Tony Khan Shuts Down 'Ridiculous' Mercedes Mone Rumors
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
AEW President Tony Khan has firmly denied recent rumors suggesting that Mercedes Moné has creative control in the company.
During the official media call for this weekend's All In: Texas pay-per-view, Khan also addressed the status of former AEW Women's World Champion Dr. Britt Baker.
The speculation surrounding Moné's creative influence began after the undefeated TBS Champion started collecting other titles, including the CMLL Women's World Championship. Her on-screen "CEO" persona, in which she claims to be calling the shots, further fueled these rumors among some fans.
Khan Shoots Down "Ridiculous" Rumors
When asked directly about the rumors during the media call, Tony Khan called the notion that Moné has creative control "ridiculous" and "definitely not true at all." He made it clear that he is the sole authority on creative decisions in AEW.
"I'm the only person with creative control over the show," Khan stated emphatically (H/T to Fightful). "At the end of the day, I'm responsible for what you see... I've had the final say since day one of AEW. I've had the final creative control since the beginning of the company."
Khan praised Moné as an "incredible talent" and a "great addition to AEW," but explained that her strong booking is a reflection of her star power, not a contractual clause.
SAN JOSE, CA - Oct. 16: AEW TBS Champion Mercedes Moné has her arms raised after defeating Queen Aminata on AEW Dynamite
SAN JOSE, CA - Oct. 16: AEW TBS Champion Mercedes Moné has her arms raised after defeating Queen Aminata on AEW Dynamite
Ricky Havlik/AEW
More news: WWE News: Steve Austin Reveals Real-Life Vince McMahon Confrontation
The History Of Creative Control
The concept of "creative control" is a sensitive topic in professional wrestling. During the Monday Night Wars of the 1990s, top stars in WCW like Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart were famously granted creative control clauses in their contracts.
This often led to backstage political turmoil and booking decisions that benefited the individual star over the company, a situation that many historians believe contributed to WCW's eventual downfall.
This history is why a wrestling promoter like Tony Khan would be so quick and firm in shutting down any suggestion that a wrestler has that level of power in his company.
Khan Addresses Britt Baker's Status
Elsewhere on the call, Khan also denied recent reports that Dr. Britt Baker was seeking her release from the company. It had been reported that Baker was unhappy with her position and wanted to break her AEW contract.
Khan shut down this speculation, indicating that Baker, whose deal runs until late 2026, would be remaining with the promotion.
Khan concluded by emphasizing that AEW's success is a "team effort" between the wrestlers, staff, and fans. He stated that the "idea that anybody in AEW has a creative control card and that's why anybody would get a push here... that's not how it works."
More WWE News:
For more on WWE, head to Newsweek Sports
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
How Naomi Watts' Beauty Routine Has Changed After 50
How Naomi Watts' Beauty Routine Has Changed After 50 originally appeared on Parade. The first time most of us saw Naomi Watts, she energized the movie screen. Her curiosity and intelligence permeated Mulholland Drive, and David Lynch clearly cast her for her depth and strength and not just her beauty. More than 25 years later, Watts continues to push for women to be seen as multidimensional, in her acting but also in her brand, Stripes, which creates beauty and wellness products for women in midlife, with an emphasis on perimenopausal and menopausal care. We talked to Watts, 56, all about beauty and aging in menopause (and for product lovers, we also got her favorite eye cream). Watts founded Stripes after dealing with feelings of isolation during perimenopause. "When I first started experiencing early menopause symptoms in my 30s, I felt completely alone," she tells Parade. "For me, it's been healing, turning something that was once a source of intense shame into a mission to empower other women to own their story and this new stage of life. And others have joined me in talking about it openly, helping other women feel seen and heard. I'm so proud to be a part of a community around this life stage that for too long had felt painfully isolating." Watts says she doesn't let age define her sense of confidence or self-worth. "I don't need to look 20 anymore—as fabulous as that was 30 years ago. I want to feel good and strong at this exact moment, own my age and be proud to own it!" Related: One Quick (and Fun!) Way to Update Your Makeup Look Over 50 The mom of two says getting older comes with a sense of freedom. "I care far less about what other people think. After years of 'self discovery' and lots of experimenting, I've found a certain confidence and clarity that can be attributed to age. It's great knowing what you want, knowing what you need and knowing what simply isn't worth your time, energy or attention anymore." Watts is more interested in products and beauty routines"that nourish and support long-term health, rather than chasing quick fixes.," she says. "I've really prioritized hydration in the last few years for my skin, my hair and my body overall." In fact, her favorite Stripes product is a vaginal moisturizer. "I'm really proud of Vag of Honor because there wasn't anything else like it [on the market]. A lot of people just think about hot flashes or night sweats when they hear the word menopause—but dryness was one of my biggest concerns, and down there is no exception!" To keep her under eye area hydrated, Watts swears by Tammy Fender's Awakening Eye Gel, "It's gentle, easy to use and keeps my eyes moisturized and refreshed," she says. Related: Stylists Are Calling This 'The Haircut of the Summer'—and It Looks Great on Women Over 50 How Naomi Watts' Beauty Routine Has Changed After 50 first appeared on Parade on Jul 9, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.
Newsweek
10 hours ago
- Newsweek
Tony Khan Shuts Down 'Ridiculous' Mercedes Mone Rumors
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. AEW President Tony Khan has firmly denied recent rumors suggesting that Mercedes Moné has creative control in the company. During the official media call for this weekend's All In: Texas pay-per-view, Khan also addressed the status of former AEW Women's World Champion Dr. Britt Baker. The speculation surrounding Moné's creative influence began after the undefeated TBS Champion started collecting other titles, including the CMLL Women's World Championship. Her on-screen "CEO" persona, in which she claims to be calling the shots, further fueled these rumors among some fans. Khan Shoots Down "Ridiculous" Rumors When asked directly about the rumors during the media call, Tony Khan called the notion that Moné has creative control "ridiculous" and "definitely not true at all." He made it clear that he is the sole authority on creative decisions in AEW. "I'm the only person with creative control over the show," Khan stated emphatically (H/T to Fightful). "At the end of the day, I'm responsible for what you see... I've had the final say since day one of AEW. I've had the final creative control since the beginning of the company." Khan praised Moné as an "incredible talent" and a "great addition to AEW," but explained that her strong booking is a reflection of her star power, not a contractual clause. SAN JOSE, CA - Oct. 16: AEW TBS Champion Mercedes Moné has her arms raised after defeating Queen Aminata on AEW Dynamite SAN JOSE, CA - Oct. 16: AEW TBS Champion Mercedes Moné has her arms raised after defeating Queen Aminata on AEW Dynamite Ricky Havlik/AEW More news: WWE News: Steve Austin Reveals Real-Life Vince McMahon Confrontation The History Of Creative Control The concept of "creative control" is a sensitive topic in professional wrestling. During the Monday Night Wars of the 1990s, top stars in WCW like Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart were famously granted creative control clauses in their contracts. This often led to backstage political turmoil and booking decisions that benefited the individual star over the company, a situation that many historians believe contributed to WCW's eventual downfall. This history is why a wrestling promoter like Tony Khan would be so quick and firm in shutting down any suggestion that a wrestler has that level of power in his company. Khan Addresses Britt Baker's Status Elsewhere on the call, Khan also denied recent reports that Dr. Britt Baker was seeking her release from the company. It had been reported that Baker was unhappy with her position and wanted to break her AEW contract. Khan shut down this speculation, indicating that Baker, whose deal runs until late 2026, would be remaining with the promotion. Khan concluded by emphasizing that AEW's success is a "team effort" between the wrestlers, staff, and fans. He stated that the "idea that anybody in AEW has a creative control card and that's why anybody would get a push here... that's not how it works." More WWE News: For more on WWE, head to Newsweek Sports
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
'I'm a sicko': How AEW's Athena transformed from afterthought to apex predator
Don't let tourists tell you that Texas is a monolith. The rocky shores of Corpus Christi don't align with the green groves of the hill country that stretches between Austin and San Antonio. The dry, sandy flatlands of El Paso don't reflect the bustle and bayous that make up the greater Houston area. When outsiders say 'Texas,' what they really mean is Dallas; with its grandiose skyline, stellar steakhouses, world-famous football team and affinity for the arts and history, Dallas is the embodiment of the 'everything's bigger' mantra. And as AEW descends on the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for its behemoth All In 2025 week, one of the area's top exports will look to continue her years-long dominance over the women's division. That's because Ring of Honor Women's Champion Athena is one of the very best wrestlers in the world, and she's looking to put a stamp on her status in front of her home crowd this Friday. Advertisement After almost 20 years in the industry, Athena, 36, is at her creative and competitive apex, and is earning the highest praise for both in real time. The 'Forever ROH Champ' is quirky, vindictive and hyper focused on her historic 900-plus-day run as the Ring of Honor Women's Champion, and is hoping to stretch that to quadruple digits. To do so, she'll first need to defeat challenger Thunder Rosa at Supercard of Honor 2025, ROH's annual mega-event that this year sets the table for AEW's biggest show of 2025. For Athena, the year 2023 specifically put the spotlight on her, as any restrictions she may have had at previous points were stripped off, and she was launched out into the universe as one of the standard-bearers of women's professional wrestling in the United States. 'I try to be the best wrestler, entertainer that I can possibly be," she told Uncrowned ahead of Friday's event. "I think a lot of the conversation that happened in 2023 is because, for the first time, people were getting to see me be me on an international platform, not only just as someone on the roster, but as the 'forever' ROH champion. People got to see how much hard work I actually do put into everything, if that makes sense.' That work began in 2007, all over Texas and sometimes just outside of the great state. It's a six-and-a-half-hour drive from Athena's native Garland to Jonesboro, Arkansas (closer to eight in Athena's old 'Putt Putt' car, a nod to the title character from the children's computer game series). But early in her training, Athena would make that trip biweekly to train under the watchful eye and heavy hands of former WWE Women's Champion, Jazz. During Jazz's tenure, WWE's women's division was focused more on presentation than in-ring competition, but her toughness and ferocity in the face of that caught Athena's eye. 'I craved to be different in a time where everyone was trying to be cute," she says. Advertisement "If you want to do that, I have no problem with that. But I wanted to be a wrestler. I wanted to be a pro-wrestler, and Jazz was a pro-wrestler.' Originally trained by Universal Wrestling Federation legend Skandor Akbar, Athena sought out training from different minds and styles, spending time learning under Booker T, Lance Archer and Monty Brown. But Jazz, along with husband Rodney Mack, was living proof that Athena could do things her way and find success. '[To see] a woman that is doing all the things or did all the things that you want to do and push those boundaries and push those barriers, it's really inspiring," she says. "And it's really cool now to see some of the younger generation be like, 'Yo, Jazz — Jazz is my favorite wrestler.'' Outside of helping to build Athena's brands of bruisings and beatdowns, Jazz, among others, wanted to make sure that Athena didn't conform in order to perform. Athena liked tabletop games, cosplay and comics, but would put those things away to fit in early on. 'She goes, 'People are going to want to change you. Don't. Keep doing you,'" Athena recalls. "And that's something that I heard a lot from people like Mark Henry, people like Jazz … and I wish I would have listened to that advice sooner versus going with the flow of my first round of the indies, because I think I would have stuck out a lot more.' Athena has been on a tear under the AEW umbrella. (Photo via AEW) (Ricky Havlik) Athena spent almost a decade on the independent scene plying her trade before catching the eye of the original Ring of Honor ownership in 2013. After then signing with WWE in 2015, she developed into Ember Moon, a cloaked, focused, but feral competitor in the vein of "Mortal Kombat's" Outworld femme fatales. "The War Goddess' was a fresh act in the world of models and mean girls, and went on to produce some of the NXT's best matches to date, most notably in 2017 against Asuka at Takeover: Orlando and Takeover: Brooklyn III. She held the NXT Women's Title for 140 days, before moving to WWE's main roster. Where NXT's willingness to embrace and emphasize unique women's characters like Moon, Asuka and Shayna Baszler created great matches and moments, "WWE Raw" and "SmackDown" seemed to water down the intensity and style Moon had crafted, and she was quickly lost in the shuffle. Advertisement Athena was ultimately released from WWE in the winter of 2021, but quickly found her perfect landing spot six months later with AEW. While WWE is clearly professional wrestling's largest platform, AEW could offer the progressive style and dream match opportunities that wrestling junkies like Athena coveted. She found a kindred spirit in owner Tony Khan, who quickly made her the face of his revamped Ring of Honor imprint. 'I tell him that all the time — I'm a sicko," she says. "I love wrestling. I still watch pro wrestling. I'll watch 14 hours of PWG, old ROH from 2003 to 2006, which is my era. "I love that pro wrestling, in general, is always consistently changing, consistently evolving. There's always something to learn. There's always a new trick to do. There's always a new move to invent. When I first started wrestling, I never wanted to do the same thing two days in a row.' Where she'd been a mostly silent, enigmatic warrior in NXT/WWE, competing in Ring of Honor — and winning its Women's Championship — gave Athena the chance to really put her personality on display. She attacked referees, she attacked her opponents after matches. She preached this relentless, 'it's over when I say it's over' mantra to Billie Starkz and Lexi Nair, recruiting them as her 'Minions in Training.' The self-proclaimed 'Minion Overlord' was part lifestyle coach, part drill sergeant to the pair and her unnamed students alike. With every win, she became more and more protective of her title and legacy, as her competition became stiffer and stiffer. She made history alongside Willow Nightingale as the first pair of women to headline a ROH pay-per-view, defeating Willow via submission at Death Before Dishonor in 2023. Over her almost three-year reign, she's successfully defended her title against challengers from everywhere in the industry, defeating the likes of Emi Sakura, Hikaru Shida, Vert Vixen and La Catalina, among others. She's so invested in 'forever,' that Athena started looking across the table at other champions and decided she needs their plates too. While they never faced one another one-on-one in WWE, Athena and Mercedes Moné finally went to war in the semifinals of AEW's Owen Hart Cup tournament this past April. Moné got the better of Athena with a less-than-legal rollup, and Athena carries that loss with the same weight as her record-setting reign. 'That woman has teed me off on a level that only people at a family reunion seeing that one cousin that you hate would understand," Athena says. Advertisement "She's one of the best in the world. I have nothing but great things to say about her — with the exception that she pulled my tights to beat me. And that is unforgivable. And that left me feeling embarrassed, defeated and angry. And I do not like feeling any of those things in any type of way. So in return, when that moment comes, whenever it will be, because I truly do not know, when that opportunity comes to knock, I'm going to knock her on her ass with all her dollar-store sequins.' The ROH champ has a mean streak the size of, well, Texas, and she's planning on bringing that — and so much more — to Arlington's ESports Stadium. The venue hosted Athena's 2024 title defense over Queen Aminata, and she immediately felt the local support, maybe even to the point of overconfidence, yet she still managed to showcase, shine and extend her time as top dog. 'It's my home, my friends, my family, the crowd," Athena says. "I told [Queen Aminata] before we went out, I said, 'I'm a God here.' And she was like, 'Whatever, I'm taking that championship away.' She walks out there — and then I walk out and she heard the crowd, and you can see it on her face, like, 'Oh, I did not understand.' "I've wrested in Austin. I've wrestled down south in San Angelo. I've wrestled everywhere you can wrestle in Texas. Texas is my home. … For me to wrestle in Texas is for me to put an entire state on my back along with Ring of Honor, along with the women's division, and I'm carrying us to the best night ever.' Athena and Mercedes Moné have unfinished business. (Photo via AEW) (Ryan Loco) Just like her title reign, Athena does not stop. With AEW's encouragement, she's finally gotten to test her skills against the lightning-fast fighters of Stardom, one of her major career goals. 'I used to watch Akayo Hamada, Bull Nakano, Manami Toyota, and then there's countless others," she says. "I used to be a really big fan of the Speed Championship at Stardom. I don't know if I can keep up with AZM and these girls now because they move faster than The Flash. But man, I just became super obsessed with that division because it was everything that I felt we didn't have as far as a cruiserweight division would go for women. But I became obsessed. Io Shirai, the Shirai sisters … I was like a kid in a candy store. It was my first day of school. And they treated me with so much respect and kindness. Advertisement "I was so appreciative of just being in the arenas with these women. I don't think that they knew how much it meant to me that I got to finally go to Japan.' When she's not wrestling, she's watching wrestling, and when she's not watching wrestling, she's coaching, helping talents like fellow Dallas native Maya World reach that next level. 'I don't think anyone wants it as hard as me," Athena says. "People say, 'I'm the first one to show up. I'm the last one to leave.' I'm like, yeah, but I eat, live and breathe this. I go to work on a Wednesday, I come home on Thursday. I run training on Friday. I'm either prepping to go back to work or prepping to run a weekly wrestling show at home. On Sunday, that's my first day off, I'm normally playing 'Dungeons & Dragons.' But then Monday, Tuesday, I'm training again. And it goes on and on and on and on between coaching and running a weekly wrestling show while also being a wrestler and also wrestling one to two days a week with AEW, Ring of Honor, whatever is needed of me.' What she may lack in sleep, Athena makes up for with the confidence that comes from years of preparation. Athena was given the keys to the kingdom that is Ring of Honor, and she's done her damndest to push forward as its top champion. And like the good Texas host that she is, Athena is inviting us all in to share her wealth. 'I am putting that hard work out there because that is what the people demand. That is what they deserve," she says. "I just put my heart on a pedestal when it comes to being in the ring. I used to have this saying, 'Make art out of war.' Every match I have, I try to paint a masterpiece. It has to have the right flow, the right color, the right aesthetic, the right setting. But that's just something I've always done. Am I the best in the world? Sure, I'll go ahead and say it. I'm better than everyone in the world. But when it comes to the outward presentation, I'm just trying to be the best me on a platter.'
