Tony Khan says restrictions left him ‘flying blind’ in WWE bid
Tony Khan says he was “flying blind” in his bid to purchase WWE.
The AEW president put in a $6.9 billion bid for the company when it was up for sale in 2023. During Thursday’s pre-AEW Dynasty media call, Khan said his bid was based on WWE’s stock value as that’s the only information he had access to.
Khan said:
“I looked at it and felt that it was certainly, for me, in my capacity as the CEO and owner of AEW, a very interesting opportunity in the market. When we launched seven years ago as a challenger promotion, I never imagined I would have even an opportunity to consider such a position.
And given some of the restrictions, I think compared to other people, I was flying blind. Some of this, I guess, is publicly available information. I will respect the process, and there’s only so much I can say, but based on the information I had to put a bid together, I basically had the same market information everyone else had, which is why the bid I made was very close to the stock market price.”
Khan said he was not given access to a data room, which is typically where sellers provide serious bidders with non-public financial and internal information. He added that he understood why he was not granted that access in this case.
“I had no more information than the rest of the public, no data room access or anything, and I’m sure that’s why they all made it further in the process than I did. As to what happened after my involvement in it, I can’t say with the other three parties, but I understood why they wouldn’t want to give me data room access.”
Brandon Thurston asked a follow up question about what Khan’s plans would have been had his bid been successful. Khan noted that there were several major free agency pursuits going on at the time, including Kazuchika Okada, Mercedes Mone, and Will Ospreay. He said he was focused on AEW during the bidding process, but would have kicked himself if he hadn’t gotten involved.
Khan said:
“We never even gotten close to considering that. But knowing what was happening in the world of wrestling, I think it made sense for me to do the things that I did there.”
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.