Heading into Double or Nothing this weekend, AEW’s Maxwell Jacob Friedman has done a tremendous amount of media. In doing all that press, MJF’s also generated a lot of conversation with passionate pro-AEW answers to interview questions, sometimes peppered with subtle and not-subtle digs at WWE.
Talking to Shakiel Mahjouri of SHAK Wrestling and CBS Sports, Friedman pointed the finger toward WWE as the source of recent rumors about AEW’s television future, insinuating they were WWE president Nick Khan’s
attempt to redirect the public’s attention away from WWE’s recent releases and requests that talent take pay cuts.
Max knows it’s part of the game, though:
“TKO, WWE, what have you, their job is to make themselves look great and to make us look bad. So there’s a leak. Oh, ‘AEW is struggling to get a TV deal.’ That’s fucking news to me, bro — like that’s news to me. That’s news to everybody on the roster. It’s damn sure news to Tony Khan because last time I checked, they’re fucking over the moon with us right now.”
“You know, we do better numbers than fucking almost everything that’s going on on a weekly basis on cable because right now, as I was saying, the things that draw on cable are news and live sport…
“I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a million times, Shak, I love Jolly Old Saint Nick [Khan], and I love the tricks he’s pulling out. I fucking get it. It’s smart. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t use our brains, right? It doesn’t mean that we can’t go, ‘Oh, this is being leaked intentionally to hurt the company that is the alternative.’
“It’d be like if Coke out of the blue was like, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you guys knew about this, but Pepsi has ass water in it.’ Everybody’d be like, ‘Well, I mean, where is that source coming from? It’s coming from Coke.’ Okay, I’m not really going to give much thought to this, right?”
It’s a good answer. It makes sense, and allows him to touch on two things fans like to talk about: the behind-the-scenes world of pro wrestling there’s long been interest in, and the tribalism that’s become bigger than ever in 21st century fandom.
But is also dances around what neither MJF nor Tony Khan can deny about their TV deal: unless Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery is somehow nixed or called off before AEW’s current contract expires next year, they need to find another outlet that will give them one. Because TKO’s president and COO Mark Shapiro is already boasting about WWE airing/streaming on Paramount properties and platforms along with UFC, so if the acquisition goes through AEW won’t have a future there. And if the acquisition is still pending, WBD won’t be signing any new contracts.
Finding another outlet among the decreasing number of billionaire-owned options won’t be easy, but Tony Khan is well connected, and there are rumors he has a YouTube-based plan in mind already.
We shall see. Let us know what you make of MJF’s latest “conversation starter” in the comments below.
