McGuire’s Monday: Tony Khan didn’t answer questions and you shouldn’t be so angry about it

By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@McGMondays)

You know who I got a kick out of when I was a kid? Doink The Clown. Actually, Doink and Dink. Hell, wasn’t there a time when there were something like a thousand Doinks running around? I liked them all.

But Doink, as it goes, is not necessarily looked upon as a beacon of greatness in pro wrestling lore. The character was cheapened through the years as it was portrayed by different guys and the majority of the smart wrestling fans seem to view it as forgettable schtick. Doink didn’t have the viral-ready legacy of the Gobbledy Gooker (who, yes, I got a kick out of, too), but he also didn’t have, as Sheamus might say, banger after banger after banger in the ring.

He was a clown. What’d you expect?

Still, I think back on the character with fondness simply because it entertained me. I was a kid. Spraying water through a fake flower was good, old-fashioned fun. We never saw any poison-ranas and it’s not like the guy’s work rate was through the roof, but I was entertained. And entertainment, despite the nasty reputation that word has when it’s talked about in the context of pro wrestling, is what I seek when I tune in to see people trade chops in various states of undress.

And that, in my mind at least, isn’t a bad thing. Consuming pro wrestling was, is and will forever be meant to be fun. Commenting on pro wrestling? That’s a different story because while it was once fun, too, those days have changed as the rise of social media has grabbed every fan by the soul and slowly but surely sucked a substantial amount of fun out of the proceedings.

Somewhere along the way, things just became oh, so serious. Too serious, as a matter of fact. And that seriousness has extended from what we see in the ring, to the rumors circulating around what we don’t see in the ring, to even the people who figured out a way to make a living off talking about it. The way some people respond to the latter feels to be on the level of finding Putin’s plan for a third World War.

Case in point: Ariel Helwani.

Widely regarded as the predominant mixed martial arts reporter, it turns out the guy likes pro wrestling, too. And so, on his podcast, he’ll sprinkle in guests from the wrestling world every now and then while mainly focusing on MMA. The wrestling interviews always seem to make headlines because Helwani is pretty much the one mainstream media personality that embraces the mad, beautiful world that pro wrestling has become.

Plus, he’s a good interviewer. His calmness is refreshing, he doesn’t waste words when he presents questions and he consistently finds the sweet spot between being a fan with knowledge and being an interviewer with curiosity. There’s a palpable, universal respect for him that gives everything he does related to pro wrestling an amount of weight that we can’t really find anywhere else.

So, I’ll tune in every now and then, why? To be entertained. If I learn anything, that’s a bonus. If the interview is good, that’s even better. If it’s not, that’s fine, too. There are only so many recaps of the 1991 Great American Bash that a mind can take before it starts begging for something new in the ears.

And for the most part, I was under the impression that these thoughts were shared among those of us who like to consume professional wrestling and all the things that surround it. The masses seemed united on Helwani for the longest time. He wasn’t perfect, but he gave the coverage a little bit of credibility in the combat sports world. It’s hard to find anyone universally loved in any aspect of anything these days, but Helwani was probably pretty close …

… Until he told the world Tony Khan annoyed him.

For those who missed it, Helwani talked on his show last week about recently interviewing Khan. He then said the interview was one of his least favorite of his career. As he put it, “It was one of the most frustrating, and to a degree, not so fun interviews of my career because as you may have seen, he didn’t want to answer anything. Now, look. You’re going to come on and promote X, Y, and Z? Great. I’ll play that dance with you, and I did at the beginning. But you gotta give us something.”

And holy hell, people did not like that. I mean, they really, really did not like that. That included a whole ton of people, too. Fans. Media. Individuals who I wouldn’t have thought would come down so hard and so fast on Helwani did so and did it with aggression. There were immediate references to Helwani’s recent interviews with WWE people, most notably Paul Levesque, who some argued he didn’t challenge enough. There was the reality that Helwani voiced over a video package for WWE’s Extreme Rules show, which inspired some to insist Helwani is Team WWE. There was vitriol. There were insults. There were a whole lot of indignant attitudes.

From there, nobody seemingly kept listening when Helwani followed up his gripe by saying this, in part:

“The enjoyment of getting to talk to the guy who founded this great property that has done a lot of great things in three years fizzled out rather quickly … .”

Now that doesn’t sound like a guy who hates AEW, does it? He used the word “great” multiple times. That’s gotta count for something.

Anyway, these three things, I know are true: One, Helwani was reasonable in his explanation of not loving the interview. Two, he had MJF on a week or two prior to this and things went off without a hitch, so it’s not like this guy has a vendetta against AEW. And three, sorry to break this news, but Tony Khan is a bad interview.

Or, perhaps I should qualify that: Tony Khan is a bad interview for people who want to dig in, engage in uncomfortable moments and try to actually learn something by the time the conversation ends. The irony in this is that Khan has, in fairness, at least tried to create the perception that AEW is the most media friendly wrestling company out there. By and large, AEW makes talent available for some media appearances (unless if you’re MJF and you book something not previously approved because in that case, watch out). They treat the media well (when they want to). And, of course, they offer up those infamous press scrums/news conferences/whatever you want to call them after major shows.

But here’s the thing about those scrums and here’s the thing about Khan: Nobody ever says anything. Believe all the bad things you want to believe about CM Punk, but bless him for at least shooting from the hip after All Out. Ornery, selfish, petulant or not, it was refreshing to hear someone say something other than some form of, “Tonight was great, there’s a lot of great things on the way, thanks for being great in your coverage, guys.”

Khan is far more media savvy than anyone talks about because so many believe if they talk about it, they will be shunned and exiled from all future media opportunities (as an aside, who in their right mind would now take the over on when another AEW personality appears on Helwani’s show?) Khan can talk for minutes at a time and say nothing. As I incessantly reference each time something like this comes up, I stood and watched as a room filled with reporters asked the guy about purchasing Ring of Honor back in March and not only did he dodge those questions, but he didn’t seem particularly happy about having to dodge them after the fifth or sixth time he had to do said dodging.

The wrestling media fascinates me. I haven’t been quiet about that through all these Monday columns – so much so that if anybody’s still reading, they’ve got to be sick of me going on about these things by now. But look at the landscape. There are egos and there are double standards and there’s thin skin and there’s thick skin and there’s humor and there’s the endless debate about fairness and there’s the timeless conversation about how pro wrestling should be and is being covered.

But to wage a war against Ariel Helwani because he dared say Tony Khan gave him a shit interview – especially when the interview was at times frustratingly shit – isn’t a hill on which I thought I’d see a lot of people want to die. You mean to tell me a guy with those types of credentials and that type of sustained success should be thrown to the wolves because he had the gall to express frustration that the owner of a company denied his line of questioning? We can’t find anything more important out there to get riled up about?

I don’t understand why these things go from barely tangential to deathly serious in a matter of a few dozen tweets and a couple clips of Helwani speaking into a microphone. Pro wrestling is not, in my mind, under any circumstances outside of actual death, supposed to be taken this seriously. And if pro wrestling itself isn’t supposed to be taken this seriously, my God, pro wrestling media should never, ever, ever be taken anywhere near as seriously as it’s taken after someone says an interview didn’t go well.

It defeats the purpose of why we’re here. Yes, I concede that sometimes, it’s fun to dive into media personality wars, and sure, it can be borderline captivating to watch how some people react to some things from afar, but to think that something like this is worth canceling a guy who’s been named the MMA Journalist Of The Year each year for more than a decade now on the basis of calling out Tony Khan … that’s irrational. It’s almost like Dana White having the guy fired from FOX because he wanted more favorable coverage.

And that could never happen … right?

The ordeal brings me back to Doink. Yes, Doink. The green-haired clown that never had more than a two-star match. Doink served as a reminder, for better or worse, that wrestling should be fun, entertaining, and will forever never be as serious as some of us think it is some of the time. These are people wearing wild outfits throwing punches designed to never hurt anyone in front of thousands of people on a regular basis. If this is worth blasting perhaps the greatest-ever journalist to cover what he covers for a living, then it might be an idea to take up gardening or, I don’t know, take a culinary class. Learn how to cook. Settle down a little.

Or just throw on some old Doink matches. He’ll bring a little joy to your day. And more importantly, he’ll remind you to ask yourself that age-old question that only guys with clown makeup on their faces want to ask: Why so serious?