AEW: Bandido & Juice Robinson Signings, New Backstage Hiring, CJ Perry on Miro’s AEW Absence

Bandido & Juice Robinson Reportedly Sign Contracts with AEW

As noted before, AEW has been interested in signing both former Ring of Honor talent Bandido and New Japan Pro Wrestling talent Juice Robinson to potential contracts with the company. While the status of Robinson’s contract with NJPW was not known at the time, Robinson later revealed that he is currently a free agent.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported in a recent episode of PWInsider Elite that his sources stated that Bandido and Robinson recently signed official contracts with AEW. Johnson reported that the length nor other details of their contracts are currently not known.

“I can also tell you that we have officially heard that both Bandido and Juice Robinson have signed AEW agreements. I don’t know length, I don’t know time, but they are officially going to be with the company going forward.”

Transcript h/t: WrestlingInc.com

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AEW Reportedly Hires New TV Producer

A recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast featured co-host Tony Schiavone revealing that AEW recently hired his son Matt Schiavone to a television producer job in the company.

“I’ve really kind of wrestled with even mentioning this, but I’m going to, we have just hired a brand new producer to help us backstage. It’s a producer who’s had 15 years of network TV experience, and really knows what he’s doing. I really wrestled with even wanting him to come to work for us, and it’s my son, Matt. He will start as a producer in Jacksonville, and as this thing airs, it’s already happened. He had such a good job, but he just like us, just absolutely loves pro wrestling and wanted to do it. I went, ‘Matt, are you sure? Because it’s freaking crazy back there!’

Tony told me, he said, ‘Well, I’m not going to have him work under you.’ I said, ‘Good.’ He said he’s going to work with Sonjay.’ Anyway, I’m very proud of him. Maybe we can get him on to talk to us some time because he’s got a lot of experience. He worked for Fox News in New York City, as a producer there, so we’ll see. To go from Fox News, and news [in general] the pro wrestling, it’s two completely different things. But it’s still TV. It’s still trying to put on a live show.”

Prior to his hiring, Schiavone had worked as a television producer for Starrcast’s Starrcast II, III, and IV conventions.

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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CJ Perry Comments on Miro’s Current Absence from AEW

A recent episode of the Busted Open Radio podcast featured CJ Perry, former Lana in WWE, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Perry’s thoughts on if her husband Miro is currently enjoying his time in AEW.

“I mean, he wants to be champion so he’s not going to be happy until he’s champion. I’m just going to leave it at that.”

Perry also gave her thoughts on Miro’s current absence from AEW programming.

“I have a lot of opinions about this. Tony Khan has a vision. At the end of the day, if it’s 100% real, I think there’s this illusion at AEW that the talent book the show. That was definitely the conversation, ‘Oh you go there, you’re going to basically become whatever you’re made of’ but at the end of the day, he’s booking the show.

It’s really no different than WWE, it’s just a different director and a different person’s point of view. It’s like comparing NBC to HBO but at the end of the day, you still have the exec who is going to make that final call and that’s what it is. Tony Khan has his favorites and he’s going to push the favorites just like Vince [McMahon] would push his favorites, just like Hunter is going to push his people. It’s show business, it’s nothing personal, it just is what it is.

I think my husband is incredible. I feel Vince really valued him in that way and saw that. They hit heads a lot of times towards the end on creative differences. Vince really wanted him as a villain and Miro wanted to explore this new world.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com