Jonathan Coachman: WWE should make LA Knight champion at Money in the Bank

WWE legend Jonathan Coachman sat down with Hard Rock Bet and spoke about the recent headlines across the wrestling industry.

Coachman, who was a commentator and former GM at WWE, discussed John Cena’s comments about ‘not selling his soul’ to The Rock, claiming that Cena wasn’t necessarily telling the truth about it.

Elsewhere, ‘The Coach’ revealed why LA Knight should defeat Roman Reigns to become World Heavyweight Champion, WWE’s transition onto Netflix and why AEW are currently producing better shows.

AEW is edging WWE but lack business strategy

Who do you think is doing better right now, AEW or WWE?

Jonathan Coachman: It’s a grip, and it depends on how you look at it. If you’re just talking about a weekend into Chicago, AEW is — and I agree with what good old J.R. said on his podcast last week.

He said, “In the wrestling business, we should all be lifting each other up.” I understand this is a competition. I get that. But the one thing that Vince McMahon taught me all those years ago is, you are going to hate somebody, you can dislike somebody, but you have to look at it objectively.

And objectively, there’s a reason why Vince would pay for ECW to stay in business, because if a fan may not like your organization, it still helps to have more wrestling out there because guess what? You’re going to have your fan base, but maybe you bring a fan in of ECW, or AEW, or WCW.

They go, “Man, I really like wrestling.” And then they migrate over to your product. So, I think that WWE right now is so focused on just putting out AEW instead of having the mindset of, it’s awesome that they’re in business.

Well, why? Because as human beings, we want as many people working in this business as possible because you don’t have to earn every last dollar. Do we really have to stamp out the fire of AEW? I say no. So I love the fact that AEW still is able to sell out All Out.

Chicago is still their biggest market. If I’m just using Chicago, I’m saying AEW’s winning right now, because also, Will Osprey is showing that he can be that guy, the fifth company, that I don’t know if a lot of people thought that he could be.

I think right now, AEW is winning, but you’ve got to keep winning, and one thing that was told to me when I was talking to AEW, they said, “Coach, we’re trying to win. We’re trying to stay in our lane.”
I’ve never heard that before. I’ve never heard that in business, in wrestling and sports ever, not trying to win. I think Tony Khan’s a good dude. He’s a good, good, good, good dude, and I think because of that, he believes that, “I can’t go after them, because it’ll make me look less than that.”

We told Tony Khan to his face: “No, you need to start playing by the rules and go after them.” For example, plan something opposite WrestleMania next year. He didn’t do that, and all of a sudden, WWE announces that they’re going to have NXT and AAA and all that kind of stuff the week before WrestleMania, I believe it’s the week before.

And so now, if Tony Khan comes out and says, “We’re going to do something,” it looks like he’s following that announcement. Instead of right away saying, “We’re going to take the United States. We’re going to be in the United States, all the indie shows, AEW, we’re going to rock it.”

And he didn’t do that. And that’s part of the long-term problem, but in the short term, I think they’re doing very, very well. I think sometimes, too, you have to remember that complacency is very, very easy. When you’ve already made your money, they’re making their money the reverse way, the WWE don’t have to earn it.

They earned it when they signed the deal. So, I think they need to forget that they are getting paid, and say, let’s show up every single week and let’s kick ass. And if that’s not the mindset, then what are we doing?

John Cena comeback is unlikely but can happen

John Cena denied there was never any plan to sell his soul to The Rock. What do you make of those comments?

Jonathan Coachman: Yeah, I don’t think he’s being honest. And I’ve said this for over a year, it took three months for The Rock in 2025 to tell us why he showed up that night in Toronto. He said, “Hey, they called me. I needed to sell tickets.” And that’s all it was.

I don’t believe that to be true. To turn John Cena heel was one of the biggest decisions in the history of wrestling. So it needed to have a couple of layers with it. That night, I believe, it broke all the records — reviews on social media, on YouTube, all that kind of stuff.

There was no follow-up, which is why at WrestleMania, it was such a must watch. All the fans were looking towards the entrance, and they weren’t watching the match, and all they got was Travis Scott, who we have not seen since that night.

I love John. I wrestled John in a tables match, he was so great with me. I think he’s just trying to keep the narrative going, that’s what it was supposed to be, because since The Rock was on Pat McAfee, we have not seen him either in the world of wrestling.

So I think right now that they’re just trying to put that thing to bed. They don’t want to give it any legs whatsoever because imagine if John would have said the opposite: “Oh, yeah, we were going to do this, this, this, and this.”

Now, every time The Rock’s doing an interview on a red carpet, what is he going to be asked about? He’s going to be asked about John Cena, and nobody wants that because John understands, as a movie star, he wants to be able to focus on whatever project you’re on the red carpet for.

John has also ruled out a possible comeback, stating neither Tony or Nick Khan have enough money to tempt him back. Do you think this is true?

Jonathan Coachman: I was a bit of a Garth Brooks fan back in the day. And Garth Brooks famously quit in his prime so he could be home to take his girls to school. He famously said when the Wynn Hotel came after him, “Hey, Wynn does not have enough money to get me to come out of retirement.”

Well, they bought him a jet, allowed him to take his girls to school on Fridays, and just work in Vegas Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So, there’s a way. Trust and believe, if they wanted to then they could.

Now, the question really should be, would they ever need to do that? Because TKO now is in a place where they don’t like to throw big sums of money at anyone. They don’t believe that anybody is worth it — it’s kind of like a triangle, I call it.

When you’ve got your highest paid, which is Roman Reigns, probably, and then you got CM Punk and Cody Rhodes, and it goes down the line. Why would you ever need to throw $10 million dollars at John Cena? The answer is that you wouldn’t. But I just think that he’s done. You have got to understand, too, for guys like Cena, Rock, whoever, they pride themselves on being in-ring shape.

If you’re not practising in the ring, then they don’t want to come back for a one-off, because A, it’s going to hurt, and B, they’re not going to look very good, and they want people to remember how they looked when they were in shape and ready to go. So, I think that’s the bigger issue than money.

WWE tension behind the scenes

Do you believe there is tension between Logan Paul, Bron Breakker and others behind the scenes despite denying it?

Jonathan Coachman: Well, you know, from my experience, and I was backstage for over a decade, and everybody thinks, “Oh, everybody gets along with everybody.”

I tell fans when they push back on, “Well, what do you know?” Well, I know I was there. And back when I was there, we would do four shows a week. Now, would you come in one day and you get to go home.

So, to me, absolutely, there is tension backstage because of a couple of things. You have superstars, wrestlers that have admitted that they’ve been asked to take a pay cut. Well, if you’re showing up to work every single week and you don’t know if that’s going to be the week you get asked to take a pay cut, well, now you’re a little bit nervous and you’re a little bit ticked off because you can’t enjoy yourself.

Number two, I really believe that you need competition. When I was in my prime, my first run, you had 20 superstars that could be in the main event. So, what did you have? You had better shows because The Rock, Triple H, Undertaker, Kane, Edge & Christian, Dudley Boys, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, Batista, Randy Orton could all main event. There’s a lot of main-event guys that are walking around.

Now, I don’t know how many right now, but we had bonuses. If you were in the main event, you got paid more than if you were in the first match coming out on a pay-per-view. Now it’s a little bit different, but let’s be honest, the more you’re on TV, the more they’re going to look at you as a player and not ask you to take a pay cut, and also, maybe your next deal will be bigger or it’ll be longer or something.

So, to think that this would be a place where everybody is just slapping each other on the back, that’s simply not how it works. I’m not saying they walk around hating each other, but the fact that Bron Breakker and Logan Paul even addressed what I said, and all I said was, Bron is not necessarily a fan of working backstage with Logan Paul.

The reason for that — and I love Logan Paul, too. I like both guys but Logan Paul, from everything I’ve been told, has a posse with him. He’s a streamer in the United States and has four, five, six people with him. You don’t always want those extra people around. That’s all I said. And the fact that they addressed it, what does that tell you? It speaks volumes.

LA Knight should become champion

Should LA Knight become World Heavyweight Champion?

Jonathan Coachman: It’s time and right now, he’s building this main event for Money in the Bank by himself. Roman Reigns is not scheduled to be at any before Money in the Bank. A week right before Money in the Bank, if you have a guy [available to promote the show], how about you do stuff when the show’s not on TV?

For the fan, when they show up to buy a ticket — and right now, the shows are not selling out, not every single one of them — and so if you think you’re sitting at home and you go, “Man, I can see somebody get attacked, I can see a match that’s not advertised, I could see something else,” then that may make me want to buy a ticket.

That was our secret sauce back in the day. We would advertise for the shows locally. So, if we’re in Chicago, and, “Hey, The Rock’s going take on Stone Cold Steve Austin Monday night,” well maybe it doesn’t make sense for that match to be on the show but people locally going to a non-TV event would say, “Man, I want to see that.”

That’s why house shows are so important. That’s why these extra matches are so important. So, for a guy like LA Knight, this is his time. He’s 44 years old. You cannot wait another year or two years because this nonsense of having a 48-50-year-old champion, it’s just not believable. You don’t have it in the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, so why have it in wrestling?

So, right now is the time, and I think he deserves it because he’s done everything he possibly can to make himself a top-flight guy on Monday Night Raw.

WWE’s move to Netflix

What’s your opinion on how the WWE has transitioned onto the streaming platform of Netflix?

Jonathan Coachman: Well, I think Dana White said it pretty well when he was asked about it on the Paramount Plus side. If you’re going to make this kind of money, and we’re talking five billion from Netflix, they have to maximise how that money comes back to them. It’s a business.

The fans need to understand that the benefit to Netflix is you can watch Raw any time. And if you don’t watch it live, you can fast-forward through it. You don’t have to sit through the ads, at least not at the tier that I’m paying.

A lot of times I’ll watch WWE late on Monday night or early on Tuesday morning. But if fans for a second think that that’s not going to be a part of what they watch, then they need to go watch something else because this is what world Netflix wants to live in.

This is the extra money on top of subscribers because subscribers is always a finite number, like we have 100 million subs. It’s going to be whatever the number is. If we can bring in ads and we can bring in advertisers, now that changes the game. Now, if I’m a company, I’d be like, okay, I can go over to Netflix.

A lot of times commercials are what we call evergreen content, that they live forever. So, we put a commercial in on one of my shows. That commercial is going to live forever. There’s a lot more value to advertise on Netflix than there is on a live show, because that game is going to disappear. It’s not going to be there. I think a lot of times we’ve got to be ready to pivot, and I don’t know if fans are yet.

Danhausen’s WWE impact

What have you made of the surge in popularity of Danhausen?

Jonathan Coachman: I get crushed on this topic. I get absolutely crushed on this topic, because I look at wrestling in the WWE straight down the middle. I don’t look at it as a fan who loves whatever. And Danhausen, to me — and good, if he made as much as they’re saying he’s making in merchandise, and they had, at one point a couple of months ago, over 50 items at WWE Shop on sale with Danhausen on it.

But I would ask you, that in the last two or three weeks, outside of a commercial with a law firm, what have you seen Danhausen do? You have to be very, very careful when you have a character like a Danhausen, not to overuse him or not to use him in a way that people go, “Wait a second.”
When he wrestles and he looks like a sophomore in high school, that’s what he looks like. He’s like 170 pounds, 180 pounds.

That’s not what pro wrestling is to a lot of people. And I think that when the kids right now who love him start to grow up a little bit, I don’t know that his popularity could be sustained, because I mean, there’s a reason Tony Khan didn’t use him in AEW, but then he comes over, and he just catches fire.

You can’t predict that. You can’t. A lot of times, a superstar that caught fire, nobody could have predicted. Could we have predicted Daniel Bryan? Yes, yes, yes? I said, no, no, no. So, for Danhausen, what I would tell him is, get your money.

If you’re still selling merch, God bless you, but I’m telling you right now that within — and I don’t know how long his deal is — but in the next three years, Danhausen will either not be in the WWE, or they’ll be like they’re using him right now. Very minimally.

I haven’t seen him very much at all. And I think there is a reason for that. I really, really do. I don’t hate the kid. I don’t know the kid. I’ve never met him. I just know that I’ve seen them, and they don’t end up well if you do.