Ariel Helwani

A former WWE television personality has attacked Ariel Helwani on social media after the combat sports journalist appeared on Smackdown and Elimination ...

I know the whole thing. HHH has a show to promote and they know fanboy will do whatever they want him to do.” I just respect the business whether I am still in it or not. Trust and BELIEVE when a place doesn’t want you they cut your salary in half. Also the mockery he makes of pro wrestling like he could EVER do it not only upsets me but alot of people actually IN the business.” Ariel is not allowed in the building for ufc events. In addition to the Smackdown appearance, Helwani also appeared on the Elimination Chamber Kickoff Show and was shown in the crowd with another Montreal legend, UFC Hall of Famer Georges St. He is a fan. The first one is below with Coach saying that Helwani can’t get into UFC events while using multiple laughing emojis. In between his WWE runs, he worked for ESPN as a studio host. Ariel Helwani is one of the most well-known Combat Sports Reporters. Currently, he works for MMA Fighting covering the Mixed Martial Arts game including UFC and also covers WWE for BT Sport as well among other roles.

Ariel Helwani has addressed AEW President Tony Khan. As noted, Khan took shots at Helwani on Friday night during WWE SmackDown as Helwani appeared on WWE.

I don’t know what his thing is, I think he’s trying to be tough like Dana White and all of this stuff, but thank you for the tweet, man. And let me tell you all something, I’ve had to deal with the likes of Dana White, I mean, if you think I’m afraid of, you know, big bad Tony K, I’m not. So, this guy is calling me a fraud and then he is saying that Tony Schiavone is as much of a journalist as me, I guess he’s trying to imply that he’s not real journalist and I’m not real journalist, why insult your guy in the process? I wasn’t sure if maybe he couldn’t here what I was saying on SmackDown, maybe the connection was bad on his TV, it was snowing in Montreal, I’m not sure if it was snowing in Jacksonville. Michael Cole says something to the effective of, there’s the unbiased journalist, Ariel Helwani, hit with you the hard questions whether you want to answer it or not, like, what is going on, this is like the Monday Night Wars and I’m in the middle of it, like, what is going on, everybody is going nuts over this. But, like, this shit, you talk about a non-goal, and I know that Fulham is having a little bit of a better season, they certainly haven’t had a great run with the Khan’s involved, but, I mean, this was one of the great non-goals. Tony wants to shoot, he’s looking for a foil, he’s trying to pick a fight with the biggest name in combat sports and wrestling media, he has tried to pick a fight with me. I’m trying to put over GSP, the crowd is going nuts, GSP is asking me questions, I’m like what the hell am I doing here, this all feels like an out of body experience. Now, what’s amazing about that interview is, you know, everyone loves to talk about, oh, he couldn’t talk about this, he couldn’t talk about that, legal this, legal that, first of all, like, where’s the fucking legal, right, where’s the proof, what legal are you guys talking about? He is trying to say that Schiavone isn’t a journalist, which, by the way, correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t he have a little bit of respect for being a media dude? Now, I’m trying to think, what is the point he was trying to prove here? And I swear to God, I looked at this tweet three times because I thought it was fake, because, you know, anyone could have a blue check mark.

During the Monday edition of The MMA Hour, Ariel Helwani went into detail about how his WWE experience in Montreal came to be, including his infamous ...

Ariel Helwani speaks out about AEW President Tony Khan's tweet. […]

He was unapologetic for those disappointed that he appeared on the shows this past weekend with his stance that he is not a pro wrestling journalist, although ...

Many were critical online of both Khan and Helwani’s back-and-forth online but clearly, Helwani has zero regrets about any of it and seems more open than ever to participate in pro wrestling in the future. Jake Hager match at an empty Daily’s Place during the pandemic, and also [sent a video for IMPACT Wrestling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl_scRw6lT0) and has been a guest on several WWE pre-shows over the years). He noted that he is not joined WWE and it was a one-weekend-only thing but also made it clear he caught the bug and would be willing to do more with WWE, or even other wrestling companies such as AEW.

On Monday, I asked former ESPN MMA writer Ariel Helwani if he wanted to defend himself for what became apparent over the weekend: he's not a journalist.

He rose quickly in the business as an authority on the UFC. As you can tell, Helwani isn’t the smartest guy in the business. He complained that ESPN PR rep Ardi Dwornik was using public messaging to hurt his negotiations and that she was defending Dana White for calling him a “douche” months before. But I never saw Helwani as a friend or an enemy. Thereby I called Helwani to ask him for comment before reporting on his future. In 2021, a source told me that ESPN had lowballed Helwani during his renegotiations. But I wanted to give him a chance to respond before documenting his journey from UFC reporter to crisis management assistant of those accused of sexual violence. At the time of the interview, WWE had recently named Levesque the head of booking. Rather, he provided Levesque softball questions as he smirked across the room. Last year, Helwani interviewed Tony Khan and Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the respective bookers of AEW and WWE. A previous association with him should not prevent someone from covering the industry in which he now works. Helwani has been covering AEW and WWE, the leading two wrestling promotions, for the past year.

Longtime MMA journalist Ariel Helwani and AEW president Tony Khan are in a war of words over the former's paid association with WWE.

He also has appeared on AEW programming and on Impact Wrestling in the past. He is on the board of directors, but he was not grilled as much as Khan was. There was no explanation of his “snowman” comment toward Khan. 22, 2021, and fans felt he was not as hard on his former agent as he should have been, especially since Khan rarely does interviews. Khan was unwilling to speak on the backstage drama at AEW, especially the situation with CM Punk. “You’re a fraud (Ariel Helwani),” Khan tweeted Friday.