Tonight AEW Rampage and Friday Night SmackDown are set to go head to head for the first time ever, as SmackDown will be airing for an extra 30 minutes. WWE also announced that the final 30 minutes of SmackDown will air commercial free while the show opposes Rampage.
AEW President Tony Khan reacted to the news of SmackDown airing commercial free for the last 30 minutes during a recent interview where he said, “If you want to take the commercials out of it, I can do that too. It doesn’t seem very civil but I have more money than they do so I can afford to do that longer than they can. But that’s how we make money at the end of the day, so I was surprised when they took those out.”
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the perception in WWE is that Tony Khan will “spend so much and lose so much money in the long run.”
It’s also being said that there’s talk at the top of WWE that was there during the Monday Night Wars about how this is unfair because they “have” to make money, and the perception is that AEW doesn’t have to.
WWE has downplayed AEW’s success based on the idea that Tony Khan overspent to get his company in the game. It’s also being said that internally people are commenting to Vince McMahon about how “we beat Ted Turner and Ted Turner is smarter than Tony Khan.”
