Entertainment
Vince McMahon doesn’t consider AEW competition and jokes about rivals signing ex-WWE stars
The boss has had his say (Photo: WWE)
Vince McMahon has dismissed the idea of AEW as competition for WWE.
The boss was asked about the rival promotion during Thursday’s quarterly investors’ conference call, with the caller mentioning Tony Khan’s company making investments in talent – Andrade El Idolo and Malakai Black recently debuted while rumours about CM Punk and Daniel Bryan continue to circulate – and rise in viewing figures.
There was a reference to WCW in the question, as the caller pondered whether ‘the rising tide lifts all ships’, as it did in the 1990s when the two wrestling giants were battling each other.
However, Vince said: ‘Well it’s certainly not a situation with rising tides, that was when Ted Turner was coming at us with all of Time Warner’s assets. That was a different situation. AEW is where they are.
‘I don’t know what their plans are, I only know what our plans are. I don’t consider them competition in the way I would consider WCW back in the day. Not anywhere near close to that.
‘I’m not so sure what their investments are as far as their talent is concerned, but perhaps we can give them some more.’
While Vince seemed pretty adamant, WWE president Nick Khan offered a more measured response as he suggested everything is ‘competition’ even if the company is focused on themselves.
‘I think the way we always look at these situations, you know, it’s sort of like a horse race where the horse has blinders on. We’re looking straight ahead at our lane, and making sure that we stay in the front of the pack,’ he added.
‘At the same time, everything is our competition. So someone had a line a couple weeks ago that we all chuckled about and agreed with. Sleep is our competition, right?’
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He insisted while no specific company is seen as a direct opponent, ‘everything’ is in the running for people’s attention.
‘If it was up to us, people could be up 24 hours a day watching content from different content providers, hopefully including ours,’ he said.
‘So, we don’t look at any organisation particularly as competition. Yet we see everything as competitive with what we’re trying to do in terms of eyeballs.’
*WWE airs at 1am on Mondays (Raw), Tuesdays (NXT) and Fridays (SmackDown) on BT Sport 1.
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