Tony Khan addresses Adam Copeland-John Cena final WWE opponent rumors
AEW President Tony Khan has opened up about the rumors surrounding Adam Copeland potentially serving as John Cena’s final opponent.
Earlier today, Khan appeared for an interview with Ariel Helwani on The Ariel Helwani Show, where he responded to the ongoing speculation about Copeland’s involvement in Cena’s retirement storyline. Denying the rumors, Khan clarified that WWE had never reached out to All Elite Wrestling with such a proposal. He said,
“Never say never in wrestling, because I would imagine they could always extend [John Cena’s] date past the end of the year. But no—Adam’s going to be here with us through the year.
Adam Copeland is a huge part of AEW, and I have so much respect for him. I really, really like Adam a lot, and I’m glad to have him here. Even though he’s away filming, he’s still with us and will continue to be.”
Raw, NXT, and SmackDown stars are currently competing in the ‘Last Time is Now’ tournament to determine Cena’s final opponent for the December 13th edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event. While, Copeland was also a rumored participant, it never happened. Interestingly, Matt Cardona, aka, Zack Ryder and Nic Nemeth as Dolph Ziggler made their surprise returns in the tournament.
Tony Khan addresses WWE-AEW counterprogramming tactics
In the same interview with Ariel Helwani, Khan opened up in detail about WWE’s recent counterprogramming tactics.
“I do think it’s done on purpose and I understand it and it’s part of wrestling and I think we’ve seen a lot of it but I think other wrestling promotions that have been the challenger wrestling brand in our lifetime have seen a lot of it. Jim Crockett Promotions, which was the forerunner to WCW, saw a lot of this.”
“I do think that we’ve seen that kind of counter programming and those things and I understand and looking back at wrestling history, kind of expect that.”
Earlier this year, WWE clashed directly with AEW All In with their Saturday Night’s Main Event and Evolution 2025. It later followed it up with NXT Heatwave against Forbidden Door 2025 and WrestlePalooza against All Out 2025.
