Why Triple H HATES Tony Khan

Triple H hates Tony Khan’s guts. Though the  WWE COO has never said Tony’s name in public, he’s taken several veiled shots at  the AEW President over the years, and the shots have not been undeserved.  Khan—owner of the rival AEW—has been a thorn in Triple H’s side. Khan has signed away  key WWE free agents, lashed out at Triple H on Twitter and he even beat Triple H head-to-head in  a wrestling war, almost costing him everything. I’ve been covering the WWE vs. AEW  rivalry on Forbes since Day 1

, and Today, we’re going to talk about what started  this beef, how Khan made Triple H’s sh!t list and why The Game is enjoying sweet revenge  against Khan and AEW in a new and improved WWE. Don’t forget to subscribe in Swahili. Triple H’s rivalry with Tony  Khan and AEW started immediately, as the first shot heard round the  world wasn’t aimed at Vince McMahon, but rather Paul “Triple H” Levesque. In one of  AEW’s most pivotal moments, setting the tone for an ugly tribal war that mostly exists

on social  media, former AEW Star and EVP Cody Rhodes smashed a metaphorical throne with a sledgehammer  at AEW’s first event: Double or Nothing. Rhodes has spoken about the incident  in numerous interviews. When asked if he regrets smashing the throne by  Ariel Helwani, Rhodes said “Hell no. No. because that’s what [Triple  H] would have done.” [highlighted] And Rhodes is right. Triple H began his ascent  to the main event by pulling up to a WCW Nitro taping in Virginia flanked by members of  D

-Generation X. All is fair in love and war, so for Tony Khan to book an angle where  Rhodes smashed a Triple H throne with Triple H’s signature sledgehammer signaled the  start to a wrestling war that everybody saw coming. Because if WWE is your competition,  there’s no way you can exist peacefully. AEW had to fire the first shot. Rhodes recently addressed the smashing of  the throne on Raw—nobody reacted because most wrestling fans don’t watch AEW no way—but the  point is that moment remains im

portant enough to make it into WWE cannon. Many conspiracy  theorists suggest Triple H was behind Cody Rhodes’ shocking WrestleMania loss as payback  for the Sledgehammer spot. I’m not one of them. Anybody who knows the fabric of WWE, knows  they were not going to take this laying down. Triple H mocked AEW during the 2019 WWE Hall  of Fame alongside AEW star on loan Billy Gunn, who was being inducted as part of DX. During  the induction, Triple H called the promotion a Pissant Company. Later on

that year, WWE  responded to AEW’s television debut by airing WWE NXT on the USA Network in 2019, two weeks  before AEW Dynamite was set to go live on TNT. This was designed to be a kill shot to AEW.  A directive from the Sith Lord Vince McMahon to Darth Hunter. WWE had all the talent,  resources and production value to make this into another quick massacre of an opponent. The  way they ousted TNA from Monday Nights. The way they ultimately killed WCW. 
But that didn’t happen. Despite WWE’s two-

week head start and every  advantage imaginable in a televised war, AEW was too hot to be denied. AEW had built an  authentic connection with its fanbase through the web series Being the Elite, and the overly  corporate WWE was having trouble smashing a fierce army of fire ants with a sledgehammer.  As good as NXT was, WWE’s main product, led by an increasingly senile Vince McMahon, had been  booked so terribly it led to disillusioned WWE fans defecting to AEW. Also, AEW Dynamite was just  bette

r. Though WWE had the advantage in resources, NXT was WWE’s third show while AEW Dynamite  was the flagship. One that featured an amalgamation of popular stars from the indies  and international wrestling promotions. NXT was trying to combat AEW’s product with the same  aesthetic, but it wasn’t nearly as effective. AEW beat NXT handily in the Wednesday Night Wars, beating NXT 63 weeks compared to 10 wins by  the WWE upstart. The two brands tied twice. NXT was forced to go to Tuesday nights, and

all  three H’s in Triple H stood for Humiliation. Vince McMahon blamed Triple H for the embarrassing  nationally televised loss. With NXT on Tuesday nights, Vince McMahon took over the product,  stripping Triple H of his powers and leaving him out in the cold in Stamford. As Triple H  dealt with both corporate and health struggles, Vince McMahon went from making WWE worse,  to making both WWE and NXT worse. Vince no longer had the Midas touch, he had the Murphy’s  touch where everything he touch

ed went wrong. Including NXT 2.0. Triple H’s front-office  confidants like Road Dogg (also from DX) and William Regal were fired. Vince’s axing  of Triple H’s staff was symbolic to AEW smashing his throne on pay-per-view. All while  Tony Khan was sitting in the Catbird’s seat. With AEW surging in 2021, Tony Khan continued  to add insult to injury. Khan outbid WWE to sign Bryan Danielson, formerly known as Daniel Bryan,  and even former WWE NXT world champion Adam Cole. Both of whom debuted on th

e same night at AEW All  Out 2021. AEW appeared to be on top of the world, while Triple H was down in the dumps.  With the rise of one wrestling promotion, led by one little nepobaby (punchline),  Triple H had gone from WWE’s goldenboy and heir apparent to Paul on  the third floor (punchline). Triple H was down bad, with zero  path back to the top. That was until Vince McMahon got in trouble for his d!ck. In July of 2022, Vince McMahon was forced  out of WWE due to sexual misconduct, only to ret

urn to the company and be forced  out of WWE for sexual misconduct again in January 2024. Vince followed a rich tradition of  powerful white men touching, grabbing and groping their way to the top before being forced out of  the businesses they built. This opened the door for Triple H’s unlikely return to power in  WWE. To illustrate just how unlikely it was, it took two Vince McMahon sex scandals and  two separate corporate outings of McMahon for Triple H to become WWE’s booker. In an alternati

ve  universe, one where Vince paid the hush money he owed, we could be in a dystopian WWE where AEW  was still the dominant pro wrestling company. The Vince McMahon story is horrible. I have a  whole playlist about it here if you dare. But the silver lining in Vince’s firing was that  WWE immediately became a better product with Triple H in charge. AEW no longer felt like  an alternative to an out-of-touch promotion ran by an alleged predator. Now the playing  field was leveled with Triple H in

charge, and his style of long-term  booking kicked AEW’s ass. AEW’s free agents created a wave of momentum  at first, but it quickly became apparent that AEW was a directionless promotion interested  in booking random wrestling matches with no storylines for a niche audience. NXT lost to  AEW trying to compete with a similar style, but WWE’s sleeping giant woke up by creating  better characters, like Rhea Ripley, Sami Zayn and the defected Cody Rhodes. WWE  also had better storylines, anchored b

y the greatest storylines it ever told existing in  concert with one another as The Bloodline served as the antagonists for Cody Rhodes finishing  his own story. Starting with the Triple H Era, and admittedly a little Vince Residue—okay, I  don’t mean it like that—WWE was cinema. AEW was a Rocky Horror Picture show. It was cool and artsy  when you got drunk and watched with your friends, but nobody remembered what happened by  the time you woke up the next morning because there was never any rea

l story. Just a  bunch of oiled up adults doing flippy flippy, divey divey, catchy catchy, worky worky. But  not a lot of Talky Talky and Booky Booky. Though AEW beat NXT in a rare Tuesday night  head-to-head showdown in 2022, that would be the last time AEW beat WWE head-to-head ratings  war. As the walls continued to close in on AEW, Tony Twitter Fingers felt the heat and had an all  out meltdown on Twitter in 2023, days before the Tuesday Night Wars against a new and improved  NXT. Khan whine

d and cried on the Bird App, calling Triple H and Shawn Michaels Bald  Assholes. Triple H responded, coyly, by going on a rare tweet storm of his own to promote  NXT, without saying Tony Khan’s name directly. With Triple H the unquestioned leader of WWE, this  war became personal. Triple H was scarred by the career genocide AEW inflicted upon him years ago,  and he responded by loading up WWE NXT with John Cena, Cody Rhodes, The Undertaker, Paul Heyman  for an all-hands-on-deck NXT. NXT massacre

d AEW, with 921,000 viewers to just 609,000 viewers  for Dynamite [highlighted], which had lost its spark long ago. This was like Michael Jordan  showing up to a pickup basketball game at the Y, with the rest of the ’92 Dream Team.  Triple H continued to take shots at AEW, including a comment in Cody Rhodes’  documentary calling AEW a secondary promotion. Triple H most recently flamed  Tony Khan following the Royal Rumble press conference where he called Khan’s  “Forbidden Door” term stupid and

silly. With WrestleMania season fully intact, Triple  H and WWE continue to dominate pro wrestling headlines, and even stole a few free agents  from Khan including Rhodes, Jade Cargill, Brian Pillman Jr. and CM Punk. And, of course,  Shawn Spears. Real game-changer that guy. Tony Khan most recently outbid WWE for  Mercedes Mone, who debuted at AEW Big Business, but given the lack of impact AEW free agents  have had, the term game-changer in Jacksonville has become a meme in and of itself. Triple

H  went from odd man out, to head honky in charge, and Tony Khan is left trying to pick up  the pieces. If Tony Khan wants to bring AEW back to where it once was, he’ll need to  focus less on getting under Triple H’s skin, and more on getting over as  a wrestling television show. Check out this playlist on Tony Khan and  subscribe. Will AEW make a comeback in the national wrestling wars? Tell me in the comments!