AEW Giving Wrestlers On Expiring Contracts The Silent Treatment?
Joey Janela alleges that AEW "stopped communicating" with him in new interview.
Though Joey Janela had a "wonderful experience" in All Elite Wrestling, he alleges that the promotion gave him the silent treatment on the way out of the company.
Janela claimed as much during his interview with Denise Salcedo, having stated that he won't be re-signing with the Tony Khan-helmed company when his contract expires in May. The same thing seemingly happened to Marko Stunt, whose AEW status is currently unclear, with January bringing reports that like Janela, the Jurassic Express affiliate was working on an expiring deal.
Speaking with Salcedo, Janela said that he couldn't confirm his suspicion that he had backstage heat as the AEW office stopped talking to him:-
"I’ve had a string of bad luck throughout my AEW career and that may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back but I don’t know because they don’t communicate with me. They did the same thing to Marko Stunt. They just stopped talking to him. But I appreciate them. If you have talent relations, I know Christopher Daniels would love nothing more than to tell me I am no longer with the company. But it is what it is. I am not sad, I am not mad, I am not mad at anyone, I had a wonderful experience.”
This comes following Chavo Guerrero Jr.'s quiet removal from the AEW roster, seemingly to the talent's own surprise. Following this, Chavo claimed that Khan had promised him he'd have a job waiting for him once he finished working on Young Rock's second season last year, with the AEW President later confessing that while Guerrero Jr. was on a week-to-week contract, he "owed him a call."
Communication issues seemed evident in Big Swole's late-2021 split from AEW too. Initially described by Swole as a "mutual agreement", Khan later claimed that he had let her go as he felt her "wrestling wasn't good enough," doing so after Swole claimed AEW's lack of opportunities for African-American performers contributed to her leaving.
As covered elsewhere, it is not expected that AEW will use Janela again before his contract expires.