Kevin Kelly addresses Tony Khan and the backstage morale in AEW

Former AEW announcer Kevin Kelly was a guest on Eric Bischoff’s Wise Choices podcast and here are the highlights…

Thoughts on Tony Khan: “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.”

Backstage morale in AEW: “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 me on the back and shake your hand. ‘What changed? Nothing really. I’m just happy now.’” (quote courtesy of WrestlingNews.co)