Tony Khan felt double-crossed by how FTR’s AAA Tag Team title loss went down
AEW head Tony Khan has opened up about the night Dragon Lee & Dralistico defeated FTR for the AAA Tag Team titles, feeling he was double-crossed with how the situation went down.
Khan spoke with Case Lowe of Q101 and the two were talking about WWE’s impending acquisition of AAA which Khan said was “not unexpected to me” and something he had expected ever since WWE announced they had signed Lee in December 2022.
Khan then talked about the aforementioned title change that happened that same night as the Lee signing, saying he had not agreed to the way it went down.
“We had agreed FTR would go down and wrestle Rush and Dralistico. Then, something happened during the day when Dragon Lee was in there,” he said, noting he was in Denver, Colorado, as they were doing Dynamite that night.
Khan said he had talked to FTR and “thought there was some strange stuff going on here,” also noting in the interview that FTR had said WWE cameras were in Mexico. After Dynamite ended, the match happened with Lee getting the pin and the signing was announced afterward.
“FTR’s name is still on the (title belt) plate (at the time), so it was really a double-cross and one of those things that would never happen now,” he said.
It was reported by our Dave Meltzer that Lee’s signing by WWE was known about by Khan for several weeks before it was announced. Lee had wrestled once in AEW and once in ROH, both in the summer of 2022. Dralistico, ironically, is currently in AEW.
Khan has been working with CMLL since 2023 and said he has a great relationship with CMLL head Salvador Lutteroth Lomeli, saying the two “are brothers” and “would never betray each other like that.”
AEW had been working with AAA starting in 2019, but the partnership disintegrated over time.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.