Fired AEW Star Suing The Company
Former AEW announcer Kevin Kelly has revealed that he is suing the company over his firing.
Back in March, Kevin Kelly was fired by AEW following an outburst on social media that saw the veteran announcer accuse Ian Riccaboni of sabotaging his career as well as claim he had made libelous comments.
Kelly also believed he had been “benched” by AEW because of Riccaboni’s actions. He later blasted AEW for his treatment, saying he “wouldn’t treat his worst enemy” the way the promotion had treated him over the situation.
According to Kelly, his relationship with AEW changed while he was on hiatus to call the G1 Climax for New Japan Pro Wrestling. During the five weeks he was gone, the announcer says Riccaboni used a New Japan Discord chat to accuse him of taking shots at him on social media as well as being a believer of QAnon conspiracy theories – something Kelly denies.
“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.” (h/t POST Wrestling)
Kevin Kelly Plans To Sue AEW
Kevin Kelly says he tried to resolve the issues with Ian Riccaboni by going through AEW HR. While it was taken through the disciplinary committee, Kelly was not told the outcome of their meeting on the issues and it felt like they didn’t care about his plight.
‘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. (h/t POST Wrestling)
During an appearance on a recent episode of Eric Bischoff’s Wise Choices podcast, Kelly discussed the situation and his frustrations with the company. When Bischoff asked if he was going to sue the company, he confirmed that was going to happen.
Bischoff asked, “So what are you gonna do? suing them?”
Kelly responded, “Yeah, of course.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the above transcription.