Nick LoPiccolo just dropped another grenade into his year-long war with AEW and Tony Khan—and this time, he is laying out exactly why he believes the fight started in the first place.
LoPiccolo published a lengthy statement on July 18, 2026, claiming Khan became convinced that publicity announcements involving LoPiccolo’s WWE clients were deliberately timed to steal attention from AEW pay-per-views.
The statement came after LoPiccolo revisited the July 2025 WWE Evolution post featuring his daughter that he says triggered a coordinated attack against him and his family. He warned AEW to “tap out” before the anniversary, and now he is spelling out what he claims was happening behind the scenes.
According to LoPiccolo, Khan began contacting people during the July 11–13, 2025 weekend and asking for information about him. He claimed AEW employees also reached out to others while Khan tried to figure out whether LoPiccolo worked for WWE or had been sent to damage AEW.
“The weekend of July last year, the 11th through the 13th, Tony Khan had called people. He had people directly employed at AEW call other people, and he asked for ‘intel,’ quote-unquote, on Nick LoPiccolo. He wanted to know if Paradigm was part of WME—which is Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. He wanted to know if Nick LoPiccolo was trying to take attention away from All In, which, again, is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”
LoPiccolo insisted he was not sitting around plotting ways to hurt AEW. He said he was in Atlanta with his family during WWE Evolution weekend and spent much of his free time relaxing at the Nobu Hotel.
“I didn’t even know what All In was, guys. I honestly did not know. I was at the Nobu Hotel in Atlanta. There are pictures of it online. I was in a saltwater pool, enjoying myself.”
He said he had no idea Khan was allegedly asking questions about him while he was posting on social media from the hotel.
“To the extent that I posted on Twitter that Friday or Saturday, or interacted with agents about catering, it’s really irrelevant. I didn’t know that Tony was really getting paranoid and worried about Nick LoPiccolo.”
LoPiccolo explained the actual strategy behind the Deadline and Hollywood Reporter announcements involving his wrestling clients. He said the announcements were usually released within two or three days of a WWE premium live event because that was when those wrestlers had the most attention. The goal, he claimed, was to use WWE’s biggest weekends to put his clients in front of Hollywood executives—not to mess with AEW.
“The reason that was explained to me was that I had signed and represented a number of WWE stars. The announcements I was making on Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, from a strategic standpoint on my end, were usually made around two or three days on either side of a WWE PLE because that’s the most advantageous PR moment for the talent. It ties into a story that’s most advantageous from my perspective because Hollywood has its eyes on WWE.”
LoPiccolo also pushed back against any suggestion that WWE controlled those announcements. He said he would give the company a courtesy heads-up, but the publicity strategy belonged to him and his clients.
“WWE doesn’t ask me. I ask their permission: ‘Hey, are you cool with me putting this release out?’ I send a courtesy copy or whatever it is. I don’t work for them. They work for me.”
He compared the process to representing an actor on a television series. An agent would notify the network or showrunner before announcing a new deal, but the purpose would still be to create bigger opportunities for the client.
“I’m trying to do what I would do as a salesperson, which is educate and elevate the conversation around the client. I would do the same thing if I had an actor I signed from any television show. I would call the showrunner or the network executive as a heads-up courtesy, even though I’m trying to elevate that actor client and get them other opportunities in movies or recurring arcs on other television series. That’s the right thing to do. You want to work in partnership.”
LoPiccolo claimed Khan saw something far more sinister. He alleged Khan wanted to know whether Paradigm was connected to WWE or WME and whether someone had instructed LoPiccolo to pull attention from AEW.
“Tony Khan was calling around asking for intel about Nick LoPiccolo. He wanted to know if Paradigm, the agency where I worked at the time, was owned by WME or WWE, and whether this was something WWE or somebody else had put me up to in order to take attention away from his pay-per-view—which I had never heard of. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I could ever fucking think of.”
LoPiccolo went even further, claiming Khan would never challenge his version of events in court because LoPiccolo believes he can prove what happened.
“I had heard of it, and I’m much more aware and familiar with it now. I never heard of it then. Sue me—don’t sue me. That’s a bad joke. Tony’s never going to sue me because I’m correct.”
He then tied those alleged suspicions to what he described as an artificial campaign intended to destroy his reputation and push him off social media.
“I don’t understand why there was all this attention on me on X. It was artificial. It was made to defame me, scare me off and run me off the platform because Tony thought, in whatever state of mind, that I was doing something on purpose by announcing things on Deadline—whether it was for Blake, Jade, other people who left AEW or other WWE wrestlers—and that those announcements were purposely timed to interfere with his pay-per-views, specifically that weekend with All In.”
LoPiccolo acknowledged that WWE has been accused of counterprogramming AEW events, but said that had nothing to do with his publicity decisions. He ended that portion of the statement by saying AEW dragged itself into a publicity strategy that had nothing to do with the company.
“Well, I’m sorry, guys. It’s very obviously and widely discussed that WWE counterprograms AEW pay-per-views, but that’s not the point here either.”
“I was making announcements on Deadline to do the best thing I could for the clients I was signing and representing. I was trying to keep a very tight, well-thought-out strategy and roster, and I was doing the best I could for those clients through my intentions and my strategy, as you try to do with anything. AEW shoehorned themselves into this fucking thing.”
These are LoPiccolo’s allegations, and he did not include the screenshots he claims to possess in the statement. Tony Khan and AEW have not publicly answered the accusations.
One year after the fight exploded, LoPiccolo is no longer speaking in vague warnings. He is accusing Khan of treating normal Hollywood publicity moves like an organized attack against AEW—and he is making it clear that he believes the company started a war over something that was never about them.
Do you believe Tony Khan viewed LoPiccolo’s WWE client announcements as an attempt to hurt AEW, or is there another side to this story? Let us know what you think in the comments.
