Jack Evans has opened up regarding his AEW departure.
Evans was part of the original AEW signings in 2019 and had a television presence alongside Angelico through the early days of AEW Dynamite, but his contract wasn't renewed after it expired in April 2022. He missed months of television due to the pandemic as he was stuck in Mexico and when he returned, the landscape in AEW had change, but Evans is putting the blame on himself.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Evans opened up regarding his AEW release.
"I feel for that first year, the run went good and we had a little place of semi-comedic tag team, not straight comedy, but we were doing stuff with Kevin Smith and we had a place. Then there was the Mexican border. Me and Angelico got stuck in Mexico and it got closed for the COVID restrictions. We had a four-month layoff, I came back, had one match, and then in practice before a match, I got my face broken again. Then, I had another month and a half, two-month layoff and I feel after that, I never came back. I feel I deteriorated. I can't even blame it on ring rust. I don't know what happened, but after that, I never came back, we never had the same momentum, but it wasn't one of those things where I felt like I was wrestling good and the momentum didn't get started. I felt like I had deteriorated in the ring and it started giving me these self-confidence problem. Anyone who knows me, who has been in the locker room, I'm so nervous before my matches. I dry heave. I'm the most annoying guy in the locker room. When I step through the curtain, 100% confident and even cocky. With this thing, I'd go through the curtain and still be nervous as hell. After the COVID layoff and the layoff from the face break, I feel on a personal level, I never came back to wrestle like me, both character, in-ring, anything. Also, that salary contract made me a bit soft. There was even a little while where I got plump. I kind of fell off after that layoff and I only started getting back on the ball towards the end and by then, the company had already made up his mind on me. I did get kinda, not lazy in the ring, but I wasn't as good in the ring and I was lazy outside the ring. It all started with the original COVID layoff and face break layoff," he said.
Diving more into being on salary and how it made him a bit soft, Evans said, "It made me soft. Totally no fire, nothing. I just wasn't going down and doing the lucha training, I used to always practice a little something to keep up on my skills, and I didn't. I went through eight or nine months of nothing. The only exercise I would get was in the ring. I really do think it was my fault for getting too [internet connection issues]....basically, after I started getting that salaried money, I turned a bit lazy and I feel it was bad for me and helped speed along in-ring deterioration."
Evans noted that his partner Angelico had a different mindset and the two were seen as two separate entities, which is why he continued to put blame on himself for his contract not being renewed while Angelico's was.
"You have to be realistic with yourself or else whatever problems it was, isn't going to get solved and because I'm such a nine to five wrestler, I don't really have anyone else to blame, except for one incident with Ken, where I busted open his lip, which I apologize to hell for. I have no heat with anyone, that I know of anyway, there's no one politicking against me, so I'd have to really stretch it to be like, 'Oh, it was Chris Harrington,' even though it wasn't. Part of the self-awareness is, I don't have another option of anyone to blame because I'm not knee-deep in the politics. If I'm getting released and Angelico is not and we were always together, in the same meetings, talking to the same people, who are you going to blame? It's kind of obvious who the culprit is," he said.
When asked if things would have been different had he not missed four months due to the COVID restrictions, Evans said, "I don't think, in the end, that would have changed anything. In the end, it really came down to me having an extended period of laziness. During that period, I probably would have been used more and maybe I would have stayed on the ball more if I didn't have that big layoff. I really think, I didn't have the right mentality when I was on salary. It felt like it was going to last forever."
Evans last competed on the March 1 (taped on February 5) episode of AEW Dark. He as part of the Hardy Andrade Family Offices.
Evans noted that he was looking to find a promotion to work for in Mexico now that he is a free agent.
Elsewhere during the interview, Evans said that he respected AEW for honoring the full-length of his contract. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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