Jake Hager has opened up about his departure from All Elite Wrestling, stating that he became “very jaded” with the company and its president, Tony Khan. Hager was one of the original members of the AEW roster, making a surprise debut on the very first episode of AEW Dynamite in October 2019 as a member of Chris Jericho’s Inner Circle faction.
“Daddy’s Little Billionaire”
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on his Insight podcast, Hager recounted a talent meeting that took place after the infamous “Brawl Out” incident involving CM Punk. He described a “boys only” meeting led by veterans like Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley that was interrupted by an angry Tony Khan.
“He wasn’t a professional. After all the Punk shit 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 Sting’s in there, Show, Jericho, Bryan, Mox, they’re all standing at the front, kind of like, talking us through this shit, and lo and behold, who become, who comes into the room storming in? Daddy’s little billionaire, and he’s like, yelling at us… We were all feeling disrespected. And I still to this day wish I would have stood up and said, you know, a lot of things, but like, you just told Sting that you’re going to put them in a six-man in six minutes, but then you’re going to honor him for his retirement. We became his little playthings.”
“Couldn’t Take Criticism”
Hager went on to express his frustration with what he saw as Khan’s inability to take constructive criticism from his veteran talent. He believes this management style led to a decline in his own passion for the business.
“We had to wait outside his office. His storylines were very good at debuting, but he could never carry anything through. And then got to the point where I’m carrying on, but it got to the point where couldn’t tell him anything. He couldn’t take criticism. He was f—ing up, and we’re all just having to deal with it, you know, like we all had blood, sweat and tears put into that company. We were all there at the beginning, like we all had our careers behind us that helped build that company, and 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.”
Jake Hager has since retired from professional wrestling and has started his own trucking company in Florida. You can hear the latest episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet below:
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
