AAA Booker Konnan Opens Up About Working With Tony Khan & AEW

AAA's Konnan lifted the lid on his experience working with Tony Khan's AEW in light of the latter's recent collaborations with Mexican promotional rival, CMLL. CMLL stars were featured prominently during and prior to AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door last month, with Chris Jericho due to wrestle Mistico at Arena Mexico in the near future and Atlantis Jr. even capturing the ROH Television Championship from AEW star Kyle Fletcher. 

AAA appeared to share a close working relationship with AEW previously, with Kenny Omega capturing the AAA Mega Championship in 2021, and FTR winning the AAA Tag titles on AEW programming. However, Konnan explained during "Keepin' it 100" that he felt the deal was becoming one-sided. 

"Tony gave us Swerve last year when he wasn't hot yet," Konnan recalled, replying to the suggestion he should try to bring in the current AEW Champion. "He did a match with Vikingo which was actually excellent. But right now, he's hot, [Tony] won't give me no hot commodities... I'll ask for somebody like you know, 'Hey can you give me Omega or Jericho or Punk,' when he was there, and he gives me like Ring of Honor guys. I'm like, 'Come on, dude.'" 

Konnan then reflected on the way Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo's reign as AAA Mixed Tag Team Champions came to an end,. "They were missing shows. I was like, 'Bro, you need to send the belts [via] Federal Express,' and he did... They didn't show up, like, two or three shows." However, his issues with Tony Khan and AEW didn't stop there.

Konan also recalled an instance where Tony Khan pulled Melo due to another talent on his women's roster contracting COVID-19. The former WCW star questioned why it had to be the talent he'd booked in advance, but obliged all the same. 

"He got really, really mad about this and I can't even believe he got mad," he said. "At that time, one of the females, and I'm still not going to say the name in case he [sic] out again like he did. He says, 'Since this girl has COVID,' I need to use Tay,' I was thinking to myself, 'Let me see, you've got so many girls but you're going to use her? Okay.'"

After stripping them of their titles, Konnan addressed Melo and Sammy Guevara missing AAA Noche de Campeones, referring to "some girl" who had contracted COVID. According to him, Khan was angered by what he'd perceived as Konnan dismissing the situation. 

"When he saw me he goes, 'What do you mean some chick?... Like, give me a break dude... So would you rather me have said the name? Which I don't think he wanted to get out there, because it wasn't out there." 

With all said and done, Konnan opined that AAA didn't need AEW owing to recent commercial performance, reasoning that Khan's promotion had been expensive and hard to work with, but he noticed that things appear to be smoother between AEW and CMLL. "I see they haven't had that problem with [CMLL], so you know, whether he's trying to stick it up [sic] because, you know, I don't put over his thing. Or he's just having a good business relationship and it's easy to work with them. I have no idea."