Former AEW star Jake Hager recently appeared on Sportskeeda’s WrestleBinge podcast, where he shared his candid thoughts on AEW President Tony Khan, the promotion’s creative process, and how things changed after Cody Rhodes left the company.
Hager reflected on his run in AEW and didn’t hold back when discussing Khan’s leadership.
He said, “I was fortunate enough to have a career—I mean, I was 17 years long almost on TV, non-stop. So, very blessed to have that. But to get to the end of the career and to have someone like Tony Khan, who’s been in this business a cup of coffee and doesn’t really know… he can’t make himself a sandwich, let alone write a storyline that will last. He could spend a lot of money and make a big debut and make a lot of fireworks, but in the end, he’s in charge. And we’re supposed to trust him to make storylines that make our careers.”
Hager confirmed his belief that Khan holds complete control over creative, “Absolutely. There’s yes-men that help him write his storylines, but there’s no one there that can tell him ‘no.’”
Hager also revealed that he noticed a shift after Cody Rhodes departed AEW in early 2022, “I think everything changed after he left, because he was involved with it. After that, it just kind of became a free-for-all. The Young Bucks and Kenny [Omega] still had a big say in what they were doing. Chris [Jericho] obviously still had a big say in what he was doing. But even Chris would tell me that Tony would not respond to his messages for like two weeks.”
He added that production and communication within AEW broke down over time, “It became a point where either AEW is important, or it’s not. And it just seemed like it was not to him, because they stopped doing production meetings. They stopped doing anything to make the show timely. We would be waiting around until like 5:00 p.m. to find out what we were doing that day. And what live television show does that? Only one with money behind it.”
Fans can check out the complete interview below:
