Dave Meltzer Explains Why He’d Have Chosen Triple H Over Tony Khan For Booker Of The Year 2022

AEW/WWE

According to Dave Meltzer, if he were to be the sole decider on ‘Booker of the Year’ 2022, he would have selected Triple H over Tony Khan.

While the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards winners are not selected by Dave Meltzer (rather, via voting from subscribers of the newsletter), he has since weighed in on why he believes the fans got it wrong with Booker of the Year.

For the newsletter, Meltzer wrote regarding the fan led vote that saw Tony Khan win 2022 Booker of the Year:

“I usually don’t comment on this. And for the first six months of the year you can make the argument. But WWE and AEW as businesses were in the same position with one much larger but the clear-cut 1-2 in the world all year.

“However, it was WWE that grew all year while AEW did not do nearly as well in comparison over the last eight months. You can argue bad luck or injuries, but in a coach of the year award, one team doing so much better in comparison at the end as compared to the beginning, that coach is going to win. Injuries are part of the game and regrouping and rebounding from them are as well.

“A comparison of the promotion of the returns of Cody Rhodes, C.M. Punk and Kenny Omega is so greatly in one side’s favor. Yes, AEW did create an environment on television and PPV to have far more great matches, and while some of the WWE’s growth relates to the stadium shows, a lot also relates to the aura of Roman Reigns, which is a creative issue, and the Bloodline angle, which is booking, and the most effective long-term angle in years. While the angle got stronger in 2023 where it doesn’t count for this balloting, it was still the strongest in 2022.

“In addition, whether you are a fan of Bray Wyatt or not, that out of the box thinking building up his return was a huge short-term interest level success. Even if Paul Heyman and Reigns played a huge part in one story and Wyatt himself in the other, the overseeing guy is Levesque.”

Later, touching on the subject on Wrestling Observer radio, Meltzer said:

“I’ve already written what I said, some people are mad and look: it wouldn’t have been my choice. The first six months? Absolutely. The last six months? You know he had a lot thrown out there with the injuries and everything like that that happened but I just… I don’t know.”

Going on to discuss the rationale, Meltzer echoed his previous sentiments about the Bloodline storyline, regardless of when it started the long-term storytelling has been continued and overseen by Levesque.

Meltzer also called this year’s voting a “moral victory” for STARDOM’S Rossy Ogawa, who actually came second place behind Khan, given how close he was to Khan when you consider the difference in size of their promotions.

Click this link to find out which wrestler won the award for the Wrestler of the Year in 2022.

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WOR: Dave Meltzer shares his opinion on Booker Of The Year and how he feels about Rossy Ogawa and the Tony Khan and Paul Levesque six months that overlapped.https://t.co/mYdKSjV7fm pic.twitter.com/tK6NQDbSBK

— Wrestling Observer (@WONF4W) February 25, 2023

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• Booker of the Year
• Triple H
• dave meltzer
• tony khan

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