Frankie Kazarian made his return to Impact Wrestling in January after requesting AEW to not renew his contract.
Kazarian decided to quit AEW after he was upset with his spot in the company. It was said at the time that AEW and Kazarian had parted ways on amicable terms and that AEW President Tony Khan was open to working with Kazarian in the future.
On a recent edition of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, Kazarian recalled his departure from AEW in 2022 and his talks with WWE around that time. He said,
“Very good. I have relationships with a lot of people there. Matt Bloom is one because Matt Bloom and I were in Kawolski’s [Killer Kawolski] school together. He runs developmental and he had contacted me, ‘You still want to wrestle?’ ‘Absolutely.’ ‘What do you think about coaching?’ ‘I don’t know, maybe down the road that is something I want to do.’ ‘Okay.’ We talked about player-coach roles and a whole bunch of things. I had conversations with a few other people. There were offers made, and very generous, and everybody up there was very cool. Something told me, ‘Not yet, this isn’t the place to be right now.’”
In a recent interview with Wrestling Shoot Interviews, Tully Blanchard revealed that no one came to him or Arn Anderson for advice during his time in AEW. Blanchard was signed to Tony Khan’s promotion from 2019 to 2022.
He said, “Nobody. As far as I know, Arn or myself, nobody ever came to us. I don’t know that…my mind and the world that I came from in this business, I don’t know if there’s anything that I could offer. Because I don’t know how to do what they do. Because it is a, ‘Okay, I’m gonna do this, and the fans have to cheer for it or boo it, or be quiet.’ But the match never changes. Whereas if I did something and the fans didn’t react, I changed course right then. But I had that ability because my job was to make people scream. I don’t know that they really know how to do that [be spontaneous] anymore.”
