AEW has been in operation since 2019, giving fans an alternative to WWE and its booking of talent. While speaking to Ilana Golan on Leap Academy, Tony Khan explained how Vince McMahon announcing the return of the XFL in 2018 helped inspire his creation.
“In 2018, the McMahon family announced they were going to relaunch the XFL. That probably also had an effect on my thinking because that sounded like a terrible idea to me.
"The amount of money they were going to put into it, when the NFL is such a dominant competitor and the NFL is so strong, and I was proven right because the XFL did go bankrupt, I thought, ‘That’s not going to work.’ You know what would work? A second wrestling league.
Khan argued that the pool of wrestlers were so big, that building a challenger to WWE would be easier than having the XFL battle the NFL. Khan added that as a fan of wrestling and football, wrestling needed a second league more than football does, and claimed to have been proven right.
The XFL was scrapped in 2020, though it was the COVID-19 pandemic that ultimately doomed McMahon's second attempt at football. The league was acquired by The Rock that same year and merged with the USFL to create the UFL in November 2023.
Six years on since AEW was announced, the company remains the most direction competition WWE is facing. It reemains to be seen if the company ever becomes number one in wrestling.
