Karen Jarrett has come to the defense of Tony Khan, and she drew a sharp contrast with her former boss to do it.
Speaking on My World with Jeff Jarrett, Karen was asked about her experience with the AEW president, given how strongly people online react to him. “That man gets so much sh– online that he does not deserve. He is one of the kindest human beings that I have met,” she said.
Karen then compared Khan to Dixie Carter on the subject of pay. “I can say this since we’re on the subject of these two people, where Dixie wouldn’t compensate talent or wouldn’t compensate female wrestlers, Tony Khan goes above and beyond to compensate his wrestlers and the people that work for him, maybe sometimes too much in my opinion, but he takes care of the people that work for him, no matter what level you’re on.”
Her comments on pay under Carter echo what Awesome Kong said on this week’s Dark Side of the Ring premiere, where Kong recounted asking TNA for a raise, being told her points were not disputed, and calculating that she made less than a manager at McDonald’s while multiple Knockouts champions worked second jobs.
Karen speaks from direct experience on both sides. She spent years around TNA during the Carter era and later appeared in AEW alongside Jeff Jarrett, who serves as an AEW executive. Elsewhere in the interview, she described how the AEW chapter brought her back to wrestling. “I was in a place where I did not miss the business and was really happy where I was in life,” she said of the Ric Flair’s Last Match project that led into the run. “It was like, I didn’t realize how much I missed being around the business, and wanted to be back in. I don’t think I knew that.”
The interview was taped in front of a live audience and released the day the Dark Side of the Ring three-part story on Jeff Jarrett and TNA premiered.
