Ex-AEW Wrestler Exposes Tony Khan’s Shocking Backstage Side

Jake Hager’s contract with Tony Khan’s AEW expired in May 2024, marking the end of his nearly five-year run with the company.

After departing AEW, he worked a few independent wrestling dates, but publicly announced his retirement by August 2025. He said he was moving on to run his own business and was done with wrestling.

After leaving AEW, Hager has often publicly criticized Tony Khan because of his alleged unpleasant experience in the company. Hager expressed disappointment in AEW’s work environment, saying he felt like a “plaything” under Khan’s leadership and that communication issues were widespread.

Jake Hager Criticizes AEW and Tony Khan

Speaking on Chris Van Vliet’s Insight podcast in August, Jake Hager buried Tony Khan by claiming that he can’t even write a storyline properly. Hager spoke more about his experience working for Tony Khan with Bill Apter, Chris Featherstone, and Dutch Mantell on the UnSKripted podcast.

He revealed that Tony Khan lacks the qualities to run a wrestling promotion and pointed out that production meetings and storyline consistency virtually stopped after Cody Rhodes left AEW, which created confusion and a lack of professionalism in the company.

He described Khan as someone who interrupted wrestlers’ meetings, couldn’t take criticism, and insisted on being surrounded by “yes men” instead of real advisors. The retired ex-AEW star observed that sometimes wrestlers waited around until the last minute to find out what they were doing for the show that night, criticizing the disorganized and last-minute planning behind the scenes.

“To get to the end of the career and to have someone like Tony Khan who’s been in this business a cup of coffee and doesn’t really know—he can’t make himself a sandwich, let alone write a storyline that will last…he’s got contributors—yes-men that help him write his storylines—but there’s no one there that could tell him no. Everything changed after Cody left… it just became a free-for-all.”

“You were at the building at like 1 a.m., 2 a.m. after the show was done… You were waiting in line because he had so many other important things going on, and you never got his full attention. He would give you some kind of bulls— response like, ‘Oh, I see you in a tag team with Sammy Guevara.’ Like, I don’t really see you doing that. What do you do? You would have to know Tony to know how I’m speaking about him.”