Does Joey Janela Regret His AEW Run?

Joey Janela's AEW career came to an end in May after just over three years with the company, having been involved from the start of the promotion. But does he regret his time with AEW? That's a question that Janela answered during an interview with "The Sessions with Renee Paquette."

"I don't regret anything on my AEW run," Janela said, at least not when it came to anything inside the ring. "The things I regret is not getting an action figure, not pushing on [with Sonny Kiss], if we did a little promo package like that every week, or every other week, I am sure our careers would have been a lot different at this point."

The eventual split between Janela and his partner, Kiss, is something that unfolded on "AEW Dark," which Janela admitted "is not Tony's priority, it's really just to pad the records for storyline purposes." This led to Janela getting an opportunity to showcase his creative side when it came to how the breakup was executed.

"I would just go to Cody or QT and I'd say, 'Alright, this is what we're doing this week, this is what I'm doing this week,' and they would go, 'Okay,'" Janela said. "There was a couple of weeks where they didn't bring me up to TV, so it went on way too long ... but the payoff was good with me and Sonny, and unfortunately I beat Sonny in that last match, because the plans were to bring me and Kayla back to TV."

Janela and Kiss' run as a tag team was popular among fans, but it wasn't a partnership that got to be pushed on "Dynamite" or "Rampage." According to Janela, Cody Rhodes was heavily involved in their efforts to get their careers back on track, as he got behind some 'Miami Vice' style vignettes designed for the pair.

"Cody out of his own pocket paid for these vignettes, it took like seriously like 15 hours to film," Janela said. "We watched it and we were like, 'Wow, this is really good stuff, this is really awesome,' Cody was like, 'It's really good,' They showed it to Tony, Tony f*cking hated it, he hated these promos, he thought they were phony, fake, he hates it, he hates the invisible camera, he hates the cinematic stuff, which they've done a lot more, but maybe it's just because it was me and they knew I was actually gonna get over this time."

Janela was able to get the vignettes on television in an edited-down format, although the Bad Boy revealed that he "had to beg" Khan for even that, but they ended up becoming a hit on social media, which helped the team.

"People were talking about it all over, it was trending on Twitter," he said. "Eric Bischoff he watched it, he said, 'Oh, that was one of the greatest promos I've ever seen in my life,' he said, 'This was really awesome,' but that wasn't the intention that Tony had with us, so he didn't like the video."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "The Sessions with Renee Paquette" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.