During a recent appearance on the “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” podcast, former AEW star Jack Evans commented on how AEW viewed himself and Angelico during the early days of the promotion, what his biggest regret in AEW is, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how AEW viewed himself and Angelico: “That first year I think they were pretty happy with us. And we were committed heels. We weren’t the types to go up to the office and go ‘oh we want this and that.’ I call us nine to fivers; we would just show up, find out what we had to do, go to the locker room, mess around, and do what we had to do. There were zero politics for us. And our in-ring performance and what they wanted out of us, it matched that and it was fine. But then, after that, I think they started looking at me and Angelico differently, because, as I said, I got plump. I just got out of shape. I just wasn’t on the ball at all, and Angelico never really fell off. He kept steady with Angelico being Angelico. I think that that’s when they started to view us as two separate entities. Like ‘oh man, Jack’s kind of a lazy bum and Angelico’s still doing his thing. We got to trim the fat.’”
On not burying his head in the sand: “I just always feel you’ve got to be realistic with yourself, or else whatever problems it was isn’t going to get solved. And the other thing is because I’m such a 9 to 5 wrestler, I don’t have anybody else to blame, except for one incident with Kenny (Omega) where I busted open his lip, which I apologized to hell for. I have no heat with anyone, that I know of anyway. There wasn’t anyone politicking against me. So I’d have to stretch it to be like ‘oh it was Chris Harrington!’ ‘No, it wasn’t, what are you talking about?’ I think part of the self-awareness is that I don’t have anyone else to blame because I’m not knee-deep in the politics. So if I’m getting released and Angelico’s not, we were always together, we were always in the same meetings, talking to the same people, who are you going to blame? It’s kind of obvious who the culprit is.”
On if things would be different for him if he hadn’t suffered from two several-month layoffs in 2020: “Yeah, but I don’t think that would’ve changed anything. I think, in the end, it just came down to me having an extended period of laziness. So during those four months or whatever, I probably would’ve been used more, and maybe I would’ve stayed on the ball a little bit better if I didn’t have that layoff. I just think I didn’t have the right mentality when I was on salary. It just felt like it was going to last forever.”
On his biggest highlight while working at AEW and regret: “I didn’t have many classics. I would say my singles with Kenny Omega, which was actually on a Dark, except that Kenny Omega match should’ve been one of those classic, six-star Kenny Omega matches. I was so out of shape, so I was in a neurotic mess putting that match together with him. The whole time I’m trying to tell him, I’m insinuating to him ‘I’m going to be blown up. I’m not going to be able to do this.’ It almost could’ve been a big break if I had hit a home run in that match.
“A lot of people put that match over as great, and it was pretty good, but it should’ve been so much more. We had to cut so much out, so much was not executed properly. That one right there, again a recurring theme, was 100% my fault. I was so out of wrestling shape that he just outworked me to such an extent that we had to end the match early because I was done. So the Kenny Omega match is both a highlight for me and one of my biggest AEW regrets. I shouldn’t have fallen off so far where I couldn’t handle the match at all, the way Kenny wanted it. That really should’ve been a classic. It came off good, I still like the match and everything. But that one specifically kind of hurts me, because I’m like ‘man, that could’ve been a career-maker.’”
You can keep up with all your wrestling news right here on eWrestlingNews.com. Or, you can follow us over on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
