"It took him 5 years to figure that out" - WWE veteran shares blunt assessment on Tony Khan and AEW (Exclusive)

A WWE veteran has slammed AEW and Tony Khan for making the fans believe that the company is a strong competitor to the WWE. The veteran in question is none other than Vince Russo.

AEW came onto the scene in 2019 and has since worked hard to give the fans an alternative to the WWE. Fans feel that the company mainly focuses on presenting quality wrestling matchups rather than focusing on storylines. Many have called out the promotion for the lack of story behind their wrestling matches.

Speaking on Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws podcast with Dr. Chris, Vince Russo pointed out how Tony Khan has drifted away from the direction he promised the fans. The veteran further questioned the story behind recent angles.

"We all have fixated in our minds, this is gonna be like a real competition, where there's gonna be won and loss records, there's gonna be rankings. Here's why we all have that in our mind because nobody smartened Tony [Khan] up, Tony [Khan] has been tried a million times before and it never works because you gotta take into consideration now, when you're talking win-loss records bro, you ain't just talking television. You're talking house shows and somebody's gotta keep track of all that."

The former WCW Champion further stated that Tony Khan made the fans believe that AEW will be different from other wrestling promotions however, has failed to live up to that build-up.

"It took him five years to figure that out, but now bro, he's gone to the entire extreme. Now, we've got blood baths; now, Gangrel is coming from underneath the ring; now, 'whatshisface' has a flamethrower and he's setting people on fire. The Young Bucks are kicking Darby [Allin] in the face with sneakers with tacks in them. Bro, if you're going to do that, there's gotta be some kind of a story, there's gotta be some kind of a reason. You can't go from A to Z and all of a sudden think that now we're gonna double our audience." [7:04 - 8:40]

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EC3 further explained how AEW can get better

The current NWA Worlds Champion EC3 also shared his thoughts on how AEW can make their product better. Speaking on the same podcast with Dr. Chris and Vince Russo, the former 24/7 Champion shared his hierarchy of professional wrestling:

"The EC3 hierarchy of wrestling needs is, at the top of the pyramid, character; number two, story and number three is wrestling and two people that love great wrestling, nobody loves great wrestling more than me, but I don't care about great wrestling if there's not people I don't care about doing the great wrestling and a story and a reason why they're having this great wrestling match. So, you need these ones and twos, number three will never draw without one and two." [8:45-9:15]

AEW is set to present its Forbidden Door pay-per-view event on June 30, 2024, from the UBS Arena in Elmont New York. It will be interesting to see how Tony Khan books the event.

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