Las Vegan’s journey from WrestleMania 9 usher to WWE president
World Wrestling Entertainment president Nick Khan returned to his hometown this week as the most powerful man in professional wrestling with the biggest spectacle in sports entertainment taking over Allegiant Stadium.
The last time WrestleMania took place in Las Vegas, Khan was in charge of only a certain section of seats at the outdoor Caesars Palace venue.
He was an usher, a gig lined up only because he spotted a flier on a job board wall in the student union at UNLV.
“I was a freshman, and I had just turned 18,” said Khan, now 50. “(The posting) said you could work the biggest events and get paid for it. They were offering like $7 an hour at a time minimum wage was like $4.25. WrestleMania 9 was the first event I worked. I was a big fan, so it was great.”
He’ll have a lot more responsibility this time when WrestleMania 41 takes place Saturday and Sunday at Allegiant.
Taking it to a new level
Under Khan, the WWE is generating record revenues. Media rights deals are a big factor, and that’s the world Khan came up through.
The expansion of WrestleMania into a two-night extravaganza that includes almost a week of ancillary events and fan activities is another, and this one is special for the Bonanza High School graduate.
“I’m just excited to help bring this event to Las Vegas,” Khan said. “… What we’re going to try to do Saturday and Sunday is unlike anything people have ever seen before.”
It’s that challenge that drives Khan in every decision he makes for the company.
“Our hope is to constantly try to give our fans one of the greatest sporting or entertainment moments of their lives,” he said. “We want them to have a moment they remember the rest of their life.”
Khan experienced those moments when boxing was king in Las Vegas.
“I want their memories to be similar to my memories of big boxing events growing up here in Vegas, where you felt like the town had been taken over in a good way and the event gave back to the city,” he said.
The two nights of WrestleMania are the marquee attraction, and Khan wants to ensure the city is part of the show, which will open with an ode to Las Vegas narrated by UFC president Dana White.
It was important for Khan to have the city celebrated. He watched it grow in national public perception from an outlaw gambling town to a cosmopolitan metropolis.
“We have it all, and it’s only getting bigger,” he said.
‘My bet would be on us’
WrestleMania is another step, and Khan is confident in the WWE’s ability to live up to the enormous hype.
“I don’t get nervous,” he said. “… Now we have to deliver the goods. My bet would be on us.”
While his WrestleMania experience will be different this weekend from the one in 1993, Khan insists he’s still the same Las Vegas kid who worked the outdoor event in a bright green shirt.
His family might think differently, as they expressed when footage of that event surfaced in a documentary that caught a glimpse of him in the background.
“You used to have black hair, not white hair,” his children, Natalie and Sonny, noted. “And, ‘oh my God, you were so skinny.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.
