A top AEW has revealed the conversations that he had with Vince McMahon about what the company was doing better than WWE.
Whilst the public narrative has historically been that AEW isn’t seen as competition by WWE (at least, not to the level of WCW), this didn’t mean that Vince McMahon didn’t have an interest in what was going on in Tony Khan’s fledgling company.
In a recent feature on AEW and Tony Khan, Bloomberg spoke to Bryan Danielson who left WWE in 2021 to join AEW.
Danielson would recall a conversation with Vince McMahon in early 2020 where McMahon apparently asked:
“Do you see anything that AEW’s doing better than us?”
With Danielson on paternity leave, he would spend two weeks watching AEW programming.
He would eventually conclude, according to Bloomberg:
“AEW committed more time to and placed more value on the craft of fighting in the ring.
“WWE’s shows were often marked by long segments of characters on the microphone and short matches.”
This would lead to Danielson telling McMahon that with WWE:
“It feels like you’re watching a wrestling show without any wrestling.”
Vince McMahon was the head of creative during this period and was the person who had the final say on what was presented on WWE’s weekly television programming.
In the same feature, Tony Khan refers to the two organisations as being abe to compete alongside each other in a similar way to Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Quotes from Bloomberg.
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