It’s Friday, and you know what that means. Well, usually it’s AEW President Tony Khan promoting matches for the week’s All Elite Wrestling programming and hyping up matches for AEW Rampage. Tony did that for the match of ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta versus Jon Moxley–but it was preempted by a pretty bizarre Twitter thread, in which he seemingly implies that WWE is behind a coordinated effort to criticize AEW on social media.
“An independent study has confirmed that much of the staunch anti-AEW online community aren’t real individuals,” Khan tweeted on his personal account. “It’s a staff running thousands of accounts [plus] an army of bots to signal boost them. Look closely, these aren’t real people. Who’d pay for such a wildly expensive thing?”
An independent study has confirmed that much of the staunch anti-AEW online community aren’t real individuals, it’s a staff running thousands of accounts + an army of bots to signal boost them. Look closely, these aren’t real people. Who’d pay for such a *wildly* expensive thing?
— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) April 8, 2022
“Research this one yourselves. You internet detectives thrive in these situations,” Khan continued, before promoting the Yuta/Moxley match for Friday’s Rampage card. He then added, “Ever wonder why so much of the activity of these accounts is retweets and replies? Like who actually has 80% of their activity as [straight-up] retweets?”
Wrestling personalities fly off the handle all the time on social media. Iron Sheik and his handlers of course are the most notorious, but the interesting thing about Khan’s post is that he offers up absolutely zero proof of such a study or any findings. And if this is some sort of a joke, it’s not one the head of a wrestling company should be making on social media–especially when he’s constantly touting viewership numbers, comparing AEW to WCW, and discussing a supposed ratings war with WWE since AEW Dynamite’s debut
Spambots and sock puppet accounts aren’t anything new, but why target something like anti-AEW accounts and then sling these allegations out of your drafts to your timeline with nothing backing you up? GameSpot reached out to AEW PR but comment and clarification, but no word yet.
