Tony Khan Addresses Criticism Of Popular Star’s Performance At Forbidden Door

AEW

Tony Khan has addressed the criticism of a popular star’s performance at the recent AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door.

With both AEW Collision and Forbidden Door coming from Toronto on June 24 and 25 respectively, fans got two opportunities to see the work of Hiroshi Tanahashi.

On AEW Collision, Tanahashi took on Swerve Strickland, whilst Forbidden Door would see him face MJF for the AEW World Championship.

The use of Tanahashi in a marquee match has drawn criticism online, with fans noting that his physical condition should preclude him from such a match.

Tony Khan addressed the criticism during an appearance on Busted Open Radio, saying:

“I think what you (show host) just said makes a lot of sense. It’s a vocal minority on social media.

“I think the vast majority of fans who follow the sport closely know that (Hiroshi) Tanahashi’s a legend, that it’s amazing that he’s fighting through these injuries and doing the best he can and yeah, he’s got bad knees and every once in a while, he might have a slip as he tries high-flying moves.

“But in the end, he had an amazing fight on Collision, he had a great match, Tanahashi versus Swerve (Strickland) and he had a great match with MJF at the pay-per-view. Not everything Tanahashi does is the same as it was 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

“But, Tanahashi is one of the great legends of the sport and certainly over the years, he’s accomplished so much and I know that, really, for us in AEW, we have so much respect for him and I think what you said makes a lot of sense but, you can’t let the opinion of a couple people get in the way of a great career of somebody like Tanahashi.”

In the lead up to his match at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door, Tanahashi named the AEW wrestlers that he would like to face.

Khan has previously discussed being a member of the online wrestling community from a young age.

The AEW CEO also explained how he “pretty consistently” read and talked about wrestling online for the past three decades, taking very little time off.

He also spoke about feedback from fans, noting that “sometimes you’ll get mixed opinion, but when there is a very strong, uniform opinion on something, it can be a good signal or a hint as to what the right direction for us could be.”

Transcript via EWrestlingNews

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• Forbidden Door
• Hiroshi Tanahashi
• NJPW
• tony khan
• AEW

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