Sounds like Sonny Kiss is gone from AEW because the company doesn’t have YouTube shows any more

As the calendar turned to September, wrestling fans and industry watchers noticed that Sonny Kiss was no longer listed on AEW’s roster page.

During the post-All Out media scrum, company boss Tony Khan was asked about the status of the trailblazing wrestler who’s been with the company since it started in 2019. Khan confirmed that he didn’t re-sign Kiss when his contract expired.

Khan also repeatedly brought up how much he thinks of Kiss while pointing to limited television time and the end of AEW’s YouTube shows Dark and Elevation (which stopped being produced when Warner Bros Discovery was given exclusive rights to all AEW content with the launch of Collision) as a big factor in his decision:

“I really like Sonny Kiss. We have a roster of over 100 wrestlers now across AEW, and Sonny’s a great wrestler. It think I’ve done a lot to really keep the locker room stable and I have a lot of people that I not only keep under contract, but also I’ve done well I think to not do major mass layoffs and let 20-30 people go at a time. But I do think I can’t renew every single contract in AEW — it would be impossible. And with such a big roster and limited amount of TV spots, I think Sonny Kiss is a great wrestler and had a lot of potential from the very beginning with AEW and still has a lot of potential as a wrestler, and I really like Sonny Kiss.

“I think Sonny Kiss could certainly be back potentially, too. We’ve seen wrestlers go on and do exciting stuff and come back, like Stu Grayson for example. So you never know what the future holds for Sonny Kiss, or AEW. But I think Sonny Kiss has a lot of talent and I definitely wish him the best as a wrestler and still hold Sonny in very high regard. It’s true that I didn’t renew that contract, but not because I don’t like Sonny. I like really — cause I book all the matches and I do all the paperwork and put everything down on paper — I like Sonny a lot. Every opportunity Sonny has had, every match I’ve booked Sonny in, I some put thought into putting together. We’d say the same of every wrestler here, and right now with a huge crew, I think it’s hard to get everyone on TV.

“One thing that also is a challenge, to be honest, is losing Dark and Elevation. It’s put more emphasis on five hours of television, so I think some of that was made up with TV spots, so a lot of people have stepped up, but the roster has grown and grown — there’s more wrestlers than there were when we started. It’s a much, much bigger roster than the original AEW roster that Sonny was a great part of. Sonny and a number of people who are not necessarily with AEW anymore, we’ll keep an eye on them and certainly I’d be open to bringing them back if something opens up, if I get an idea for a story, or if anybody has an idea that I like for a story that I would do, or if they get really hot and I get interested.

“So I think Sonny’s got a lot of potential still, and is a young person, so definitely open to that. And Dark and Elevation I think Sonny wrestled a lot on those shows and that’s something that we don’t really have right now and the TV spots are tight, so that’s a lot of what it is. But certainly, Sonny’s a good wrestler.”

It’s been observed that Khan will now use Ring of Honor’s weekly streaming show for talents who used to work on Dark and Elevation, so it’s not clear why Sonny hasn’t wrestled there since June. But at least Kiss knows his now-former employer likes him.