AEW President Tony Khan took to Twitter to criticize journalist Ariel Helwani.
Friday night’s Elimination Chamber go-home edition of WWE SmackDown on FOX featured two crowd segments in which Helwani stood with the hometown crowd to hype up another Montrealer – Sami Zayn – for the show-closing appearance. Helwani was introduced by Michael Cole as a “combat sports journalist.”
Helwani’s appearance on WWE TV was apparently not approved by Khan.
“You’re a fraud @arielhelwani. You’re as legitimate of a reporter as @tonyschiavone24. #AEWRampage,” Khan wrote, plugging AEW Rampage, which had already went off the air at that point due to the early start time this week.
Helwani also narrated a WWE Elimination Chamber video package for Zayn vs. WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns.
You may recall Helwani’s interview with Khan on The MMA Hour last year. After the interview, Helwani explained why it was “one of the most frustrating, and to a degree, not-so-fun interviews of his career.”
“He didn’t want to answer anything,” Helwani said on October 22 as detailed here. “You’re going to come on and promote X, Y, and Z, great. And I’ll play that dance with you. I did, at the beginning. But you got to give us something, to not even tell me how you were feeling. I’m not asking for specifics, alright fine I am, but is Punk going to wrestle for you, is he coming back, you don’t want to get into it, fine. But tell me how you were feeling. Give me something.”
Helwani also reports for BT Sport on WWE. He has long been a fan of pro wrestling and is friends with WWE CEO Nick Khan.
As of this writing, Helwani had not responded to Khan, but you can see his SmackDown-related tweets below. He compared Zayn’s reaction to UFC Hall of Famer Georges St-at Pierre’s UFC 83, which was also held at the Bell Centre in Montreal in April 2008.
“Fn hell that was perfect. This place is deafening. GSP at UFC 83-esque,” Helwani wrote.
Khan’s full tweet, as well as the aforementioned tweets, can be found below:
You're a fraud @arielhelwani. You're as legitimate of a reporter as @tonyschiavone24. #AEWRampage
— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) February 18, 2023
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 18, 2023
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 18, 2023
Fn hell that was perfect. This place is deafening. GSP at UFC 83-esque.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) February 18, 2023
