Kevin Kelly Reveals Reason for AEW Departure

Kevin Kelly, known for his contributions to wrestling promotions such as WWE, Ring of Honor, and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, recently became embroiled in controversy following reports of his firing due to rant back in March just before AEW Revolution. Kelly has now finally revealed why AEW released him.

Speculation swirled around Kevin Kelly’s sudden absence after his return to AEW, a move that sparked a range of reactions among fans. Matters escalated when Kelly publicly voiced criticisms against Ian Riccaboni prior to the AEW Revolution pay-per-view, alleging defamation and underscoring his significance within the company.

“But the idea of what I bring to the table is lost there because Ian libeled me. So I sit on the bench, valued by my peers, waiting to get my number called.“

It was then reported that Kevin Kelly’s absence was tied to legal matter as well and Kelly is now doing other pro wrestling related work now that he is no longer with AEW.

During a virtual signing for K & S WrestleFest, Kevin Kelly opened up about his departure, shedding light on his issues with Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni and the QAnon accusation against him. Kelly explained that his rift with Riccaboni stemmed from Ian speaking negatively about him in a New Japan Pro-Wrestling Discord chat while Kelly was away doing commentary for the G1 Climax.

Kelly expressed a desire to address the issues with Riccaboni directly but claimed that they never had the opportunity for an in-depth conversation. He detailed feeling out of place in AEW, questioning the similarities between Collision and Dynamite. Kelly mentioned expressing his frustrations to management, which ultimately led to his release.

Sure felt like it (Ian Riccaboni was plotting against me) … Yeah (Riccaboni took over from me in ROH), because I got him a job. We were friends. 

It still makes no sense. Ian Riccaboni, I first met him at the Monster Factory. Bob Evans said to me, ‘Brutal’ Bob Evans, who had been doing a lot of training with the Monster Factory crew, said, ‘You need to meet Ian because he’s really good and he’s special and he should get a look for Ring of Honor’ so I went there, did a seminar, met him and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, yes. Let’s see how you do. Come on with me. We’ll start having you come local,’ so anything in the northeast and he made some long drives and did it the right way and it was like, okay, he called the dark matches. He could do Women of Honor, so it would be unique, different branding, and we got along great and we worked together on some shows. Everything was fine. When Joey Mercury left, I found out that Ian was kind of, as Dennis Coralluzzo used to say, ‘Putting the mouth on me,’ Ian was, in the office. Yeah, after I was gone. Because I went to New Japan. I was like, ‘Eh, alright,’ and I talked to some people about it and I was like, ‘Ah, I’m not gonna worry about it.’ Yeah, whatever.

But then, I start doing this AEW thing and Tony Khan told me, ‘I first wanted Ian Riccaboni to do Collision but, he couldn’t because of his day job.’ Okay. So, Ian recommended me. Great, cool. I go away — they knew this. I go away to do the G1, I’m gone five weeks, I come back and it’s like, Ian’s hammered me on Discord on this New Japan message board about, you know, I did all these different things to him, over the years, which I never knew. I had no clue, and then, to top it all off, he accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking. That’s neither here nor there. The part that bothers me so much is that I thought we were friends and if he would have called me, we could have talked about it. Hey Kevin, listen, you’re really pissing me off, and even if we would have agreed to never be friends before, if he would have just called me up and said, F you, I hate you, I never wanna see you again. At least I would know where I stood and then I could work towards fixing what I had done wrong. But instead, the way that he went about it painted me with a nasty brush and it was done on purpose so that the fans would turn against me because he did it in a New Japan Discord board, and people were messaging me that I’m friends with because I’d go there all the time. That’s how I found out about it. Jet lag, post-G1.

I wake up, I was like, ‘Oh, let’s see what they’re saying about us. Hey, wait a minute. What the hell?’ And people that I’m friendly with in there were like, ‘What is Ian doing? Why is he doing this?’ ‘I have no idea’ so I message him and it’s like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ‘Well, you said and did a bunch of different things to me over the years and I’m pissed off about it.’ ‘Okay, but, well let’s talk about it.’ ‘Well, I’ll only talk to you if you guarantee that you’re not gonna record the call.’ I’m like, ‘I wouldn’t know how to record a call off a cellphone. What are you? Crazy?

Yeah, sure. We need to talk about this, we need to talk about this’ and we never did and then, things started to change within AEW, and it was almost like hand in glove. It was never a good fit, me being there. I came from New Japan, where I was left alone and I knew what I was doing and I was calling matches that were just like AEW and all of a sudden now, I’ve got all these people in my ear and I’ve got all this format stuff and it’s like, ‘Why do we have to do things the same way Dynamite is?’ Is what I said. ‘Why do we have to be the same show? Don’t we want Collision to be different? Isn’t this a different thing?’ Whether it was split because of CM Punk and The (Young) Bucks, I have no idea. That was never even brought up. But it was a separate show, Saturday night, great. Let’s make it different, let’s do some different things. 

Why can’t we as announcers be different? Because I’m different than Taz and Excalibur and (Tony) Schiavone and just the handwriting was on the wall and it wasn’t gonna work and I was getting more and more pissed off and I talked to the AEW office about it. I talked to them and I told them that I was mentally getting really in a bad spot over this too, and I vented and when I vented, that’s when they let me go… 

Despite the conflicts, Kelly maintained that he wanted to reconcile with Riccaboni. He recalled how their relationship had initially been positive and supportive. However, he learned that Riccaboni had harbored resentment toward him after Kelly’s departure from Ring of Honor. Kelly also addressed criticisms about Riccaboni wearing a cowboy hat on Collision, suggesting it could cause friction with Jim Ross due to the hat’s association with Calgary Stampede.

”Again, no harm, no foul with AEW — no. Big blame. Big blame there but I always wanted to straighten things out with Ian and I feel terrible that he was mad at me over something he never told me and it led to a bunch of different problems. One incident in particular, he did spell it out for me and I did say it to him. I meant it in like a — I won’t go into it but, I didn’t get the chance to explain it but I understand how it could be taken the wrong way and oh, the other thing that he said was that I knocked him for wearing a hat on Collision, which I did, a cowboy hat, because he’s sitting right next to Jim Ross. Because they’re in Calgary in Stampede and I was like, saying it because guess what? You’re gonna get heat with J.R. if you’re wearing a cowboy hat sitting next to him at the announce desk. Whether he says it’s okay or not, that doesn’t matter… And it was born in Calgary, it was born at the Stampede and he’s the one who wears the f*cking cowboy hat. Why would you do that? Whatever. Listen, Ian got upset about that. Give me a break.”

Kevin Kelly continued to express his negative feelings towards AEW, emphasizing that his departure was a result of publicly airing his grievances with Ian Riccaboni and venting to Human Resources via voicemail. Co-Executive Producer Mike Mansury and the Vice President of Human Resources informed Kelly of his exit, but the disciplinary committee’s decision regarding his future was initially kept private.

Kelly highlighted that his mental health was deteriorating during this time and criticized AEW’s handling of the situation. He clarified that by this point, his issues were no longer solely about Riccaboni, although he admitted to associating Ian with his overall frustrations. Kelly expressed that he found much greater satisfaction working in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

”Of course (I have ill feelings towards AEW for how things ended). I wouldn’t treat my worst enemy like that. Mike Mansury (told me I was being let go). The Executive Producer, and the new Vice President of Human Resources who I’d never met and spoke to ever before. I knocked the company on Twitter and vented on a voicemail to the H.R. lady that I had been working with. Problem was I never knew where — I brought up this whole thing with Ian (Riccaboni) and they said, ‘Yes, good. Thank you for bringing it up.’ ‘What’s going to happen?’ I said, ‘What’s the process?’ ‘Well, we’ll discuss it, we’ll let you know’ and apparently, the disciplinary got together — committee got together and made a decision. ‘Okay, what was the decision?’ ‘Well, we can’t tell you because it’s private.’ ‘Wait a minute, I was the one who was the victim here. I need to know what happened so I could put this to bed in my mind.’ ‘Well, we just can’t tell you.’ ‘Okay, this is very upsetting for me. You have to understand this?’ ‘Nah, we really don’t understand and we don’t care.’ So, whatever. They’ll get theirs. 

My mental health was not good, from when this began and it was taking a toll on my marriage, on my family, on me personally, physically, mentally, and I mean, it’s really nobody’s business, but, my mental health was not good. It’s better now, thank God. I’ve gotten some help, I’ve gotten fixed — well, working on being fixed, as we all can be. But, for a company that cares so much about their athletes… I booked an appointment with the psychiatrist and I got all the text messages of me just ranting and raving with the poor guy, David Weinstein. I set up an appointment with him on Thursday because we were taping TV that next day and then they fired me on Wednesday. So, you guys really care about the people that you employ.

So, yeah, it wasn’t about Ian at that point anymore. But I did kind of lump him in-in all of it. But now it’s like I’m trying to process it. So forgiving him is easy. Forgiving him, it’s already done as far as I’m concerned. But, again, you cannot do something like that. It happened to a much greater extent — 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. I was not a fit for AEW. I just felt like it was a very different kind of place and very stressful. So many people. There was so much chaos and it just really stressed me out a lot. So, I was much happier in New Japan, except for the flights.”

Tony Khan also never acknowledged Kevin Kelly’s AEW departure. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen how Kevin Kelly will try to deal with Ian Riccaboni in the end, as he does plan on taking legal action.

Are you surprised by everything Kevin Kelly had to say about his AEW release? Sound off in the comments section below!