It started yesterday (Aug. 18) when Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer responded to Brian “Road Dogg” James’ social media post calling out AEW head honcho Tony Khan for not pushing the Bang Bang Gang’s Austin & Colten Gunn as a tag team.
The former WWE writer/producer dismissed Meltzer’s point, which was dismissive of Road Dogg’s and supportive of AEW & Khan, but also not incorrect… at least in this writer’s estimation. That prompted a follower to merge a pair of jokes/theories that are popular on the wrestle web in a reply to Road Dogg warning him he was screwing up his chances of getting hired at AEW by getting into a Twixter spat with one of its employees.
Which is when Road Dogg essentially claimed he was blacklisted by AEW and Khan for being a non-MAGA conservative:
Actually, I was turned away because of my political/ core beliefs That happened IN AMERICA 🇺🇸
I didn’t donate to or vote for Trump, BUT his old man did, why was I punished ?
If you’ll allow a sidebar here on a subject that’s deeply personal. The “Shad Khan supports Donald Trump” talking point, which is almost as popular as “Road Dogg is desperate for a job” and “Dave Meltzer is on AEW’s payroll” stuff means a lot to me because I once spent almost 10 whole minutes researching it. Here’s what I learned in February of this year:
I’m admittedly not a forensic accountant or anything, but what I’ve been able to find says the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Shad Khan was among a group of NFL owners who donated a million each for Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Since then there have been some mixed signals, with Shad Khan saying he remained a fan of Trump’s economic policies during his first term, but “I think it’s very clear on social issues — immigration, religion, what have you — I think we need to have a different viewpoint.”
He then wrote an essay for the Jaguars website during the summer of George Floyd under the headline, “Racism, in all its forms, will kill. It kills people, it kills communities, it kills dreams, it kills hope”, which included, “change for all people of color in the United States is long overdue, and it must happen now.”
When sports team owners were donating to Trump’s 2025 inauguration, Shad Khan’s name wasn’t among them.
Now back to Road Dogg’s main claim…
As to whether either of the Khans “turned away” the WWE Hall of Famer, I have no insight into that. Others have pointed out that there are at least a few people employed at AEW who likely share Road Dogg’s political/core beliefs — the promotion’s recently re-signed first-ever World champion Chris Jericho, for instance. And many more have mentioned that Road Dogg didn’t exactly leave his last job at WWE draped in glory, so Tony Khan may be giving him the cold shoulder because of that.
Road Dogg wasn’t in the mood for self-reflection however. He instead blamed a reporter — David Bixenspan, who’s largely left the pro wrestling space — for his downfall, despite the reporter claiming he had no idea what Dogg was talking about. In the process he again said he’d been “canceled”:
Now, I couldn’t find record of Bixenspan posting screenshots of Road Dogg’s posts or Dogg losing employment opportunities as a a result. But that is something that’s happened a fair amount of times in wrestling over the past decade or so, and Bixenspan’s been called a “social justice warrior” about as often as Dogg’s been called… things worse than “conservative”. So while I’m almost positive the reporter’s in the right here, I’m not making any definitive statements.
But even without getting into the validity of Road Dogg’s claims, it feels like this whole thing social media dust-up explains why he’s “unemployed and living his life” instead of helping make televised pro wrestling shows these days.
What do you think, Cagesiders?
