Joey Janela on His Current Relationship With AEW, His Thoughts on Tony Khan

– During a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former AEW talent Joey Janela discussed his exit from the company, his relationship with Tony Khan, and more. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Janela on his interview with Instinct Culture’s Denise Salcedo where he said he thought he wasn’t getting his AEW deal renewed: “Chances are, I was going to be renewed, whether it be with Ring of Honor, but I just ran my mouth in an interview saying, ‘I haven’t heard from anyone, what is going on? I guess I’m not getting renewed.'”

Joey Janela on what he heard after the interview: “No, I heard Tony (Khan) was hot about it. It made him look bad, it made their talent relations look bad, but at the same time, it made them improve their communications with talent within that two-week period that I did that, communications were a lot better. I didn’t hear from anyone. I heard people were upset, but talent was hitting me up from the company saying, ‘You’re 100% correct, you spoke up, you’re correct and that was cool to take that risk.'”

On why he took the interview with Denise Salcedo at the time: “Denise wanted an interview and I said, ‘Let’s just do it. I’ve had it, I’m stressed out, frustrated.’ It created a lot of good out of it and there is no…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 are no hard feelings on either side.”

Joey Janela on if there are burned bridges with him and AEW: “There are no bridges burned between me and AEW. I’m friends with all the talent there. 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 or they can try to pitch something, the creative route, or they can wait for stuff to come. Some of the guys there, they feel like they should be given more, which I believe a lot of guys are, but it’s hard to book a wrestling show when you’re booking it like a pay-per-view.”

His thoughts on Tony Khan: “Tony tries to make everyone happy. That work environment is fantastic. It’s a fantastic work environment. Of course, all professional wrestling, especially on a mainstream level, there is going to be 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.”