Several people in AEW “not happy” with major departure - Reports
AEW is battling something else along with a ratings fall, dwindling ticket sales, and their top stars landing in other wrestling promotions. The roster and backstage are unhappy.
Currently, a reason for that is seemingly a certain Kevin Sullivan, who was let go by the company. Sullivan - not the professional wrestler who's retired - was the VP of Post Production and has been relieved of his duties.
Dave Meltzer has spoken up about it on WOR and gave some background about Kevin Sullivan:
"There's a lot of people that were not happy about this today, which is also one of the reasons I think why there's a lot of… all day hearing negativity, is because of this one, because he's been there from the start, and there's this feeling that the company is changing. The feeling that it's changed and it's become something that it wasn't," he began.
He revealed why people in AEW were unhappy with Sullivan's leaving:
"And this is another sign of the idea that they took a guy from WWE and replaced their… I can’t even say replaced because they were two different jobs - Mike Mansury is the head of the production at the shows, and Kevin Sullivan was the head of the post-production. But the idea that they brought in a guy from WWE and put him above the guy that they had, who had the ability to get rid of the guy."
Meltzer finally added:
"So that was, for people who had been there from the start, I could see where that's another thing of WWE guys taking the place of guys who were here from the start."
Check out the tweet here:
The current departure is just an addition to the number of big names who have left the company this year. While wrestlers routinely leave rosters and rejoin, it's pretty rare for the exit of a backstage executive to grab headlines. With AEW, even that's happening.
Kevin Sullivan trolls fans after news of AEW's departure
Kevin Sullivan, the professional wrestler who was active for more than four decades, trolled wrestling fans once news of his namesake being released by Tony Khan hit the headlines.
Check the tweet here:
"I was not let go by AEW today."
All this is just further proof that Tony Khan's AEW is something that even the veterans of wrestling seemingly follow. Earlier, the likes of Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo criticized Khan and his booking, with Russo even saying that Khan should give him booking rights for the show for six months.
What do you think? Is Tony Khan's company turning into a sinking ship? Tell us in the comments section.