As a WWE’s biggest competitor, AEW President Tony Khan has learned that any misstep from Khan or his upstart promotion can and will be used against him.

This is exactly what happened when an interview designed to hype up AEW turned into a PR backfire for all involved. During an interview with “Yahoo Finance" at the Cannes Film Festival, Khan got a little carried away while talking up AEW’s numbers—a subject of eternal debate between tribal wrestling fans and media on social media.

“We’re doing fantastic. This is a huge year for us,” said Khan. "We grew the business so much with the simulcast, we’ve brought in new audience with Max and streaming but also we’ve been able to grow our cable audience year-over-year.”

Khan’s comments about AEW growing on cable couldn’t be further from the truth. Through June 2025, AEW’s cable viewership has dropped by no less than 10% every year since 2022.

Khan’s misleading comments led to a social media eruption with fans, media and multiple publications pointing out his statistical screw-up. “Tony Khan says AEW cable audience is growing in spite of 24% viewership drop,” read a headline from Awful Announcing. “Tony Khan Makes Audacious Claims On AEW Viewership And Growth; Grilled On How Successful Company Is,” read a headline from ITR Wrestling.

“AEW CEO Tony Khan said recently in an interview that AEW’s cable audience actually increased since the Max simulcast began,” said Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics. “Given the data here, it’s hard to see how that could be true in any comparison.”

Thurston also pointed out year-over-year ratings decline on AEW Collision, which is down both in and out of its normal timeslot.

Even Consummate AEW defender Dave Meltzer had to admit Tony Khan was lying while defending his favorite wrestling promoter in one of his 145,000 tweets.

“AEW Dynamite is not up on cable compared to the same period last year but is up from Q4 2024 before MAX,” said Meltzer. Meltzer’s claim about AEW Dynamite being up from Q4 2024 was quickly debunked, since Dynamite averaged a 0.19 in 18-49 in Q4 2024 in their normal timeslot, and 0.17 in the key demo in Q1 2025.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced a split, and AEW is facing uncertainty that could produce a wide-range of outcomes from another new deal with` WBD in 2027, to being cut from the network altogether. Nobody knows what the future holds for the little wrestling company that could, but all AEW can do is help itself by growing its ratings on cable. Tony Khan knows this more than anybody, which could explain why he was so fast-and-loose with ratings dana in an interview with a non-wrestling interviewer.

Tony Khan’s mission going into the WBD Split Era will be to paint AEW as a growing brand that will bring consistent ratings success to any network or streaming platform it partners with. Even if it’s not with WBD. But in the era of social media surveillance, it’s just as important that Khan’s claims are accurate.