AEW President and CEO Tony Khan recently appeared on The Coach & Bro Show to discuss various topics, including his meeting with Shane McMahon a couple of years prior.
Khan said, “I had one really pleasant conversation with Shane McMahon. Shane reached out to me and said, ‘I’d love to get together. Where are you gonna be?’ I was going to be in Dallas. We were doing a bunch of shows around Arlington, Texas, and I said to Shane, ‘That’s where I’m gonna be. I can meet you here,’ and we had a nice conversation and talked for a few hours at the airport. I thought it was really strange that a photo came out from it. I thought it was pretty unusual; it could just be someone who worked at the airport, but I had nothing to do with it. It’s very unusual. I talk to people all the time from all different media places. Shane’s a very recognizable face in sports and the world of wrestling, where any wrestling fan would recognize him. So that could be what it is; someone recognized we were in a room and wanted to take a photo. I’m in a lot of rooms with a lot of people. I’ve only had that happen one time, so I thought that was unusual. You can see in the photo [that] I’m very surprised, and I noticed he wasn’t as surprised as I was.”
On why their meeting didn’t lead to bigger plans:
“I’ve only had the one really nice talk with him. I thought that was interesting. I also thought it was impressive how, in one conversation, somehow it got out that I talked to him, but it was a very pleasant chat, and he seems like a really interesting guy. I don’t think the role of being an on-screen person in a wrestling show seemed like a thing he was interested in, but he has had a lot of interesting experiences that are different than mine, but I don’t think he went into it thinking I want to be a character on this guy’s show.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
