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You won’t believe what one NFL executive did at the NFL draft

Cat3 / Sports

Collision Conf, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Collision Conf, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The NFL draft is where teams look to the future and hope springs eternal for 32 fan bases.

But the 2024 NFL Draft featured a scene like no other.

And you won’t believe what one NFL executive did at the NFL draft.

Jacksonville Jaguars owner shows up in a neck brace as part of a pro wrestling storyline

Tony Khan is the Chief Football Strategy Officer for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the son of owner Shad Khan.

He also owns All Elite Wrestling (AEW).

And Khan showed up at the first round of the NFL draft wearing a neck brace to sell the continuation of a storyline that took place the night before on AEW’s flagship show Dynamite.


The story also got picked up by the NFL who described the show’s closing angle where Khan was involved in physicality for the first time in the promotion’s five-year existence.

“Khan, the Jags’ chief football strategy officer and the founder, owner, and booker of All Elite Wrestling, took a punch to the gut and a ‘Meltzerdriver’ piledriver Wednesday night live on AEW Dynamite from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida,” NFL.com’s Grant Gordon wrote.

What happened on Dynamite

The show’s closing angle on Wednesday saw the return of Jack Perry – son of the late Beverly Hills 90210 star Luke Perry – return after spending eight months in exile.

Khan sent Perry home last August after getting in a real-life fight backstage with C.M. Punk, the company’s biggest star.

That led to Punk’s firing and Khan turned the actual brawl and his suspension into an angle where Perry’s friends Matthew and Nicholas Jackson – who are also executive vice presidents in AEW – all jumped Khan after Perry sucker punched him following Khan agreeing to reinstate him to AEW.

The Jackson brothers delivered a tombstone piledriver to Khan and left him for dead to close Dynamite on Wednesday.


AEW is the number two wrestling promotion behind industry leader WWE.

But a wrestling company can’t pay for the type of promotion AEW got this week by linking itself to the NFL, a tentpole even for the number one sport in America that will draw an audience of millions.

Khan selling the piledriver by wearing a neck brace on coverage of the NFL draft was reviving “kayfabe” the old-school wrestling term from the days when it was a carnival act and the wrestlers and promoters kept up the illusion that what went on in the ring was a legitimate sporting event where the outcome was in doubt.

That practice ended long ago.

But by bringing it back for one night Tony Khan got the most mainstream publicity ever for his wrestling company.

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