Joey Janela Says He Was 'Regressing' In AEW Prior To His Departure

Joey Janela's AEW contract expired last year, with the wrestler noting that he wasn't interested in re-signing with the promotion afterward. Following his release, the GCW star revealed that he superkicked Eddie Kingston and accidentally broke his eye socket, which led to him attracting some heat behind the scenes. However, Janela believes that his in-ring performances in AEW were going downhill before the incident with "The Mad King" took place.

In an interview with "K100 w/Konnan & Disco," Janela said that he regressed in AEW as he wasn't wrestling as much as he'd have liked to, especially during the COVID-19 era when there were fewer independent events running for wrestlers to get more reps in. As such, most of his appearances were on "AEW Dark," and they weren't always frequent. "I would get in the ring and wrestle a couple of times per month in these four-minute matches, and I saw my talent regressing." He believes this is what caused him to start botching some moves.

Janela also stated that the lack of television time for some wrestlers is due to Tony Khan booking weekly television shows like "mini pay-per-view[s]." The former AEW star said that "WCW Nitro" had the right idea as the show boasted some great wrestling matches, but most of them were under six minutes and this allowed more performers to get television time. However, AEW takes a different approach. "[Khan] has two hours to pull off this TV show and he has a lot of people, a lot of pieces in that puzzle, and a lot of guys he has to try to satisfy, and he's booking 30 minutes every week."