It’s like 8am ET so apologies for filling your eyes with metaphorical wank this morning but here goes:
As a guest on Eric Bischoff’s Wise Choices veteran commentator Kevin Kelly has revealed he is suing AEW for the way in which he was terminated.
“So what are you going to do? Are you suing them?” asked Bischoff after Kelly described what led up to him being fired.
“Yes, of course,” replied Kelly.
“That’s unfortunate,” said Bischoff.
Earlier in the broadcast Kelly chronicled the entire situation from his point of view.
“Everything was fine. Everything was going along just great. A couple of weeks in it was a personal thing with me and Ian Riccaboni, of all people, an RoH announcer,” he said.
Kelly detailed Riccaboni accusing him of being a conspiracy theorist and right-wing radical just because he wanted people to be more aware of child trafficking as a whole. He was inspired to discuss the topic because of the movie Sound of Freedom. Kelly wasn’t agreeing with the accusations or ideas made or presented in the movie just the idea that child trafficking should be a major concern.
“That really pissed me off. I thought we were friends,” said Kelly of Riccaboni’s comments which then set other fans off on X against Kelly.
“Ian, if you are listening to this, you are f—–g weird and the people who think like you are f—–g weird,” said Bischoff breaking in.
Kelly says that privately Riccaboni told him that he had insulted him “one too many times”.
“I don’t remember insulting you at all. I thought we were friends,” Kelly said he wrote back.
“I don’t even know this guy but I am going to wake up every day and try to find a new way to insult him,” laughed Bischoff.
Kelly stated he contacted AEW HR and they said they would deal with the situation. All the while Kelly says he was being left off broadcasts which he took personally.
AEW HR informed Kelly later that the disciplinary commission dealt with the problem but Kelly couldn’t know of the decision because it was a private matter.
“I get that but I was the victim!” said Kelly. “I didn’t want him to be fired. I just wanted an apology and know if this perception has hurt me in the company.”
Due to the way he was being treated within AEW and by some online Kelly spoke with an AEW psychiatrist. Still frustrated he called HR, left what he admits was a heated message and spouted off online about the situation. He was fired because of that.
Bischoff asked Kelly about what AEW is like behind the scenes. Kelly explained that Tony Khan has good people around him but doesn’t use them.
“His vision of what wrestling is, for me, works best on a small scale…He wants to appeal to a niche audience with his vision of wrestling. He thinks he can convince people to watch that on a grand scale. The other thing he has done is he has made himself the face of the company…Man, that is not his skill set,” he explained.
“There is a lot of people backstage who aren’t being used, who want to be used that have creative ideas but they aren’t getting through. There would be a Conga line outside Khan’s office waiting to get in to see him. Nothing wrong with that but I don’t remember a long line of wrestlers waiting to see Vince (McMahon) because there were other people to talk to like a Pat Patterson and a Gerald Brisco or Blackjack Lanza. There were agents who were respected that had Vince’s ear and could forward your message,” he continued.
He also criticized Dave Meltzer for his reporting on AEW.
“He will spin the numbers to make them not smell so bad. I think that can be done,” he said.
I should’ve stopped reading at “Eric Bischoff’s Wise Choices”
Ditto
Least this time he didn’t compare himself to Hana fucking Kimura like he did a couple weeks ago.
A comparison so incredibly nonsensical as he has nothing in common with the woman including age, race, sex, gender, talent, accomplishments nor life status.
@GeekFTW he did WHAT !!! 😱
“I’m not comparing myself to it at all — but to Hana Kimura. Because when you bring down the force of social media onto a person, wrongly accusing someone, there are consequences. You can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that and I mean, what happened to Hana, of course was much worse than what happened to me. I’m not even comparing those but, again, it’s the same type of thing and that’s really just it.”
@GeekFTW yeah hes an jerk…now im 100% sure 😮
he did the “i’m not a racist but” thing
I love that he is still insisting that he is just Very Concerned About Child Trafficking™, and everybody else is the problem.
He shoulda saved up his New Japan wages so he could afford to buy a fucking clue.
given the wwe us champion is hanging around donald trump, he’s probably hoping to be hired back by wwe.
I am loathe to invoke these words knowing they’re a flat out lie but: I’d like to think WWE had better taste.
I was watching a documentary recently that had clips of older radio shows sprinkled in. Howard Stern, stuff like that. And I thought to myself how nice it is that that’s not as big anymore. Back in the day, it was almost impossible to escape. I cringed pretty hard at Bischoff’s quotes here.
I do wonder what’s happened with Kevin Kelly over the years. Before he showed up around the first Forbidden Door, I had never heard him but saw lots of comments with people praising his work. By the time Collision started up, opinions on his work had shifted a lot.
He was in ROH for 7 years (which I can’t vouch for his work as I didn’t watch ROH then) and then in NJPW for 8 years. I can vouch for him there, he was honestly (imo) great. You could tell he loved the product, was very knowledgeable about the wrestlers, only downside I can say is he sometimes got annoying
(e.g. ‘Destinooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooetcetcooooooooooo’).
If he had his fuckhead views back then I don’t remember, but over the last half-decade he’s definitely decided to air his views publicly like some do and with him being in the US more often since stopping his NJ work, we now end up hearing more out of him not being able to keep his mouth shut.
Honestly, his work with New Japan was really good, from what I saw, but I only really saw him before COVID.
His stuff with AEW was kinda bad from the beginning. He had no interest in the product, and it showed.
I really liked him in RoH. 2010-2013, Kevin Steen era RoH, was some of my favourite times in wrestling, and the 2012 Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino commentary team was the cream of the crop. For me, spot on the perfect wrestling commentary.
I never heard his NJPW commentary, but when he joined AEW I thought this is great - let’s get ready for some good stuff. And it was so bad.
I was just like “Who replaced Kevin Kelly with this impostor robot”
I’d like to think an imposter robot coulda done a better job lol.
How the hell has Tony made himself the face of the face of the company?
Suing AEW after going public with a private investigation. I’m sure that’ll go well in court lol! I bet AEW has that voicemail still!
I guess he has, in a way. He does lead all the press conferences, and he comes out to hype up the crowd before every show. He hasn’t made himself the face of the onscreen product, but he is kind of the face of the company in more shoot venues, which is a bit of a change from the early years when The Elite were the ones out there representing the company and he was more of a silent partner.
That’s true. I wasn’t able to go to any of the earlier shows so I figured he always came out at the end of the show. Although the last one I went to it was Daniel Garcia that came out at the end!
making a podcast bashing aew is the wrestling equivalent of a sexual predator starting a right wing blog and becoming a conservative
For a while, there was a breed of WWE mark on Twitter that went around calling it LGBTQIAEW. Which just confirmed to me that I was right to enjoy it, to be honest.
LGBTQIAEW
Wow
For a while, there was a breed of WWE mark on Twitter that went around calling it LGBTQIAEW.
somedays i wish that all these corporations that people say those things about were actually as queer friendly as they say.