Spotlight on Vince McMahon and Tony Khan
Vince McMahon
A lot can be said about Vincent K. McMahon. He’s tenacious, he’s ruthless, he has an attitude. One thing that people can agree with is Vince brought wrestling to the big stage. Born in North Carolina to a predominantly Irish American family, Vince is a third generation wrestling promoter, filing in the footsteps of his grandfather Roderick “Jess” McMahon, and father Vincent J. McMahon. When Vince first joined the World Wide Wrestling Federation, he began as a ring announcer before being given a small promotion to book in Maine, followed by being a commentator, which he did for 26 years. In the 1980s, Vince bought WWF from his father, and from there, WWF started growing due to strategic infiltration of the territories by Vince. Some say that this monopolisation of American wrestling was a bad thing, and plenty of the territory promoters would agree, but this move also turned professional wrestling into a billion dollar industry. During the Attitude Era the Mr McMahon character debuted, and the infamous McMahon vs Austin feud was on. This was, by far, Vince biggest rivalry (barring the Monday Night Wars with WCW). As the years went on, Vince started appearing less on TV abs focused more on backstage and running the business. In 2022, WWE started investigation a $3million hush money scandal surrounding Vince and sexual abuse allegations. This led to him stepping down and retiring in July of 2022, while still retaining majority ownership. 6 months later, Vince unretired and returned to the company, eventually agreeing to sell WWE to Endeavour Group Holdings, merging WWE and UFC to form TKO.
Tony Khan
Tony Khan is a second generation businessman, following in the footsteps of his father, Pakistani born American billionaire, Shahid Khan. Along with AEW, the father-son duo own NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars, and English soccer team, Fulham FC. Within AEW, Tony Khan holds the positions of President, CEO, general manager and executive producer. In 2022, it was announced that Khan had purchased Ring of Honour, and planned to run it side by side with, but separately from, AEW. Unlike Vince, Tony Khan remains off TV, except as required. Khan has been smart in utilising contact’s around the wrestling industry to form working relationships with other promotions, including NJPW, Impact Wresting, and AAA. Given his background in sports analytics, Tony Khan also started showing a win-loss record, and using a ranking system to determine contendership, but that was eventually phased out. Hopefully, Tony Khan can continue to build upon his promotions and provide the competition that the wresting industry desperately needs.
