AEW’s Tony Khan claims ‘double standard’ for reaction to Jinder Mahal’s WWE title shot

AEW & ROH head Tony Khan has made his thoughts publicly known about Jinder Mahal receiving a WWE World Heavyweight title match against Seth Rollins on next week’s Raw.

Khan took to X Tuesday to air some frustrations about what he called a “double standard” for the reaction, or lack thereof, to Mahal getting a title opportunity despite no wins in a year while a recent Hook callout of AEW World Champion Samoa Joe received “online outrage.”

Khan didn’t provide specific instances of said outrage to the Hook callout.

In a now-deleted tweet, Mahal responded to Khan, asking “Who tf is Hook?”

Khan first started getting attention Tuesday for calling out USA Network who took a perceived subtle dig at Khan’s public affinity for Cagematch for replying “What was the cagematch rating?” to a tweet about Rollins and Mahal having a history in NXT.

Khan called the tweet “a moral victory for USA” and one more win than Mahal got in the last year, adding “You really put AEW in our place getting Jinder Mahal in a big match on your tv show. Do it more often”.

That came after the WWE on Fox X account poked fun at the fact that Khan’s Jacksonville Jaguars were eliminated from the NFL playoffs:

Khan’s comments got reaction from several in the industry including former WCW head Eric Bischoff who had a falling out with Khan despite appearing on AEW TV before.

After Bischoff shared a clown emoji with the tweet, Khan then replied with the following:

WWE announcer Corey Graves didn’t acknowledge Khan’s tweet directly, but shared the following simple statement.

Former AEW Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood also gave his thoughts:

Mahal and Rollins got into a brawl on Monday’s Raw that led to the match being made. The 37-year-old has wrestled sparingly over the last year, last scoring a win over Julius Creed on the 2023 edition of NXT New Year’s Evil. 

Since then, he has wrestled just five times with the last coming in a trios bout at September’s Superstar Spectacle in India. He made his return to Raw just over a week ago in a promo segment that led to The Rock returning to the show.