Jake “The Snake” Roberts has spent his career working under some of the biggest names in wrestling, and few are bigger than Vince McMahon and Tony Khan. The WWE Hall of Famer recently compared the two, pointing out what he sees as a fundamental difference in their leadership styles.
In an interview with Gameshub, Roberts gave the edge to Khan when it comes to how he treats talent but also flagged that same quality as a potential drawback.
“Well, I think Khan has it in the way he treats talent,” Roberts said, before outlining the contrast. “Vince was a great delegator. He would come up with the idea or use somebody else’s idea and spread it around to where everybody could work on it. Tony Khan doesn’t do that. He wants us to be all hands on him doing it.”
That hands-on style, Roberts argued, creates problems when producing multiple weekly television shows. “And a lot of times things get missed, no way one man came up with this stuff 24/7, seven days a week… that’s a lot of TV time,” he added.
His comments echo a familiar perception of both men. Khan is often described as approachable and passionate, fostering an environment where wrestlers enjoy more freedom with their promos. McMahon, by contrast, built WWE around tightly scripted segments and a top-down system of control.
For Roberts, the comparison illustrates two competing philosophies. Khan’s fan-driven approach has helped AEW earn praise for its in-ring product, while McMahon’s corporate structure—controversial as it was—produced a global empire powered by delegation and discipline.