AEW's Tony Khan Blasts This Week's WWE Raw: It Sucked

10/13/2021 02:41 pm EDT

AEW president Tony Khan did not hold back his opinions about this week's Monday Night Raw. For the first time since NXT moved to Tuesdays back in April, AEW and WWE will be running head-to-head this Friday night with Friday Night SmackDown and AEW Rampage. Having been pushed to FS1 this week, WWE fired the first shot by announcing there would be 30 additional minutes of commercial-free action after SmackDown's normal two hours, which cuts into the first half of Rampage over on TNT. Khan responded on Twitter by writing, "I saw you're doing a half hour head-to-head with us. I can't wait to finally beat your main show head-to-head. It's been a long time coming. See you next Friday for #AEWRampage on @AEWonTNT!"

Since then he's made a number of announcements, including a one-hour Buy-In on AEW's YouTube channel that will air during SmackDown's second hour and feature Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki. He then appeared on Barstool's My Mom's Basement and promised that, while Rampage might not bring it a bigger audience than WWE's flagship, it will be a better show. 

"It's the second time they've decided to go head-to-head with us," Khan said (h/t Fightful). "I want the fans to be able to watch all the wrestling. I'll coin a phrase right now, WYW; Watch Your Wrestling. I want people to watch your wrestling. Whatever you want to watch, watch it. A lot of people have chosen to watch AEW because it's the best show. Watch Your Wrestling. I want people to watch everything. It's the second time they've chosen to put their wrestling head-to-head with mine. The last time they did it, it didn't happen overnight, but from the start, AEW consistently did better numbers than NXT and we eventually won that war and AEW is now the Wednesday night show and Wednesday Night Dynamite has had a great run. On Friday, they're doing a half-hour head-to-head with Rampage, which is new. I put my show on consciously after SmackDown knowing there is a huge audience of people that watch that show and a lot of people are going to watch Rampage, which has been a hit for TNT. They're literally going to do a half-hour head-to-head, that's fine. We'll see what happens.

Khan also took the opportunity to take a shot at Raw, saying, "I'm not saying for sure we'll win and maybe the odds are against us in some ways, but we're going to do the better show, I know. If you don't believe me, watch the go-home show [Raw] they did last night because it sucked." This week's episode in San Francisco had the lowest attendance for any edition of Raw since the show returned to the road. It also drew the worst ratings since the ThunderDome era and the worst first-hour ratings of all time while going up against Monday Night Football and the MLB Postseason.

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