Say what you will about the current quality of AEW's product, but the company has become an alternative for professional wrestlers who either don't want to sign with WWE or simply aren't a good fit for the company.
Tony Khan's budget is sizeable, and he's frequently signed up talent WWE has its eye on. However, WWE has also poached plenty of AEW stars, with it clear many wrestlers view Khan's company as a stepping stone to the big leagues.
During an interview with Bill Simmons, WWE President Nick Khan was asked about AEW being a viable competitor to WWE.
"In terms of the other wrestling promotional company, they have a lot of talented wrestlers and we're happy about that," he said. "When, contractually, they are available to talk to and have conversations with, assume a number of them will come over. Nothing but respect to the father who finances it and owns the Jaguars and all those other things."
Well, there's another shot at the fact that Tony's father holds AEW's purse strings!
Elsewhere in the conversation, Khan was asked about the Mr. McMahon documentary that premiered on Netflix shortly before RAW debuted on the platform. It didn't paint the former WWE Chairman in an overly positive light, and Simmons just so happened to be a producer on the series.
"It’s a testament to you, it’s a testament to Netflix to get that done, obviously in getting it done, the latter part, which you just referenced, was quite bumpy for everybody, but it got done, and it seemed to get quite high viewership numbers on Netflix," Khan started.
"Episodes one through five, it was all fine. Episode six obviously had a lot of tawdry allegations in there," he continued. "The most important thing in the company was, 'Hey, this is not for us to spike it.' That’s not what the deal was, and the deal that was struck with Netflix was prior to me joining WWE on a full-time basis."
"So it was sort of trying to help everyone who was watching it stay calm, and 'we’ll get through this thing and get to the other side of it,' which hopefully we are now."
"It went everywhere from 'Hey, it was phenomenally done' to 'Oh my God, this thing is not true, it’s not factual,'" Khan said of the internal reaction to the documentary. "There were people who loved it as an objectively told profile of a person, and people who were close to the subject who didn’t like it, which I would understand, and I would think you understand."
You can watch the full interview with Khan in the player below.