89s -vs- AKs

[SycoFrogg]

Im pretty new to poker, playing nearly a year and I'm just barely starting to figure this game out, but the point of the post is this.

I was recently in a conversation with another player who had knocked my AKs out of a 125 buy-in tourny with 89s in EP.
I didn't actually call it a bad beat but I showed my disgust when he made trip nines on the river monstering my ace gained flop.

When asking why he would call me with that hand( I still had a reasonable stack left but the ante was eatting me up and I was cold for almost an hour.) he explained how 89s was an extremely strong hand and would always destroy AKs.
My arguement was if we went heads up and I continued to get AKs over and over and him his 89s that he'd lose he's chips fast because there is only 6 cards in the deck that could help him and only if mine never show, outside of making a striaght, flushes being the only thing 50-50.

Then I started thinking on how AKs could only be involved in a striaght together one way while 89s could in multiple ways. Though A makes the wheel 89s still has deffinitly more striaght potential.

I was just wondering if this might be true, like I said I'm still new and years experience is hardly anything to be prod of, anyways, any help?