Joey Janela has opened up about his departure from All Elite Wrestling.
The GCW star stated that he wouldn’t be re-signing with the promotion during an interview with Denise Salcedo in March; he later stated that his contract was up on May 1.
During an appearance on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet, Janela discussed his exit from the company and noted that his comments in the aforementioned interview, when he said AEW went “radio silent” on him, might have been a factor into the non-renewal of his contract.
“Chances are that I was going to be renewed, whether it be with Ring of Honor or here,” said Janela. “And 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.”
Janela went on to point out that he heard Tony Khan was “hot” about the interview, it helped improved the company’s communication with the wrestlers.
“I heard Tony was hot about it. Because it made him look bad, 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 heard people were upset, but I also heard talent was hitting me up saying you’re 100% correct, you spoke up and you’re correct, and that was cool for you to take that risk.”
“The Bad Boy” went on to say that there are no hard feelings, and he doesn’t think he has burned any bridges with AEW.
“I assume he’s still a little irked by it. But there’s no hard feelings on either side. There’s no bridges burned between me and AEW. I’m friends with all the talent there. I’m in contact with all the talent. And a lot of talent there, Tony has a hard, hard job. He wears a lot of hats. Not only is doing the football thing and he’s doing the football thing in the United States, he’s always having phone calls with those situations or writing something with that. Then he has to book a wrestling show. Three wrestling shows. But the thing is he’s not booking a traditional wrestling show. Now he has a large roster, huge roster. He signed some of the greatest free agents. And you have three hours of TV a week, and when you’re not booking a traditional wrestling show and you wanna book a TV show like a mini pay-per-view every week, a lot of the talent is not gonna get time every week.
“And they’re gonna have to either sit out and wait for something to come up, and sit out of the rotation, and go to work, or they can try to pitch something or go a creative route or they can just wait for something to come. Some of the guys there right now, they just feel like they should be given more, which I believe a lot of guys are and it’s very hard to book it a wrestling show when you’re booking it like a pay-per-view.”
Janela also praised the company’s work environment and noted that it’s impossible to fit everyone onto the show, though Khan tries to make everyone happy.
RELATED: Video: Joey Janela Involved In Scary Fire Spot At GCW Maniac Event
