Tony Khan Addresses NJPW Acquisition Rumors

AEW

AEW President Tony Khan has made some interesting comments on speculation about him potentially acquiring New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

With Tony Khan promoting AEW WrestleDream as an ‘end of an era‘, rumors have been swirling about the possibility of Khan purchasing NJPW, especially as the WrestleDream event is a tribute to Antonio Inoki, the founder of NJPW.

During the pre-WrestleDream media call, Khan noted that the speculation has surprised him.

Addressing the rumors, Khan said:

“I’m a little surprised at how that speculation picked up and the, specifically, the transactional nature of it. We have such a great partnership right now and we’re doing such great things with New Japan Pro Wrestling.

“I was a little surprised to see that. Overall, I’ve really enjoyed working with New Japan since nearly two years. We’ve had two great Forbidden Door events and we’ve sent a number of top AEW stars to Japan to wrestle on WrestleKingdom and top shows.

“We’ve worked together in the US. There are people in AEW who have helped develop New Japan and people from New Japan who have helped develop AEW or Ring of Honor.

“I want to continue that partnership for a very long and right now we have something very good going. I’m a little surprised by the speculation, I don’t know where it came from.

“It’s probably a good time to have a lot of speculation on the eve of WrestleDream, and I’m glad we got a lot of people talking, certainly that one video, with all the great clips of Mr. Inoki and top stars of today, I thought it got people talking and it was a positive thing,”

When asked about the ‘end of an era’ marketing, Khan refused to provide clarification on this remark, stating:

“I definitely have no intention of clarifying those comments. I want people to order the pay-per-view. I think the internet kind of ran away with the speculation based on, I don’t know what. I’d love for somebody to go back and look for the first person to say that was and track back where the speculation came from.

“We’ve come a really long way, we’ve taken big swings at doing new things this year, in particular, 2023 has been our most adventurous year and I want to keep doing adventurous things and make fan talk about AEW and hopefully making new fans of AEW.

“I think we’ve debunked some speculation and I’d be happy to debunk the speculation that is what I was implying because I don’t know where that particular rumor got started.

“Without completely spilling the beans of everything we’re working on, I really do think it is going to be the start of a new era of what we’re doing in AEW and I’m very excited about that.”

Tony Khan also commented on former AEW TBS Champion Jade Cargill following the announcement that she has joined WWE.

You can read Khan’s comments about Cargill right here.

Transcription via Fightful. 

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• acquisition
• purchase
• NJPW
• tony khan
• AEW

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