AEW and GCW's rift grows: contracted talent from Tony Khan's promotion removed again - Reports

AEW became the center of controversy when it pulled Ricky Starks from several planned appearances at GCW. The Tony Khan-led promotion has now reportedly withdrawn another contracted talent from his upcoming bookings with the indie company.

According to a recent report from Fightful Select, sources in GCW have claimed that All Elite Wrestling had pulled Willie Mack from the promotion's shows scheduled for next weekend. The absence of any scheduling conflicts has also led to speculations about whether GCW talent Effy's recent comments about Tony Khan may have led to the 37-year-old star's withdrawal, similar to what reportedly happened with Starks.

Later, Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp noted that information on the matter was conflicting, with some AEW sources supposedly asserting that the company had not pulled Mack. On the other hand, GCW has seemingly claimed that All Elite Wrestling talent relations had urged Mack not to accept the independent promotion's booking.

Willie Mack was last seen in an All Elite ring during the Zero-Hour pre-show for Revolution 2024 in a 12-man tag match. He wrestled several matches on Collision and ROH toward the end of 2023 and the beginning of this year, besides regularly competing on the indie circuit.

Effy doubled down on his recent comments about AEW CEO Tony Khan

As mentioned previously, disparaging remarks made by Effy regarding Tony Khan and his father Shad Khan were rumored to have spurred the AEW CEO to pull Ricky Starks from his planned GCW dates.

The Weapon Of Sass Destruction seemingly responded by firing off against TK once again during a recent conversation on Game Changer Weekly, calling into question the latter's professional credentials and qualifications.

"I would like to say that I don’t think that Tony Khan has ever been the best person that interviewed for a job in that’s why he got it. I think he’s been given a lot of positions in companies his father owns, I think he’s been given a lot of fluff PR positions, I do not think that he was ever the best technical person for any of the jobs that he has listed. I think the first time he ever actually did any real work was firing CM Punk, that’s why it was so emotionally exhausting for him," he said.

It remains to be seen whether GCW's strained working relationship with AEW can or will be mended in the future.