Frankie Kazarian Reflects on His AEW Exit, Says AEW Lacked Management & Leadership

– During a recent virtual signing with K&S WrestleFest, TNA Wrestling star and former AEW Tag Team Champion Frankie Kazarian discussed his AEW exit, revealing that his wife Traci Brooks advised him to leave AEW about a year-and-a-half before he ended up doing so. He also noted that AEW lacked management and leadership before he left. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Frankie Kazarian on when his wife told him he had to leave: “Funny thing about my wife, she obviously knows the business very well. She went to one [AEW] show, physically went there with me. She was in there for maybe a half hour and she pulled me aside and she said, ‘You have got to get out of here.’”

On this happing a year-and-a-half before his exit: “This was a year and a half before I left. She saw, half an hour, and she said, you have to get out of here. She knew my frustrations at the time, and she just got that vibe too. I’m not burying the company, to all the AEW fans. It’s a fine place if that’s what you enjoy, but it just wasn’t for me.”

On AEW lacking any management or leadership: “It all comes down to management, leadership. I felt that there really wasn’t any, especially if you were not one of the featured acts. I get [it]. TK is a very, very nice guy, and I do like Tony, but his attention is on those that are on the program, and towards the end, I wasn’t one of them, and that was fine.”

On why he no longer wanted to be in the regular locker room in AEW: “The AEW locker room when I was in there, for the last two years I was there, I changed with the coaches because I didn’t want to be in the locker room for a variety of reasons and I had friends, arm Anderson and Jerry Lynn and Billy Gunn, those are my buddies, I kind of had more in common [with them]. So TNA, I actually enjoy being in the locker room because my friends are there and everyone is focused on the same goal. It’s legit the funnest locker room I’ve ever been in.”