After exchanging in a short but fiery social media war of wills over making on-camera appearances for WWE, Ariel Helwani finally addressed what went down with Tony Khan during his appearance on SmackDown and then the Elimination Chamber on his MMA Hour show.

Discussing the matter of objectivity, Helwani noted that he is not, in fact, a wrestling journalist, and thus, any questions of impropriety are null in void.

“I'm not a wrestling journalist. I've never called myself a wrestling journalist. I don't report on wrestling like others do. I do interview wrestlers, I enjoy it tremendously, I try to think and act like a journalist when I do these interviews, but I am not a wrestling journalist. I, obviously, have relationships with people there because Nick Khan, the CEO, was my agent. I can't hide from that. I wasn't sure what direction I should go, what should I do. I came to the conclusion that, in life, especially post-ESPN, I just want to have fun. I want to do fun things. I came to the conclusion, around December, if an opportunity comes up again, I'm going to take it,” Helwani said via Fightful. “It's always been a bucket list thing for me. I made a promise to myself, without seeking it, if this opportunity came up again, I would seriously consider it because life is too short, I want to have fun. I'm not a wrestling journalist. I think people are confusing me for my role in MMA, it's not the same. All things aren't equal.”

With that preface out of the way, Helwani didn't understand why Khan would comment on his appearance on WWE TV, as it did nothing but put over his competition.

“The real thing he should have done is not say anything because why put over the competitions broadcast? You talk about an own goal, I know Fulham is having a better season, they certainly haven't had a great run with the Khans involved, but this was an all-time great own goals. I couldn't believe it. I had to check multiple times if it was really him.”

Whoa, spicy stuff. So why did Khan take Helwani's appearance on SmackDown and at the Elimination Chamber so personally? Well, according to the host of The MMA Hour, it has to do with a past interaction that may still haunt the AEW owner to this day.

Ariel Helwani isn't backing down from Tony Khan for his WWE appearance.

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Later in his tell-all talk about all things WWE and Tony Khan, Helwani pointed out that, in his opinion, Khan is still very much upset about his interview back in October and, as a result, is angry about his on-camera appearance for WWE.

“He is still upset, clearly, over the fact that he gave me one of the all-time worst interviews, and ignoring the fact that I have continuously praised the product ever since they launched. It was a bad interview, objectively, a bad interview. What is amazing about that interview is, everyone loves to talk about, ‘he couldn't talk about this, legal this,' where is the legal? Where is the proof? What legal are you talking about? What is this investigation that you guys keep talking about? I had asked Tony multiple times to come on the show. I stopped asking because I was told that he wasn't sure, I'm Nick Khan's guy, I work for BT, which is stupid because that's just the broadcast partner. That's like saying Bellator guys shouldn't speak to Marc Raimondi because he works for ESPN and UFC is on ESPN,” said Helwani. “They reached out to me several months later and said, ‘do you want to have Tony on?' Never said, ‘Don't ask about this, don't ask about that.' You don't think I'm not going to ask about these things? Anyone worth their salt is going to ask about these things. There is a million different ways you could have answered those questions. At the time, I had no relationship with anyone in terms of business. This was early October. To now, pin those questions on me appearing on SmackDown, is a bullsh*t move, because one has nothing to do with the other. He's just mad that he came off looking like a guy that didn't know how to handle these situation and is only comfortable promoting and talking on about a product, but that's not what the public wants to hear. Now, he wants to say, ‘Ah ha, look, this is why he asked me these questions.' It's all silly bullsh*t. Why do you care? I said it was a bad interview, I praised your product, why are you so quick to run to your phone and tweet this in my moment.”

After receiving the wrestling tweet read around the world, Helwani decided to fire back, unleashing a now-similarly infamous message including the promotor's new nickname among WWE fans, “Snowman.”

“I was not going to let this guy, who has built an amazing thing, all credit to him,” Helwani said. “This kid, who, if it wasn't for his old man…let me tell you something, my dad gave me a lot, but as far as MMA journalism and everything I've built, that was all on me. I'm very proud of what I've built. I wasn't going to let this guy f*cking soil my name, drag it through the mud, ruin my night. I know he's trying to get himself over on me because lord knows he needs it, I wasn't going to let that happen. Absolutely not. I can tell you a lot of other stuff about that interview that we didn't show about how weird and bizarre that whole thing was, but I'm not going to do that.”

Did Helwani officially just guarantee that he won't be getting any marquee AEW interviews moving forward? Eh, probably so, but do you know what? Based on his comments, it doesn't seem like he's looking to maintain that bridge moving forward.