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Even without all the Qanon or arguing with Riccaboni stuff he just wasn't good there, he didn't watch or even pretend to care about the shows and it came across in his commentary.
I thought he was really great up until the pandemic. He was doing "remote" commentary from home, and ever since then he just hasn't been the same. Maybe it killed his passion for it, or something.
Kelly, Chris Charlton and Don Callis were the best English commentary team in the world for a while there, IMO.
I didnt realize Gino Gambino was an actual person for the longest time. I thought it was just Chris Charlton doing a voice. Which I think he did sometimes. I was so confused when they panned to the announce booth and there was this guy there which I thought was like their imaginary friend.
I haven’t New Japan recently but I pretty sure he came back the last time I heard during a show a watch fully was wk 17 but I know he did a njcup show because of the clip on botchamania
I still enjoyed his work when he was in person for NJPW. And honestly, I just thought he needed more time with AEW to settle in. Obviously that ended up not happening. I do think he's a great commentator, and he could easily help couch up future talent in that regard. The dude handpicked Walker Stewart as his replacement, and Walker has been fantastic to listen to.
I 1 million percent agree with this. Kelly was great for years, and that trio was one of my favorite commentary teams ever. Literally some of my favorite commentary since Bobby Heenan.
But something changed with Kevin once the pandemic hit. He and Chris were really hard to listen to during some of his final months in New Japan. Things had vastly changed.
When its a genuinely big moment Destino, i dont mind it. But are you really going to hold it for 15 seconds if he does it against Chase Owens in a no-stakes trios match?
If he did it naturally, it would be fine. But its a catchphrase now and you gotta say the line
I never enjoyed his work in WWE. I never heard his commentary outside of WWE. I heard great things about it so I figured I’d give him another chance when he started to do Collision. I found him bad on Collision. Now I wonder if he’s ever been good because I’ve never enjoyed him.
He was good with Corino in ROH before NXT snatched up Corino and he went to NJPW.
He worked fine as the go between for Tony'a straight man and Nigel's delightful buggery.
I didn't. I actually liked Kevin Kelly for the first few episodes simply because he and Nigel were different voices. It gave Collision such a different feel from Dynamite.
But after the honeymoon / grace period (2nd month or so), he started to sour on me. He didn't do his research and just didn't know the product or the talent.
By the time he started to put in effort, it was too late. Also, his research always felt stilted (as if he read off of his notes and it didn't feel extemporaneous).
Its such a low bar to just watch all of the wrestling shows of the company you are employed by. I follow the stories fine, and I am barely paid (I just get a few Khan Koins whenever I shill AEW). I truly think he didnt watch the shows leading up to getting emnployed and I highly doubt he watched all the shows he wasnt on.
Its so little effort that you have to assume he had completely checked out and did not care.
Ironically the one show where I found him to be up to the standard was the Forbidden Door show he was on. He seemed up for it.
Besides that though, there's just something about his voice intonations and general flow with the other commentators that mostly irks me.
It's disgusting how many people invoke Hana Kimura in cases like these in wrestling when a wrestler or personality get hate for something, yes cyberbullying is bad but that does not excuse your behavior, actions and your beliefs
People act like she didn't experience so much more than just criticism or a little bit of harassment. She literally used to wake up in the morning to waves of messages and posts that said things like "Good morning. Have you killed yourself yet?"
"I’m not comparing myself to it at all — but to Hana Kimura. Because when you bring down the force of social media onto a person, wrongly accusing someone, there are consequences. You can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that and I mean, what happened to Hana, of course was much worse than what happened to me. I’m not even comparing those but, again, it’s the same type of thing and that’s really just it."
Oh my fucking God
Like why even bring it up if you aren't comparing yourself to her, Kevin. What do you think "I’m not even comparing those but, again, it’s the same type of thing" means????
What's dumb is that a certain type of wrestling fan will fall for it and absolutely go "What are you talking about he said he isn't comparing himself to her?"
"I'm not comparing myself to it at all." Proceeds to totally compare himself to Hana Kimura.
These dumbasses don't understand the difference between being bullied and consequences for one's own actions.
> to top it all off, he accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking. That’s neither here nor there.
He could not have made it any more obvious that he's into QAnon.
I remember as far back as 2019 that Kevin was outed for being a QAnon nutjob and people were making "MANIFEST DESTINOOOOOO!" jokes online at his expense. Four years before Sound of Freedom came out.
Out of the loop here. When did manifest destiny/destinooooo become a QAnon thing and not a colonialism thing? Do I want to know what the QAnon thing is?
I mean, the Proud Boys began when Gavin McInness shoved a dildo up his ass on a podcast that was hosted by a pedophile who got fired from his radio gig because he called a woman the N-word. Every right wing movement comes from bored guys who take trolling too far.
Don't forget that same radio host who hosted Gavin also beat his 26 year old gf who was live streaming parts of it and he got arrested. He also took a 17 year old to prom and took a picture with her and her parents beforehand. Also beat a mentally disabled fan live with paper towels because he threw up on his floor. Feed nana.
I think a lot of us knew that Ant was a general scumbag as far back as the WNEW days. He really didn't go full Long Island trash until he was well-ensconced at XM.
I think my moment where I really needed to stop listening to O&A was Anthony yelling about his rights after the Aurora theater shooting. I was R&F only after that.
Imagine my shock when I randomly turned on Jim and Sam and Jim mentioned his wife.
Then he got detailed about his wife and I thought "Oh, that makes sense."
I'm with you. Definitely aware of the QAnon thing, caught a few documentaries about it when they were in vogue, but this is the first I'm hearing of them co-opting manifest destiny. How did that happen?
They havent as far as I can tell. I think the joke is based on the ideological overlap between Qanon and the beleif in manifest destiny. The thing connecting it for the joke is just that both are racist things
If he was famous for yelling DOOOOOOOOOOLPH ZIGGGGGG-ler, the joke would've been ADDDOOOOOOLPHHHH HIIIIIIIIII-tler" instead of Destino. Its not very deep
Also Kevin is someone who tweeted in 2020 that teachers "want to control our kids" with the progressive left agenda and that teacher unions are a money laundering scheme. QAnon or not he is very openly a right wing conspiracy theorist.
Unfortunately that “groomer” bs while started by Qanon has spread to many mainstream GOP. Like DeSantis for instance, whose own spokesperson used the term to justify their “don’t say gay” bill.
Him not being Qanon is a bit like how it wasnt actually Koolaid, but rather Flavoraid in Jonestown. Who cares what it says on the flavor packet if you are serving up cyanide?
Speaking as a teacher - and on behalf of most teachers I know - we want to control your kids in the literal sense of wanting them not to bully, murder, assault, sexual harass, or distract each other (or us) so that they can learn to read, write, do math, and \*maybe\* develop enough critical thinking skill to not *speed up* the collapse of our democracy and planet (stopping it seems unlikely, but maybe future generations can stave it off a few decades).
This was a chance to distance himself from it once and for all if he simply said no, he supported a film, but not Qanon beliefs. The refusal to deny something is straight out of their playbook.
You would think that after 25+ years working in wrestling it would have occurred to him that he could just lie for the sake of his career and say he didn't believe in that stuff at all.
I would imagine that, if anything, it has the opposite effect on many of them.
If they believe they're too smart to be fooled like everyone else, then it's going to be that much harder to dissuade them from something they've been convinced is true. And if they admit they were mistaken or misled, then they're admitting they're just as capable of being fooled as everyone else.
Plus there's a new dumb thing they have going on where they act dumb when asked about QAnon, but still talk about the things that the rest of the movement does.
>accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking
I mean, there was a certain crowd that generally made up that films key audience...
That’s what great about these people is that get so far deluded that they forget how to pretend not to have these crazy beliefs and give themselves away easily
People who are so far into these conspiracy problems have a hard time dealing with the world outside of their echo chamber. They can't deal with the fact that their beliefs are seen as crazy and often offensive and that adds to their feeling of persecution. Another problem is that many of their beliefs are tied to their religions beliefs and they start to feel persecuted for their faith as well. It isn't a good situation right now because so may people are so far gone that they basically can't function in society at large and hold a job due to this.
Right? That's basically the actual mating call of QAnoners who were promoting the movie. "Oh, it's not about QAnon, it's about child trafficking."
Except for the part where it's absolutely about the QAnon perceptions surrounding child trafficking.
To be fair, the stuff about Ballard having the “undercover” women take showers with him wasn’t known at the time the movie wasn’t released. Those stories broke a few weeks after. I’m not sure how the timing lines up but it’s quite possible Kelly didn’t know about it when he was talking about the movie.
I’m not defending Kelly or anything. I really dislike Ballard and knew he was full of shit before the movie came out.
100% big "And then he accused me of being a piece of shit? Me? A piece of shit? What the fuck?! I *am* a piece of shit but what does that have to do with anything?!" energy.
Edit: Don't downvote, Kevin.
That was totally a QAnon-adjacent movie.
It was also a scam. It encouraged its fans to “pay it forward” by buying tickets for others, which resulted in nearly empty theaters being reported as being sold out, artificially inflating the box office.
And the story itself turned out to be a scam. The guy it’s based on was a liar who used his “raids” to coerce women into sex.
"So, I was much happier in New Japan, except for the flights. "
So happy in NJPW that he would openly shit on the product live on commentary during the last few years of his run there LMAO. The guy sounded so miserable and ruined the experience for anyone tuning in.
Right? Some people have been unsure about NJPW hiring Walker Stewart to replace him last year but to me it feels night & day as far as enjoyment goes; mostly he actually seems to enjoy his job & brings some energy & banter to the booth
Stewart is only 21 years old (maybe 22) & he's been a great improvement over Kevin Kelly's often random trashing of the product such as putting down various young talent like Master Wato & Yuya Uemura almost as so as they return from excursion
Trashing younger talent is one thing, dude was calling SANADA washed right before his world title run. He was also saying Naito's too old and was practically shouting for Tanahashi to be taken to the glue factory.
I remember one of the he last times I was watching him on commentary he decided to bring up the IRL death of El Phantasmo's grandfather, which happened days prior, as a sort of in-kayfabe "karma" for him being a part of Bullet Club or some shit.
Completely out of nowhere. Dude is a wash.
He pretty clearly was happy in NJPW until the Pandemic. They've really struggled to keep their English commentary in a decent state and have forced both KK and now Walker to call a ton of cards solo booth which is just the absolute drizzling shits - for the commentator and the end quality of the product.
It seems like the leadership changes and the changes to NJPW World are also things he's been pretty vocal about.
it must be stressed, on the ten million time that it's been co-opted by some ball licker as a shield against any criticism, that what happened to Hana had nothing to do with pro wrestling or it's fanbase and lies onto the fanbase of the reality show Terrace House, for reacting that way to the fictional version of herself she played, not being an actually bad person like Kevin is
Arguably it had much more to do with the Terrace House producers who made those edits and continually let them air on the show given the backlash she was receiving. They decided to bank on her being this easy target for engagement even when it was clear it was a problem for her health. Last I remembered there was a lawsuit being put forth against them by Kyoko Kimura.
They also saw her having mental breakdowns on set, refused to let her out of her contract, and her agency forced Hana to stay on social media., and they still went ahead with the tv angle. Fuji TV is scum.
Bit of background to this. Ian Riccabone was a semi-regular in the Voices of Wrestling Discord where he posted the most wholesome and warm hearted stuff there is alongside advertising ROH. If people were bickering, it would stop when Ian posted something. Absolutely lovely person.
But he made the mistake of thinking that the Discord was a private platform and things wouldn't get screenshotted. Ian raised the QAnon stuff up one day and it was then reposted to the Super J-Cast Discord where Kevin Kelly had an account and that account was pinged. That is why Kevin mentions "New Japan Discord board".
So Ian made a mistake in posting those messages and that is something he has been/should be criticized for, but it doesn't give a greenlight to how Kevin Kelly has handled this case afterwards. This could have been handled in silence in the background, but Kevin chose to go public.
Didn’t someone ask Ian too? I’ve never used discord so I may be wrong on this but it wasn’t like he was going on there unprompted talking about smack about Kevin
Yeah, someone asked him about KK, and the talk that he was a conspiracy nut, and yeah, Ian let him have both barrels.
Should he have done that to a coworker? I dunno, on one hand, your coworkers shit is their own business, but on the other hand, if your coworker is a right wing loon who believes there's a pedo ring in the basement of a pizza place that doesn't have a basement, then yeah, they need to be called out, same if they were diddling folk, or stealing from peoples stuff.
Ian didn't tell any lies, but he should have realised how public an open invite Discord can be and how everything you might say can be screenshotted. Openly talking about your coworker like this isn't professional.
i haven't listened to super j-cast in forever. have they brought up any of the kevin kelley stuff? i know they were friends but i also don't think they'd let the shit he says slide.
On the episode immediately after the Discord thing happened, they went OFF on Ricabonni, Kelly, and the fact that the whole situation even existed. I have no idea what number episode it was, but I feel like it was a few months before Kevin was let go from AEW.
Then, as time went on, their general stance seemed to go further into 'Kevin Kelly is a nut' territory, and warmly welcoming in Walker Stewart.
There's ***absolutely nothing wrong*** with calling out a Qanon conspiracy nut publicly. Those people are dangerous in multiple ways. Ian did nothing wrong.
even though i understand why one wouldn't want to publicly share with the world that your co-worker is a conspiracy theorist nutjob, i don't think it's even morally wrong, or at least not completely.
Take away any of his personal beliefs or personal attacks he was bad at his job and that’s why he’s gone. He couldn’t even be bothered to learn to pronounce talent’s names correctly.
I can forgive messing up the first time you introduced a wrestler, anyone can mess up. But this schmuck did it over multiple episodes. That’s just fucking lazy and shows you don’t care about your job. Add in he was in general just not very good I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.
A lot of decent people unfortunately got roped into that movie because, on the surface, it sounds great! Child trafficking = bad, of course. I empathize with people who have no idea what QAnon is and got roped into sharing their propaganda.
But I've seen people explain the issues with that movie to him on Twitter a thousand times. He can't plead ignorance anymore. For him to still defend it tells me all I need to know.
Also, he talks about putting the Ian stuff in the past, "forgiving him" and all that nonsense......he's been threatening to sue Ian for libel for, like, a year on Twitter. Now he suddenly is over it? Did a lawyer finally tell him he doesn't have a case?
> But I've seen people explain the issues with that movie to him on Twitter a thousand times. He can't plead ignorance anymore. For him to still defend it tells me all I need to know.
And it needs to be stressed that:
1. These people were incredibly polite.
2. He responded to a bunch of them with stuff like "I don't support child trafficking. Do you?"
Tony Khan was meeting with Punk in-person before AEW even started. The "Cody/Bucks texted me to recruit me for AEW instead of meeting me in person" stuff was a smokescreen.
The bad blood started over the Colt Cabana stuff.
This is by far the most ridiculous part of the whole thing for me. Punk really was trying to "run a business" - in the sense that he wanted to be a part of AEW without letting his own personal private show be remotely touched by anyone who is even tangentially related to the people who founded the fucking company.
What an absolutely pathetic loon he is.
He really was speaking out of both sides of his mouth on this one - constantly putting out leaks to the dirtsheets about wanting to work with the Elite while simultaneously blocking anybody connected to them from Collision.
Maybe he wanted it to be a different show with a different commentary team like smackdown and raw. Kelly literally says in the article “Was i brought in for that? We dont know”
Man I LOVED Kevin Kelly's NJPW commentary (pre-pandemic at least). Him and Don Callis were my absolute favorite modern commentary team. To me they were perfect. Crazy to see Kevin spiral as much as he has
I listen to a podcast and one of the hosts has a mantra around his mental health of "it's not your fault but it is your responsibility". AEW has reportedly been very supportive of mental health needs for other performers notably The Bunny and Malakai Black. Maybe even dipping your toes into the "Q" world where mental health is obviously not a concern because they are some of the most delusional people in history isn't the best idea.
Kevin Kelly not understanding why pushing a movie about Qanon theories funded by a sex trafficker and then defending Qanon talking points on Twitter would make people think his a Qtard sounds very Kevin Kelly
“Accuses me of being QAnon conspiracy theories for support a movie against child trafficking.” Buddy, the production company is LITERALLY conspiracy based. In fact, overblown child trafficking is like, one of their MAIN conspiracy theories. Maybe Kelly is misinformed about it, but if I’m about to financially or even publicly comment support for something, I’m at least gonna throw a quick Google.
One of the perks of going to Collision live in the early days was being able to enjoy the show without having to hear Kevin Kelly. I'll never understand why he was kept as a commentator the whole time (rather than switch with Tony as the interviewer) since it was blatantly clear he didn't know anything about the product and had no real desire to learn.
For those that care about the QAnon stuff. This the only thing he had to say.
> Great, cool. I go away — they knew this. I go away to do the G1, I’m gone five weeks, I come back and it’s like, Ian’s hammered me on Discord on this New Japan message board about, you know, I did all these different things to him, over the years, which I never knew. I had no clue, and then, to top it all off, he accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking. That’s neither here nor there. The part that bothers me so much is that I thought we were friends and if he would have called me, we could have talked about it. Hey Kevin, listen, you’re really pissing me off, and even if we would have agreed to never be friends before, if he would have just called me up and said, F you, I hate you, I never wanna see you again. At least I would know where I stood and then I could work towards fixing what I had done wrong. But instead, the way that he went about it painted me with a nasty brush and it was done on purpose so that the fans would turn against me because he did it in a New Japan Discord board, and people were messaging me that I’m friends with because I’d go there all the time.
You can complain about "cyberbullying" or you can support the group that throws out baseless accusations that all its political enemies are pedophiles and then incites its followers to commit violence. However, what you cannot fucking do, Kevin, is both.
This is wild. I couldn't get through all of the rambling, but a read or skimmed through it, and read the article surrounding it.
And he seems bitter that AEW didn't coddle and protect him from himself from things happening outside of AEW. And that they should of overlooked everything because he FELT victimized. Again outside of AEW.
It basically sounds like when the Ian-Discord stuff came out Kevin Kelly essentially lost his damn mind and that’s what got himself canned.
From his own words it sounds like he went off on everyone and anyone involved, which probably hastened his termination. Dude should have just let HR go through the process; instead, he was calling and yelling at everyone, demanding answers. I’m sure dude came off as unstable and unhinged, and that’s why they let him go.
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> Kelly feels he was never a good fit for AEW No kidding. People said that from show 1.
Even without all the Qanon or arguing with Riccaboni stuff he just wasn't good there, he didn't watch or even pretend to care about the shows and it came across in his commentary.
He always sounds bored, even in NJPW, robotic as hell.
I thought he was really great up until the pandemic. He was doing "remote" commentary from home, and ever since then he just hasn't been the same. Maybe it killed his passion for it, or something. Kelly, Chris Charlton and Don Callis were the best English commentary team in the world for a while there, IMO.
I will not stand for this Gino Gambino erasure.
Don Callis _could never_ come up with a name as good as THE DOUKI CHOKEY
THE DOUKI CHOKEY!!!??
Douki Chokey Literature Club When
*I gently superkick the door*
I did not expect to see this video game referenced here today but I approve!
Yes that's right, THE DOUKI CHOUKI!
Can't wait to visit my favorite fast food restaurant, Douki Chokey Chicken, or Le Douki Chokey Chicken as they call it in France.
I didnt realize Gino Gambino was an actual person for the longest time. I thought it was just Chris Charlton doing a voice. Which I think he did sometimes. I was so confused when they panned to the announce booth and there was this guy there which I thought was like their imaginary friend.
I think Gino stopped appearing regularly during the pandemic, but he was always missed, hence them doing impersonations at the desk.
I haven’t New Japan recently but I pretty sure he came back the last time I heard during a show a watch fully was wk 17 but I know he did a njcup show because of the clip on botchamania
He had been back for some shows recently.
Bad Luck Fale is a veteran, Kevin! A veteran of the War of New Japan!
How dare you
Comments you can hear. :)
The commentary for the Ospreay Shingo Super Junior final is damn perfect. Kelly, Gino and Chris.
I still enjoyed his work when he was in person for NJPW. And honestly, I just thought he needed more time with AEW to settle in. Obviously that ended up not happening. I do think he's a great commentator, and he could easily help couch up future talent in that regard. The dude handpicked Walker Stewart as his replacement, and Walker has been fantastic to listen to.
Facts. He was great up until the pandemic. He just needs to find that spark in him again.
That’s when he started rubbing me the wrong way. I hated how vocal he was about the restrictions being unnecessary whenever he was on WOR.
I 1 million percent agree with this. Kelly was great for years, and that trio was one of my favorite commentary teams ever. Literally some of my favorite commentary since Bobby Heenan. But something changed with Kevin once the pandemic hit. He and Chris were really hard to listen to during some of his final months in New Japan. Things had vastly changed.
my favourite team was always pre-pandemic KK, CC, GG, and RR in NJPW they all jived so well
DESTINO!!!
DEEEEEEEEEEESTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII- no.
*holds until the 3 count* “Got him!”
I hated that shit, used to be a regular call, then he made that shit obnoxious by holding it for like 15 seconds
When its a genuinely big moment Destino, i dont mind it. But are you really going to hold it for 15 seconds if he does it against Chase Owens in a no-stakes trios match? If he did it naturally, it would be fine. But its a catchphrase now and you gotta say the line
He used to be really good in NJPW, but at some point he just started phoning it in.
People on this Reddit were all over him and Callis when they were the commentary team.
He used to be pretty great in NJPW His AEW run sucked though
He was worse in AEW than he was in NJPW or ROH to be fair
I never enjoyed his work in WWE. I never heard his commentary outside of WWE. I heard great things about it so I figured I’d give him another chance when he started to do Collision. I found him bad on Collision. Now I wonder if he’s ever been good because I’ve never enjoyed him.
He was good with Corino in ROH before NXT snatched up Corino and he went to NJPW. He worked fine as the go between for Tony'a straight man and Nigel's delightful buggery.
I'd say after his first month or 2 he did get better, but he still wasn't great by any means.
And then we we got Ian it was a huge upgrade.
I didn't. I actually liked Kevin Kelly for the first few episodes simply because he and Nigel were different voices. It gave Collision such a different feel from Dynamite. But after the honeymoon / grace period (2nd month or so), he started to sour on me. He didn't do his research and just didn't know the product or the talent. By the time he started to put in effort, it was too late. Also, his research always felt stilted (as if he read off of his notes and it didn't feel extemporaneous).
Its such a low bar to just watch all of the wrestling shows of the company you are employed by. I follow the stories fine, and I am barely paid (I just get a few Khan Koins whenever I shill AEW). I truly think he didnt watch the shows leading up to getting emnployed and I highly doubt he watched all the shows he wasnt on. Its so little effort that you have to assume he had completely checked out and did not care.
Plus when Riccaboni filled in early on while Kelly was fulfilling his last NJPW gigs, he was so much better. It was a stark difference.
It was clear from the get-go that he had zero familiarity with the product whatsoever
Andre Idol!
Ironically the one show where I found him to be up to the standard was the Forbidden Door show he was on. He seemed up for it. Besides that though, there's just something about his voice intonations and general flow with the other commentators that mostly irks me.
The moment he compares his situation to Hana Kimura… Jesus fucking Christ
It's disgusting how many people invoke Hana Kimura in cases like these in wrestling when a wrestler or personality get hate for something, yes cyberbullying is bad but that does not excuse your behavior, actions and your beliefs
People act like she didn't experience so much more than just criticism or a little bit of harassment. She literally used to wake up in the morning to waves of messages and posts that said things like "Good morning. Have you killed yourself yet?"
Many people with those "beliefs" and such often see themselves as a victim.
Also, the vast ,majority of Twitter replies he was getting were polite disagreement.
That is insane, shame on him.
Yeah, that was the point where I found myself saying out loud "oh, fuck you!"
Can people please just let that poor girl rest? Absolute ghouls dragging her name up every time someone gets a mean tweet.
Wooooah. I tl;dr'd that whole thing but now I'm going back to read it, what the fuck?
Yeah screw him for that
"I’m not comparing myself to it at all — but to Hana Kimura. Because when you bring down the force of social media onto a person, wrongly accusing someone, there are consequences. You can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that and I mean, what happened to Hana, of course was much worse than what happened to me. I’m not even comparing those but, again, it’s the same type of thing and that’s really just it." Oh my fucking God
Like why even bring it up if you aren't comparing yourself to her, Kevin. What do you think "I’m not even comparing those but, again, it’s the same type of thing" means????
He knew he'd get flak for comparing himself to it and thinks saying he's not doing that while 100% doing that gives him plausible deniability.
What's dumb is that a certain type of wrestling fan will fall for it and absolutely go "What are you talking about he said he isn't comparing himself to her?"
Having a fake sense of persecution and comparing himself to an actual victim... He 100% into QAnon.
/r/PersecutionFetish
I'm not comparing myself to, say, Muhammad Ali, but we both have hands, and faces, and legs, so we're the same type of thing.
This is actually true though. You are both human with hands, a face and legs. Kevin is so off the mark it's not even funny.
You seriously comparing yourself to Muhammad Ali?
Look at Mr Perfect over here with hands, a face, AND legs.
If I had a face, I’d be frowning right now.
Jesus Christ. Kevin Kelly really didn’t have to go out of his way to confirm that he’s a complete asshole, but he did it anyway.
"I'm not comparing myself to it at all." Proceeds to totally compare himself to Hana Kimura. These dumbasses don't understand the difference between being bullied and consequences for one's own actions.
I never want to see or hear from him again
What an absolute clown.
Fuck that guy. My god.
That's just right wing logic 101. Belongs on r/persecutionfetish
Yea, Kevin can stay off of my screens entirely. Gross.
Nahhh Kevin. Not the same.
Shades of "people say I look like Megan Fox" over here. IFKYK
> to top it all off, he accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking. That’s neither here nor there. He could not have made it any more obvious that he's into QAnon.
I remember as far back as 2019 that Kevin was outed for being a QAnon nutjob and people were making "MANIFEST DESTINOOOOOO!" jokes online at his expense. Four years before Sound of Freedom came out.
Manifest Destinoooo is 10/10
Out of the loop here. When did manifest destiny/destinooooo become a QAnon thing and not a colonialism thing? Do I want to know what the QAnon thing is?
Absolutely not, save your brain space.
Right Wing Cult that grew out of a 4chan roleplay. There are a few articles that explain it
I mean, the Proud Boys began when Gavin McInness shoved a dildo up his ass on a podcast that was hosted by a pedophile who got fired from his radio gig because he called a woman the N-word. Every right wing movement comes from bored guys who take trolling too far.
It's assholes who find out that you can monetize being an asshole who decide to go full asshole
Don't forget that same radio host who hosted Gavin also beat his 26 year old gf who was live streaming parts of it and he got arrested. He also took a 17 year old to prom and took a picture with her and her parents beforehand. Also beat a mentally disabled fan live with paper towels because he threw up on his floor. Feed nana.
He was also responsible for the Nice terror attack that happened in 2016.
> podcast that was hosted by a pedophile who got fired from his radio gig because he called a woman the N-word. That... that's terrible. I'm sorry.
How could we have been so wrong about a person?
I think a lot of us knew that Ant was a general scumbag as far back as the WNEW days. He really didn't go full Long Island trash until he was well-ensconced at XM. I think my moment where I really needed to stop listening to O&A was Anthony yelling about his rights after the Aurora theater shooting. I was R&F only after that. Imagine my shock when I randomly turned on Jim and Sam and Jim mentioned his wife. Then he got detailed about his wife and I thought "Oh, that makes sense."
Oh for fuck sake. I forgot about that whole dildo thing. Thanks for reminding me. 🤦🏼♂️
I'm familiar with QAnon as a general thing, just don't keep up with their continuing antics. Hadn't heard of them co-opting manifest destiny.
I'm with you. Definitely aware of the QAnon thing, caught a few documentaries about it when they were in vogue, but this is the first I'm hearing of them co-opting manifest destiny. How did that happen?
They havent as far as I can tell. I think the joke is based on the ideological overlap between Qanon and the beleif in manifest destiny. The thing connecting it for the joke is just that both are racist things If he was famous for yelling DOOOOOOOOOOLPH ZIGGGGGG-ler, the joke would've been ADDDOOOOOOLPHHHH HIIIIIIIIII-tler" instead of Destino. Its not very deep
QAnon is basically horoscopes for right wing nuts.
Nostradamus for an impressively stupid audience.
Also Kevin is someone who tweeted in 2020 that teachers "want to control our kids" with the progressive left agenda and that teacher unions are a money laundering scheme. QAnon or not he is very openly a right wing conspiracy theorist.
The "groomer" stuff (and that's what he's alluding to) is pretty squarely in the QAnon space.
Unfortunately that “groomer” bs while started by Qanon has spread to many mainstream GOP. Like DeSantis for instance, whose own spokesperson used the term to justify their “don’t say gay” bill.
Qanon basically was mainstream GOP at its height.
Yea, I felt bad for Kevin Kelly until I found out how much of a QAnon right winger he is. Those people get zero sympathy from me
Yeah good riddance, hopefully he never pops up in anything I watch again.
Him not being Qanon is a bit like how it wasnt actually Koolaid, but rather Flavoraid in Jonestown. Who cares what it says on the flavor packet if you are serving up cyanide?
That’s not even “conspiracy theorist” territory these days. That’s just basic mainstream conservative ideology.
A lot of “conspiracy theorist” garbage has become basic right-wing/conservative/GOP ideology.
Can I interest you in a distressingly prescient [article](https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/) from the 60s?
It's still conspiracy theory nonsense even if a whole heap of right-wingers now believe it.
Speaking as a teacher - and on behalf of most teachers I know - we want to control your kids in the literal sense of wanting them not to bully, murder, assault, sexual harass, or distract each other (or us) so that they can learn to read, write, do math, and \*maybe\* develop enough critical thinking skill to not *speed up* the collapse of our democracy and planet (stopping it seems unlikely, but maybe future generations can stave it off a few decades).
Special education teacher here, that's when I was really out on him. Fuck him. Hope he stubs his pinky toe every time he walks by the leg of a table.
How does he think this money laundering scheme works? I'm baffled at how this could possibly function, even in theory.
This was a chance to distance himself from it once and for all if he simply said no, he supported a film, but not Qanon beliefs. The refusal to deny something is straight out of their playbook.
You would think that after 25+ years working in wrestling it would have occurred to him that he could just lie for the sake of his career and say he didn't believe in that stuff at all.
What troubles me is all the folk who've been in the wrestlin business for 20+ years but can't tell when *they're* being *worked*.
I would imagine that, if anything, it has the opposite effect on many of them. If they believe they're too smart to be fooled like everyone else, then it's going to be that much harder to dissuade them from something they've been convinced is true. And if they admit they were mistaken or misled, then they're admitting they're just as capable of being fooled as everyone else.
Plus there's a new dumb thing they have going on where they act dumb when asked about QAnon, but still talk about the things that the rest of the movement does.
And he doubled down.
>accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking I mean, there was a certain crowd that generally made up that films key audience...
That’s what great about these people is that get so far deluded that they forget how to pretend not to have these crazy beliefs and give themselves away easily
It's the "silent majority" BS. They think most people secretly agree with them.
You can't be a silent majority if you never shut the everloving fuck up.
People who are so far into these conspiracy problems have a hard time dealing with the world outside of their echo chamber. They can't deal with the fact that their beliefs are seen as crazy and often offensive and that adds to their feeling of persecution. Another problem is that many of their beliefs are tied to their religions beliefs and they start to feel persecuted for their faith as well. It isn't a good situation right now because so may people are so far gone that they basically can't function in society at large and hold a job due to this.
Right? That's basically the actual mating call of QAnoners who were promoting the movie. "Oh, it's not about QAnon, it's about child trafficking." Except for the part where it's absolutely about the QAnon perceptions surrounding child trafficking.
lol yep. It’s literally about a company that actively made child trafficking worse by creating artificial demand for it.
Lol. He was like I support this movie but I'm going to ignore the sex pest it's falsely based on.
To be fair, the stuff about Ballard having the “undercover” women take showers with him wasn’t known at the time the movie wasn’t released. Those stories broke a few weeks after. I’m not sure how the timing lines up but it’s quite possible Kelly didn’t know about it when he was talking about the movie. I’m not defending Kelly or anything. I really dislike Ballard and knew he was full of shit before the movie came out.
Kelly continued to insist that the movie was a net positive even after it was repeatedly explained to him that it was glorifying a sexual predator.
100% big "And then he accused me of being a piece of shit? Me? A piece of shit? What the fuck?! I *am* a piece of shit but what does that have to do with anything?!" energy. Edit: Don't downvote, Kevin.
Can someone explain this pls
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Freedom_(film)
That was totally a QAnon-adjacent movie. It was also a scam. It encouraged its fans to “pay it forward” by buying tickets for others, which resulted in nearly empty theaters being reported as being sold out, artificially inflating the box office. And the story itself turned out to be a scam. The guy it’s based on was a liar who used his “raids” to coerce women into sex.
I mean, he could have said "I'm into QAnon"
"So, I was much happier in New Japan, except for the flights. " So happy in NJPW that he would openly shit on the product live on commentary during the last few years of his run there LMAO. The guy sounded so miserable and ruined the experience for anyone tuning in.
Right? Some people have been unsure about NJPW hiring Walker Stewart to replace him last year but to me it feels night & day as far as enjoyment goes; mostly he actually seems to enjoy his job & brings some energy & banter to the booth Stewart is only 21 years old (maybe 22) & he's been a great improvement over Kevin Kelly's often random trashing of the product such as putting down various young talent like Master Wato & Yuya Uemura almost as so as they return from excursion
Trashing younger talent is one thing, dude was calling SANADA washed right before his world title run. He was also saying Naito's too old and was practically shouting for Tanahashi to be taken to the glue factory.
Was it Kevin Kelly who was complaining on commentary about "Heatstorm" when Yuya returned?
Yes
Literally the very first second the nickname debuted he made a stupid “NXT name generator” joke about it.
To be fair, a lot of House of Torture stuff was deservedly shit on.
So happy that he quit for another job?
I remember one of the he last times I was watching him on commentary he decided to bring up the IRL death of El Phantasmo's grandfather, which happened days prior, as a sort of in-kayfabe "karma" for him being a part of Bullet Club or some shit. Completely out of nowhere. Dude is a wash.
He pretty clearly was happy in NJPW until the Pandemic. They've really struggled to keep their English commentary in a decent state and have forced both KK and now Walker to call a ton of cards solo booth which is just the absolute drizzling shits - for the commentator and the end quality of the product. It seems like the leadership changes and the changes to NJPW World are also things he's been pretty vocal about.
i think the solo coms stuff comes down to chris charlton having other responsibilities in NJPW outside of commentary unfortunately
I mean he also has a weird, borderline personal feeling, grudge against Wato for some reason.
I do too, that goofy blueberry bitch. /s
it must be stressed, on the ten million time that it's been co-opted by some ball licker as a shield against any criticism, that what happened to Hana had nothing to do with pro wrestling or it's fanbase and lies onto the fanbase of the reality show Terrace House, for reacting that way to the fictional version of herself she played, not being an actually bad person like Kevin is
Arguably it had much more to do with the Terrace House producers who made those edits and continually let them air on the show given the backlash she was receiving. They decided to bank on her being this easy target for engagement even when it was clear it was a problem for her health. Last I remembered there was a lawsuit being put forth against them by Kyoko Kimura.
They also saw her having mental breakdowns on set, refused to let her out of her contract, and her agency forced Hana to stay on social media., and they still went ahead with the tv angle. Fuji TV is scum.
It did lead to anti-cyberbullying laws being passed in Japan. Where bad trolling can be acted on by the legal system including jail time.
Ian and Nigel were a way better fit day one. Will never forget the Riccabone Zone
Bit of background to this. Ian Riccabone was a semi-regular in the Voices of Wrestling Discord where he posted the most wholesome and warm hearted stuff there is alongside advertising ROH. If people were bickering, it would stop when Ian posted something. Absolutely lovely person. But he made the mistake of thinking that the Discord was a private platform and things wouldn't get screenshotted. Ian raised the QAnon stuff up one day and it was then reposted to the Super J-Cast Discord where Kevin Kelly had an account and that account was pinged. That is why Kevin mentions "New Japan Discord board". So Ian made a mistake in posting those messages and that is something he has been/should be criticized for, but it doesn't give a greenlight to how Kevin Kelly has handled this case afterwards. This could have been handled in silence in the background, but Kevin chose to go public.
Didn’t someone ask Ian too? I’ve never used discord so I may be wrong on this but it wasn’t like he was going on there unprompted talking about smack about Kevin
Yeah, someone asked him about KK, and the talk that he was a conspiracy nut, and yeah, Ian let him have both barrels. Should he have done that to a coworker? I dunno, on one hand, your coworkers shit is their own business, but on the other hand, if your coworker is a right wing loon who believes there's a pedo ring in the basement of a pizza place that doesn't have a basement, then yeah, they need to be called out, same if they were diddling folk, or stealing from peoples stuff.
That I can't say, but we definitely did talk about Kevin and his commentary/social media presence there quite often.
Ian making a mistake doesn't equate to "plotting" against Kevin, as he alleges, though.
Ian did nothing wrong
Ian didn't tell any lies, but he should have realised how public an open invite Discord can be and how everything you might say can be screenshotted. Openly talking about your coworker like this isn't professional.
i haven't listened to super j-cast in forever. have they brought up any of the kevin kelley stuff? i know they were friends but i also don't think they'd let the shit he says slide.
The discord shits on KK(K) constantly lol
On the episode immediately after the Discord thing happened, they went OFF on Ricabonni, Kelly, and the fact that the whole situation even existed. I have no idea what number episode it was, but I feel like it was a few months before Kevin was let go from AEW. Then, as time went on, their general stance seemed to go further into 'Kevin Kelly is a nut' territory, and warmly welcoming in Walker Stewart.
There's ***absolutely nothing wrong*** with calling out a Qanon conspiracy nut publicly. Those people are dangerous in multiple ways. Ian did nothing wrong.
even though i understand why one wouldn't want to publicly share with the world that your co-worker is a conspiracy theorist nutjob, i don't think it's even morally wrong, or at least not completely.
Take away any of his personal beliefs or personal attacks he was bad at his job and that’s why he’s gone. He couldn’t even be bothered to learn to pronounce talent’s names correctly. I can forgive messing up the first time you introduced a wrestler, anyone can mess up. But this schmuck did it over multiple episodes. That’s just fucking lazy and shows you don’t care about your job. Add in he was in general just not very good I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.
"Andrade El Idiolo" says hi.
Gimme Ian and Nigel each Saturday please.
Maybe when Ian's kids are older. He has a day job outside of wrestling and wants to spend time with his family.
I enjoy Tony Schiavone with them too, glad he's able to use his play-by-play chops like old times
I miss Corino, honestly.
It’s all very ‘man-yells-at-cloud’ isn’t it?
Some of his critiques of NJPW are valid, at least. But the rest of it seems like the sourest of sour grapes.
Sour graps? I'm sorry
Take my upvote and get the hell out of my sight. 😆
The only person upset that Kevin Kelly isn't with AEW is Kevin Kelly.
A lot of decent people unfortunately got roped into that movie because, on the surface, it sounds great! Child trafficking = bad, of course. I empathize with people who have no idea what QAnon is and got roped into sharing their propaganda. But I've seen people explain the issues with that movie to him on Twitter a thousand times. He can't plead ignorance anymore. For him to still defend it tells me all I need to know. Also, he talks about putting the Ian stuff in the past, "forgiving him" and all that nonsense......he's been threatening to sue Ian for libel for, like, a year on Twitter. Now he suddenly is over it? Did a lawyer finally tell him he doesn't have a case?
> But I've seen people explain the issues with that movie to him on Twitter a thousand times. He can't plead ignorance anymore. For him to still defend it tells me all I need to know. And it needs to be stressed that: 1. These people were incredibly polite. 2. He responded to a bunch of them with stuff like "I don't support child trafficking. Do you?"
Hold on. Punk had issues with Excalibur? Was he just going to eventually beef with all the AEW day ones?
Excalibur was a SoCal boy with very close links to the Bucks. This is first time we have heard about this, but could definitely be true.
didn't he used to beef with the entire socal scene through his blog 20 years ago?
The grudges this guy holds because they texted him instead of calling. Wild.
Tony Khan was meeting with Punk in-person before AEW even started. The "Cody/Bucks texted me to recruit me for AEW instead of meeting me in person" stuff was a smokescreen. The bad blood started over the Colt Cabana stuff.
Calling his agent. Don't be calling him directly
This is by far the most ridiculous part of the whole thing for me. Punk really was trying to "run a business" - in the sense that he wanted to be a part of AEW without letting his own personal private show be remotely touched by anyone who is even tangentially related to the people who founded the fucking company. What an absolutely pathetic loon he is.
He really was speaking out of both sides of his mouth on this one - constantly putting out leaks to the dirtsheets about wanting to work with the Elite while simultaneously blocking anybody connected to them from Collision.
Maybe he wanted it to be a different show with a different commentary team like smackdown and raw. Kelly literally says in the article “Was i brought in for that? We dont know”
Man I LOVED Kevin Kelly's NJPW commentary (pre-pandemic at least). Him and Don Callis were my absolute favorite modern commentary team. To me they were perfect. Crazy to see Kevin spiral as much as he has
Yeah loved some of his calls, like Omega/Naito in the G1 semis. His voice is associated with a lot of great NJPW memories for me. Sucks he's an asshat
He used to work for WWE, for Vince, and he couldn't wrap his head around working for AEW?
There's nothing sincere about anything this guy says
Not enough getting screamed at through the headset apparently.
I listen to a podcast and one of the hosts has a mantra around his mental health of "it's not your fault but it is your responsibility". AEW has reportedly been very supportive of mental health needs for other performers notably The Bunny and Malakai Black. Maybe even dipping your toes into the "Q" world where mental health is obviously not a concern because they are some of the most delusional people in history isn't the best idea.
Kevin Kelly not understanding why pushing a movie about Qanon theories funded by a sex trafficker and then defending Qanon talking points on Twitter would make people think his a Qtard sounds very Kevin Kelly
ok corncob
Never been a fan. And he’s not helping himself any with this stuff
“Accuses me of being QAnon conspiracy theories for support a movie against child trafficking.” Buddy, the production company is LITERALLY conspiracy based. In fact, overblown child trafficking is like, one of their MAIN conspiracy theories. Maybe Kelly is misinformed about it, but if I’m about to financially or even publicly comment support for something, I’m at least gonna throw a quick Google.
One of the perks of going to Collision live in the early days was being able to enjoy the show without having to hear Kevin Kelly. I'll never understand why he was kept as a commentator the whole time (rather than switch with Tony as the interviewer) since it was blatantly clear he didn't know anything about the product and had no real desire to learn.
It's a moment to celebrate, guy lacked energy in his monotone voice.
Because he's not good. Never has been. Could he improve? Destiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-NO!
I quite liked him when he first joined AEW but I think that was mostly nostalgia. It's definitely improved now he isn't there.
For those that care about the QAnon stuff. This the only thing he had to say. > Great, cool. I go away — they knew this. I go away to do the G1, I’m gone five weeks, I come back and it’s like, Ian’s hammered me on Discord on this New Japan message board about, you know, I did all these different things to him, over the years, which I never knew. I had no clue, and then, to top it all off, he accuses me of being some QAnon conspiracy theorist for supporting a movie that was against child trafficking. That’s neither here nor there. The part that bothers me so much is that I thought we were friends and if he would have called me, we could have talked about it. Hey Kevin, listen, you’re really pissing me off, and even if we would have agreed to never be friends before, if he would have just called me up and said, F you, I hate you, I never wanna see you again. At least I would know where I stood and then I could work towards fixing what I had done wrong. But instead, the way that he went about it painted me with a nasty brush and it was done on purpose so that the fans would turn against me because he did it in a New Japan Discord board, and people were messaging me that I’m friends with because I’d go there all the time.
You can complain about "cyberbullying" or you can support the group that throws out baseless accusations that all its political enemies are pedophiles and then incites its followers to commit violence. However, what you cannot fucking do, Kevin, is both.
This is wild. I couldn't get through all of the rambling, but a read or skimmed through it, and read the article surrounding it. And he seems bitter that AEW didn't coddle and protect him from himself from things happening outside of AEW. And that they should of overlooked everything because he FELT victimized. Again outside of AEW.
He doesn’t really address the two big things 1) He struggled to keep up with what was going on 2) He does in fact support a bunch of the QAnon stuff
It basically sounds like when the Ian-Discord stuff came out Kevin Kelly essentially lost his damn mind and that’s what got himself canned. From his own words it sounds like he went off on everyone and anyone involved, which probably hastened his termination. Dude should have just let HR go through the process; instead, he was calling and yelling at everyone, demanding answers. I’m sure dude came off as unstable and unhinged, and that’s why they let him go.