Some of those relationships have also memorably fallen apart.
I know, it’s not like what we’re describing here is easy. Managing over 100 highly competitive wrestlers with enough ambition (a nice word for “selfishness”) and self-esteem (a nice word for “ego”) to get to the #2 wrestling company in the world takes exceptional talent. More on delegation later. Nonetheless, Khan is the one largely born into this opportunity and chose to seize it, along with the responsibilities attached.
Reluctant to set boundaries, afraid of saying no, and unwilling to confront uncomfortable truths, Khan’s style of leadership may in the short-term win him the favor he desires, but erodes the structure needed for long-term success.
Effective leadership isn’t about being liked; it’s about being respected. And respect doesn’t come from appeasement—it comes from clear expectations, accountability, and consistency.
This dysfunction was already the catalyst for one of AEW’s most damaging moments: the implosion and eventual departure of its biggest star. While it’s clear that Punk, as well as his adversaries like the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, brought their own egos and issues to the conflict, it was Khan’s lack of leadership that allowed the situation to spiral out of control.
Punk airing his grievances publicly while Khan sat quietly next to him, leading to tensions erupting into physical altercations, wasn’t just an unfortunate clash of personalities. It was the inevitable consequence of a workplace with no clear authority, no consistent enforcement of rules, and no accountability.
Khan enabled chaos by failing to establish a culture of professionalism and conflict resolution. Instead of stepping in early to mediate or impose discipline he let grudges fester and tensions mount.
AEW’s culture became a free-for-all where wrestlers with influence over the CEO wielded as much, if not more, power than management. The fact that Khan allowed Punk to use a live press conference to eviscerate colleagues in front of the media—without immediately stepping in—reveals a startling inability to control the narrative or his locker room. Worse still, when the inevitable fallout occurred, Khan’s response was reactive rather than proactive. Suspensions were handed out, but no real solutions were implemented to address the underlying issues.
The attempt to separate the warring factions by effectively creating two AEW rosters—one for The Elite on Dynamite and one for Punk on Collision—was an absurdly passive approach. Rather than address the conflict head-on, Khan essentially created a daycare solution, keeping the wrestlers on opposite sides of the playground. The idea that such an arrangement could work long-term was naive at best. It lasted just over two months.
AEW isn’t a sports league where separate divisions can operate independently. It’s a collaborative creative enterprise. Wrestling thrives on cooperation between talent. By splitting the roster, Khan showed he’s not only willing to limit the creative possibilities for AEW’s content, but also that he was unwilling or unable to resolve core issues of trust and respect within his locker room.
Unsurprisingly, this experiment quickly unraveled. Punk’s subsequent conflicts—including a highly publicized confrontation with Jack Perry at All In 2023—only underscored the failure of this strategy. Punk’s eventual firing was the final act in a drama that never should have reached such a breaking point.
The lesson here—if Khan took one—is that leadership by avoidance is not leadership at all. The exhausting drama around Punk wasn’t just a personal failure for those involved—it was a systemic failure, emblematic of a company without the discipline, structure, or authority needed to manage its most valuable assets. Wrestlers like Punk, Omega, and the Bucks are not just workers, they’re investments. Allowing them to devolve into public feuds and private chaos isn’t just bad management—it’s reckless stewardship of AEW’s future.
The fact that Punk hasn’t encountered similar issues during his return to WWE is neither a stroke of luck nor proof that Phil Brooks has undergone some personal transformation. Instead, it’s a reflection of WWE’s structured environment—a system that enforces boundaries, holds talent accountable, and ensures disputes are handled behind closed doors. WWE’s leadership—which has a long track record of problems in other areas—has authority and trust. Paul Levesque being viewed by his roster as a legendary wrestler, rather than the other way around, is surely one factor.
If Khan continues to prioritize being liked by talent over being respected—or perhaps continues to not distinguish between those two qualities—he risks turning AEW from a disruptor into another in the list of wrestling’s cautionary tales that could be but won’t be learned from: a company that had many of the tools to succeed but lacked the discipline to assemble them.
While leadership issues have been the catalyst for internal chaos, AEW’s struggles go beyond its leaders to the essence of the company’s identity.
AEW’s identity
AEW’s original value proposition was clear: it was the much-needed alternative to WWE. It promised a fresh, exciting, and authentic wrestling product that catered to fans—and talent—disillusioned with WWE’s heavily scripted promos, inconsistent storytelling, and corporate sterility. AEW positioned itself as a fan-first company, showcasing a variety of wrestling styles that WWE, in its foolhardy wisdom, discouraged. This identity resonated with a passionate segment of fans in 2019 and allowed AEW to flourish at a time when Vince McMahon’s stubbornness bound WWE’s creative output to its true nadir.
It can hardly be understated: The long and painful but now definitive extraction of McMahon from WWE shifted the wrestling landscape. Under Paul Levesque, or whomever else you’d like to credit, WWE’s creative has more focus, consistency, long-term direction, and more appropriately evaluates talent. Cody Rhodes, who was a key star for AEW but struggling there by 2021, jumped to WWE and is at the height of his star power. Punk followed. Roman Reigns, once immensely divisive with fans, is also at his peak as an attraction. John Cena and Dwayne Johnson visit on occasion and further juice WWE’s star power. What’s more, fans actually trust WWE to present these personalities in a way that builds and pays off in moments that will actually be gratifying, unlike the late McMahon period.
So what’s AEW’s identity now? The reality is that AEW doesn’t know. If you asked Tony Khan he’d probably default to reciting a list of “great” things about AEW that are entirely subjective rather than concrete. Perhaps he would add vague phrases about being a “challenger” brand. But it’s unclear quite what AEW is challenging. WWE no longer represents the stagnant, tone-deaf monopoly it once was. Meanwhile, AEW’s product has become a cluttered mix of semi-intriguing storylines, an overpopulated roster, stars who have almost all been hotter at other times in their careers, and certainly plenty of matches that are technically excellent—while usually lacking emotional depth.
AEW’s identity problem isn’t simply a matter of stagnation, though—it’s become a fundamental contradiction in how the company positions itself. While AEW initially sold itself as the anti-WWE, the company has become increasingly occupied by the very philosophies and personnel that have been ousted from WWE. AEW has absorbed WWE’s former creative and production staff, like Mike Mansury and Jen Pepperman, and, until recently, Jimmy Jacobs. Tony Khan brought in a new COO, Kosha Irby, who has experience at… WWE. Even Khan’s roster increasingly reflects a reliance on stars past their prime whose names were made in WWE: Adam Copeland, Christian, Bobby Lashley. Moreover, Khan’s reluctance to reel in nostalgia acts like Billy Gunn and Jeff Jarrett displace the development of younger stars less associated with WWE or TNA. These decisions pad AEW’s roster with recognizable names but chip away at the company’s image as a revolutionary brand with a unique identity.
Maybe no example better illustrates AEW’s identity confusion than its presentation of Kazuchika Okada, one of the greatest wrestlers of the modern era. Despite holding one of AEW’s many indistinguishable titles, he’s been mostly reduced to a cartoonish character built around a single insult. If you were to imagine how Vince McMahon would present Okada, surely this would be it: a caricature undermining the prestige he carries internationally, uttering “bitch” for sophomoric laughs.
These decisions reek of the very crutches that caused WWE’s product to become so bad that it virtually created the AEW opportunity.
In doing so, Khan has made AEW look less like an alternative and more like a parallel, failing to offer fans a reason to see it as anything but a less-polished version of WWE. This lack of vision isn’t just unsustainable—it’s antithetical to the values that launched AEW in the first place.
In light of WWE’s ambitious launch on Netflix last Monday, AEW’s identity issues are even more glaring. WWE has largely looked the same on television for over 20 years. On Netflix—like the content of the show or not—the combination of new production techniques, camera angles, staging, and interview positions made Raw feel the most different its felt in decades.
Meanwhile, AEW’s production, while usually competent, feels like a time capsule from WWE of 2019—perhaps unsurprising given Mansury’s influence. Mansury, having spent years at WWE, has undoubtedly brought polish to AEW, but that polish comes at the cost of differentiation.
Whereas WWE on Netflix actually felt innovative, AEW’s presentation by contrast feels stuck in an imitation of what WWE used to be, dutifully internalizing the notion that whatever WWE was doing a few years ago is just the way all TV wrestling should be.
Unfortunately for AEW, WWE is no longer standing still. It’s further refining its ability to captivate audiences—or maybe more importantly, it’s further developing its ability to impress corporate executive types and woo the media attention it wants.
What this reinforces is that AEW isn’t truly an alternative wrestling product but rather a shadow of the industry leader, unwittingly chasing the strategies of WWE’s recently concluded era.
A solution
Even the most successful bookers in wrestling history almost universally run out of steam within five years. Economically, the data shows Khan and AEW aren’t the exception to that.
The following suggestion is probably entirely unrealistic, because Tony Khan shows no signs that he’s interested in delegating authority over creative or talent leadership—similar to another major wrestling executive who sunk fan interest in his product for the sake of his own indulgence.
So it seems futile to raise a solution, but criticism without a solution is just more shitposting on the very tired “What’s Wrong With AEW” topic, so here it is: AEW needs fresh creative leadership, and that could begin with giving Bryan Danielson full creative control.
Danielson isn’t just respected, he’s revered. He understands wrestling in a way few do, and has already demonstrated the leadership in AEW that commands trust.
But his authority has to be real. No half-measures or ceremonial titles while talent can go around him to Tony to get what they really want.
Reduced to the simplest terms, there are only two things that truly drive wrestling companies: content and distribution. AEW may get a small short-term boost in distribution power with its future-proof move to simulcast on Max. However, the earlier rumors of a deal with Fox or another broadcast network have seemingly gone quiet. Regardless, distribution improvements can move the needle on fan metrics for a time, but eventually, content catches up with you.
Fully delegating creative control would allow Khan to focus on what he’s had the most success at recently—building relationships for AEW with networks and other partners, driving revenue, and ensuring the company’s long-term security.
A thriving AEW isn’t just good for making the Khan family even richer, it’s a win for the wrestling industry as a whole. Yes, a stronger AEW serves as an alternative for fans, but it pushes WWE to be better and fairer, for talent and audiences alike.
For AEW’s fan interest to improve, it needs a clear identity, a vision that differentiates itself from the industry leader. We’re roughly 36 months removed from Vince McMahon’s first resignation, and Tony Khan has yet to clearly define—either in words or actions—how AEW is all that different from a healthier WWE, beyond having different talent and arguably better matches. Without a distinct identity, AEW is “WWE-lite” and if you want to know how that goes, look at the history of TNA’s business.
But the question that comes first is not what AEW’s identity is or who creative leadership consists of, but whether Khan has enough humility and self-awareness to recognize the direction of TV ratings, attendance, and other metrics, and accept that there’s a need for change.