Kevin Kelly has publicly given his side of the story on why he was fired from AEW this past March and how his soured relationship with fellow commentator Ian Riccaboni was a key factor in that happening.
Speaking during a virtual signing on Sunday, Kelly affirmed he has negative feelings toward AEW for how things ended and “wouldn’t treat my worst enemy like that.”
That comment came after Kelly was asked about his relationship with Riccaboni which began years ago when he was introduced by mutual acquaintance and wrestler Bob Evans which led to Riccaboni going on the road to do Ring of Honor dark matches and Women of Honor bouts.
Years later, Tony Khan reached out to Kelly about doing AEW Collision on Riccaboni’s recommendation after Khan told him he couldn’t due to his day job.
Kelly said weeks later around the time he was calling the G1, Riccaboni began talking badly about him on a NJPW Discord, making accusations that he had never heard about, including being a QAnon conspiracy theorist, and trying to turn NJPW fans against him due to the public nature of things. Kelly had previously said during the signing that Riccaboni was “putting the mouth on him” in the ROH offices after he had left the company which he shrugged off.
“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,” he said, later adding he feels terrible that Riccaboni was mad at him for reasons he still isn’t sure about.
Kelly said he reached out to Riccaboni about the problems and that Riccaboni said Kelly did some things to him over the years that he was pissed off about. Kelly offered to talk, but claims Riccaboni would only do so if Kelly agreed to not record the call. Kelly agreed while scoffing at the notion he would ever record any conversation, but they never talked.
He said he still doesn’t know what the problems are, but that Riccaboni did spell out one incident where Kelly made a comment about him wearing a cowboy hat sitting next to Jim Ross when Collision was in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
“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,” he said. “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,” he said.
The end of his AEW run
Around that time is when things began to go awry in AEW where he started in June 2023 with the launch of Collision.
Kelly said in NJPW, he was left alone because he knew what he was doing but in AEW, he had “all these people in my ear and I’ve got all this format stuff” and questioned why the show had to be the same as Dynamite.
“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,” he stated, later questioning that perhaps because Punk was eventually, they could then get rid of him as well.
He said he talked to the AEW office about the Riccaboni issues and that mentally, he was getting into a bad spot. He referenced going public on X with what he called libel from Riccaboni, saying he also “vented” on a voicemail to an unnamed VP of HR who he said he never met or spoke to before. He said he was kept in the dark about his complaints to HR about Riccaboni and that AEW’s disciplinary committee would handle it to make a decision. He pressed for what the decision was after they met, but was unable to be told what the outcome was.
‘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,” he said.
He knew the situation with AEW wasn’t going to work and told management he was getting into a bad spot with everything going on. He said after he aired his grievances, he was let go by AEW VP Mike Mansury and the aforementioned VP of HR.
Kelly said his mental health has improved since the firing, but was not good during his AEW run as it was taking a physical and mental toll on both himself and his marriage. He said he had set up an appointment with an AEW-appointed psychiatrist on a Thursday and then was fired the day before.
While he has forgiven Riccaboni, Kelly still has taken umbrage with the public nature of things and related it to Hana Kimura, a popular Japanese wrestler who committed suicide in part due to negative things said about her on social media.
“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. I was much happier in New Japan, except for the flights and the travel,” he said.
