Jake Hager Critiques Tony Khan for Being Unprofessional & Disrespectful, Recalls Incident of Khan Storming Into a Talent Meeting

– During a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former AEW and WWE wrestler Jake Hager was highly critical of his former AEW boss, Tony Khan, critiquing him for being acting unprofessional and disrespectful. Hager noted that Khan couldn’t accept criticism while overseeing AEW’s creative plans. He also detailed an incident where Khan stormed into a meeting that was talent only after the situation involving CM Punk. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Jake Hager on Tony Khan not wanting him in AEW: “It was the second Blood & Guts we did in Vegas. It was against, Daniel Bryan [aka Bryan Danielson] and Cesaro [aka Claudio Castagnoli] and those guys, and then Sammy jumped off the cage. My first contract with AEW was up, and after that we were like the negotiation process was very one way. I could tell that- well, anyways, I always find a way to say this every day. So I think everyone should say **** Tony Khan. I could tell that he didn’t want me there. He offered me like a year and a half. I was like, bro, I just did Stadium Stampede twice. Like don’t act like Stadium Stampede didn’t put AEW on the map. I was in the debut episode. I was the big spoiler and you offer me 18 months after all that?”

On Khan acting unprofessional and disrespectful, and storming into a talent-only meeting after the CM Punk incident: “So it was that and the way that he started running the business that it really, like he wasn’t a professional. Like we- like after all the [CM] Punk **** that went down, the boys got together and we had a meeting and this was the boys only, no office, right? We’re all like- Stings in there, (Big) Show, Jericho, Bryan, Mox, they’re all standing at the front kind of like talking us through this **** and lo and behold, who comes into the room storming in? Daddy’s little billionaire. He’s like yelling at us because I think it was Dax and Cash, Cash and Wheeler didn’t want to come in. They didn’t like the storyline. So they refused to come to TV that day, and he was like, ‘Listen, I’ll put you in a six man, six minutes before the show and you’re going to do it.’ And we’re all feeling disrespected. I still to this day, wish I would have stood up and said a lot of things, but like you just told Sting that you’re going to put him in a six man and six minutes, but then you’re going to honor him for his retirement?”

On his issues with how Tony Khan ran AEW: “We became his little play things. We had to wait outside his office, his storylines were very good at debuting, but he can never carry anything through and it got to the point where- I’m carrying on, but it got to the point where I couldn’t tell him anything. He couldn’t take criticism. He was ****ing up, and we were all just having to deal with it. We all had blood, sweat, and tears put into that company. We were all there at the beginning, we all had our careers behind us that helped build that company. Then we all had to just sit side by side and couldn’t do anything because he wanted to run it the way he wanted to run it.”