It’s the classic excuse.
Why is my club’s director of football not doing any business yet ahead of the looming summer transfer window?
Well, because he’s just been hit with a Tombstone Piledriver in the middle of a wrestling ring.
On Wednesday night’s episode of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) Dynamite, the show ended with Tony Khan, director of football at Premier League club Fulham, sprawled in a heap in the middle of a wrestling ring. And just before the show cut to black, Shahid Khan, owner of both Fulham and the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, was shown looking concerned about his son.
Wondering what this is all about? Concerned this could impact the Jaguars ahead of the crucial first round of the NFL Draft lat today (Thursday)? Well, let The Athletic explain it all — and why all this will not actually impact the younger Khan’s work elsewhere.
OK, please tell me the absolute basics of this situation…
Tony Khan, as well as his role at Fulham and his position as chief football strategy officer at the Jaguars, is the founder and co-owner of All Elite Wrestling. The younger Khan, who is a huge wrestling fan, set up that company in 2019 to compete with the biggest wrestling brand in the world, WWE.
AEW now has three television shows per week plus pay-per-view specials — around eight a year. To give you a sense of their size, a claimed figure of 81,035 people attended their show at Wembley Stadium in London last year, which would be the biggest paid wrestling attendance ever.
Tony Khan with wrestlers CM Punk, left, and Britt Baker (Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)
His Pakistani-American billionaire father Shahid is also a co-owner of AEW, along with his involvement in Fulham and the Jaguars. He’s worth around $12.1billion.
So, why did Khan get punched in the stomach?
This is a long story.
During that show at Wembley last year, CM Punk, a huge star in the wrestling world, took actual issue with something Jack Perry said during his match. In an apparently legitimate moment of behind-the-scenes tensions coming to the boil, Punk and Perry ended up fighting backstage.
— WrestlePurists (@WrestlePurists) April 11, 2024
This was, apparently, not part of any show — the two men just had an issue with each other. Khan, who was sitting next to the bank of monitors in the above footage — said he worried that his “life was in danger”.
Punk was sacked by AEW for the incident. He later showed up back in WWE and was set for a major match at this year’s Wrestlemania before suffering an injury. His arrival was still a huge boost for WWE, which is still the market leader.
Perry — son of the late Beverly Hills, 90210 star Luke Perry — was suspended from AEW because of the incident.
You’ve still not explained why he was punched in the stomach…
The best wrestling moments tend to come from companies leaning into real-life issues which people become aware of.
Perry eventually showed up in New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), Japan’s largest wrestling group and a partner company of AEW. While there, he started calling himself ‘The Scapegoat’ — because, in a sense, he was blamed for costing AEW the services of CM Punk and was suspended for it — and ripped up a fake version of his AEW contract.
Perry had an impressive run in NJPW before returning to AEW at the weekend, helping The Young Bucks win the AEW World Tag Team title.
Here’s where it gets slightly more complex.
The Young Bucks — brothers Matthew and Nicholas Jackson (no, not the Chelsea striker of the slightly different name) — are also executive vice-presidents of AEW, having been among the major stars to join the company when it was founded. They are members of a group of wrestlers called The Elite, hence the ‘E’ in AEW. They also had major issues with Punk behind the scenes, including another fight leading to suspensions in 2022, and presented the footage of the backstage incident two weeks ago on Dynamite as part of a new character change in which they lean into their roles as EVPs.
They have become bad guys, and as part of that, they have brought Perry back into AEW. They have also teamed up with the blonde man in the ring, Japanese star Kazuchika Okada.
Ok, but, the stomach punch?
Yes, I’m getting to it. Perry was reinstated by Khan as part of the show on Wednesday night. While they were celebrating, Perry, clearly in character and not over his issue with Khan, levelled him with a punch to the gut.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Jack Perry puts his hands on AEW CEO & GM, Tony Khan!
Watch #AEWDynamite on TBS!@boy_myth_legend | @TonyKhan | @YoungBucks | @RainmakerXOkada pic.twitter.com/aulRu8jAq2
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) April 25, 2024
The rest of The Elite ran out to protest with Perry, pretending he had gone a step too far with their boss. But this is wrestling, and twists and turns are basically a given. They continued the attack, with The Young Bucks hitting their Spike Tombstone Piledriver on Khan.
This led to Khan being left on the floor of the ring, The Elite scarpering and a big group of AEW wrestlers coming out to check on Khan — before dad Shahid made his presence felt in a rare on-camera appearance.
And is Khan OK?
Yes, definitely. He is not a trained wrestler but the two moves he was on the receiving end of were executed by people with years of experience. Wrestling is, of course, ‘fake’ — injuries might happen, but all the action is pre-planned, and the idea is to not hurt anyone.
This was a moment with serious impact storyline-wise, but Khan will be fine.
Obviously, now his Dynamite duties are done for the week, he will be in NFL draft mode for tonight, or thinking about Fulham’s summer transfer business.
Will Khan wrestle?
You’d imagine the plan is not for either of the Khans to wrestle. Tony Khan is not a trained wrestler but is a real historian of the ‘sport’. He would probably not step into the ring — especially on national television — without the requisite years of preparation work.
The rest of The Elite speaking to Perry
Instead, this is probably all designed to set up an on-camera civil war, leaning into the problems that occurred off-camera last year. Khan might ally with a group in opposition to The Elite, but that would be the likely extent of his role on-screen.
How does Khan balance all this with his work for the Jaguars and Fulham?
“He is in contact with me on a daily basis and that often involves many moments in the day,” Fulham chief executive Alistair Mackintosh told The Athletic last year.
“He is always available. That includes during Jags games. We will often be texting about soccer and then, you know, what the Jags did on fourth down (in their NFL game).”
Fulham’s recruitment structure is deliberately streamlined, with head coach Marco Silva holding a key influence. Owner and chairman Shahid Khan signs off on the transfer budget. When it comes to talent identification, scouting, data assessment and then the mechanics of the transfer, the key figures are the owner, Silva and Mackintosh.
Tony Khan oversees the transfer process and leads data analytics, with his recruitment team helping to implement the ‘two boxes ticked’ approach, covering scouting and data requirements.
Tony Khan and his father Shahid watching Fulham (Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)
Mackintosh is Silva and Tony Khan’s day-to-day contact. He focuses on finances. Silva suggests key targets and his fingerprints are noticeable on much of Fulham’s recent recruitment.
When we spoke to Tony Khan last year and asked him whether he ever takes a holiday, he said: “I do not”.
The truth is that he’s just very busy. He works all year round on AEW, then has major roles at both Fulham and the Jaguars too. Wrestler Chris Jericho said: “Tony is obsessed with wrestling. But he mentions Fulham and the Jaguars all the time. Fulham is his baby, in a lot of ways.”
So, expect his presence to be felt at the draft over the next three days, even if the next time AEW hold a television show, Khan is nursing a sore neck.
(Top photos: Tony Khan is attacked on AEW Dynamite by Jack Perry and The Young Bucks — Screengrabs from AEW)
