Joey Janela Hasn't Spoken To Tony Khan Since Leaving AEW

Joey Janela sat down on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, where he spoke about his decision to not re-sign with All Elite Wrestling.

“I heard Tony (Khan) was hot about it. It made him look bad and it made their talent relations look bad. At the same time, it made them improve their communications with talent within that two week period afterwards. I heard people were upset, but talent was hitting me up from the company saying, ‘You’re 100% correct, you spoke up, and that was cool to take that risk.’”

“I haven’t talked to Tony since. That’s something that kind of irked me because we were so cool and after the AEW shows, when AEW first started, I would go out with him because he knew I would stay up until 7 in the morning with him drinking shots of tequila. I assume he’s still irked by it, but there’s no hard feeling on either side. There are no bridges burned between me and AEW. I’m friends with all the talent here. I’m in contact with all the talent.”

“Tony has a hard job. He wears a lot of hats. He’s not booking a traditional wrestling show. He has a huge roster. He’s signed some of the greatest free agents in the world. You have three hours of TV a week. When you’re not booking a traditional wrestling show and you want to book a TV show like a mini Pay-Per-View every week, a lot of talent is not going to get time every week. They either have to sit and wait for something, sit out of the rotation and go to work and be happy, they can try to pitch something, or they can wait for stuff to come.”

“Tony tries to make everyone happy. That work environment is fantastic. Of course, in all of professional wrestling, especially on a mainstream level, there is going to be a huge amount of politics. When you have 25-minute matches every week on the show, it’s hard to fit everyone in. You’re not going to make everyone happy. He tries to make everyone happy.”