Kevin Kelly Confirms Lawsuit Against AEW

Former AEW/ROH commentator Kelly was the special guest on Eric Bischoff's Wise Choices podcast, where he confirmed he was suing AEW after being fired by the promotion.

Kelly began his tenure with AEW last June as the lead play-by-play announcer for the Collision program on TNT, working alongside Nigel McGuinness and later joined by Tony Schiavone.

In March, Kelly took to social media to claim he had been "libeled" by Ian, believed to be Ian Riccaboni, and mentioned he was sidelined when asked about his limited utilization. PWTorch later reported that Kelly's social media activity, where he accused Riccaboni of career sabotage and libel, led to his release.

Bischoff asked, “So what are you gonna do? suing them?”

Kelly responded, “Yeah, of course.”

Bischoff followed up, “That's unfortunate. Tell me about Tony Khan backstage. I think I did two AEW shows early on. Didn't really spend a lot of time backstage. My impression is that Tony Khan has no understanding at all of creative, has no understanding at all of television production, has no understanding at all of how to format a show. Am I right? Am I wrong?”

Kelly answered, “He's got good people around him that he doesn't utilize. His vision of what wrestling is, for me, works best on a small scale. People always wonder why did PWG stay small. Well, they knew, I think they knew, that if they went big it would get stale fast. And they had to stay small to keep it special to keep it niche. He wants to appeal to a niche audience with his vision of wrestling. But he thinks he can convince the people to watch on a grand scale. And the other thing that he's done is he's made himself the face of the company. He's the one….that's going now on TV interviews. He and I saw him and Darby Allin. We're doing like a TV promotion. Local morning news somewhere. It's like, man, that's not his skill set."

Bischoff discussed Khan being an analytics guy, with Kelly saying that Khan can spin the numbers. Kelly was then asked about backstage morale in AEW.

Kelly said, “It's the same as has been reported. What I always noticed was that there were a lot of people that were there that weren't being used, that wanted to be used, that had creative ideas, but that weren't getting through. So there would be a conga line of people outside Tony's office waiting to get in to see him. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I don't ever remember a long line of wrestlers wanting to get into see Vince [McMahon], there were people to talk to, you could talk to Pat Patterson and Jerry Brisco. You could talk to a Jack Lanza, there were agents that were respected, that had Vince's ear that could take your message and say, ‘Hey, so and so's not happy with what's going on.’ And Vince would say ‘Tell him this to placate him or bring him in, and I'll talk to him.’ And Vince then could put the Vince whammy on them and everything. You go in pissed as could be, and he’d come out and pat you on the back and shake your hand. ‘What changed? Nothing really. I'm just happy now.’”

⚡ AEW Pay-Per-View Archive Now Available On TrillerTV

TrillerTV issued the following: Relive the incredible rise of AEW with unlimited access to the complete library of every AEW PPV! Available [...]

— Ben Kerin Jun 18, 2024 03:10PM