Update on Kevin Kelly’s Firing from AEW

As noted before, Kevin Kelly was recently fired from AEW over issues related to a recent online incident involving Kelly accusing AEW and ROH commentator Ian Riccaboni committing libel against him. Besides the online incident, AEW officials had also not been happy with Kelly’s quality of work as a commentator for the company.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Kelly’s firing has yet to be officially confirmed by anyone within AEW.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that they have no knowledge of exactly what the situation is regarding Kelly’s firing beyond one person stating that they believed that Pro Wrestling Torch’s report about it was accurate. Others spoken to reportedly stated that things are not clear and AEW CEO Tony Khan has not said anything directly one way or the other beyond the obvious of Kelly not being there anymore. Another person spoken to close to the situation reportedly only stated “it was an internal matter.”

Meltzer reported that Riccaboni’s original comments directed towards Kelly over them arguing online over a sex trafficking documentary film titled The Sound of Freedom that is allegedly deceitful and funded by QAnon had been addressed when they were first made months ago. Meltzer also reported that none of those spoken to wanted to talk about it in depth due to the potential and threat of it becoming a legal situation.

Meltzer reported that while Kelly’s profile had been removed from AEW’s roster page and he was not in attendance at last week’s Collision tapings, the current expectation within the company is that Kelly and AEW officials will be holding a talk at some point in the future.

In regards to Riccaboni’s comments, Meltzer reported that Riccaboni did not originally expect any of this to go public when he first made the comments on a private discord but when it did, he did not deny that it was his feelings over the matter.