Kevin Kelly and Major League Wrestling have parted ways. The former WWE announcer was to have filled the role of lead announcer for the promotion as well as handle backstage duties. The split, which came from MLW’s end, has distinctly different sides of the story from each party.
MLW sources have claimed that Kelly, after a smooth first run in the studio in October, was hard to deal with when voicing over old footage and did not create a good rapport with the company’s production team. Sources close to Kelly, however, paint the situation as a split based on money issues and that Kelly was doing whatever was asked of him. MLW denies any financial issues being the root of the problem, but in any event, Kelly is done with the company before he could make his debut on TV as their lead announcer, which no matter what side you look at it from, is a real shame.
I am hearing MLW will name CZW lead announcer Eric Garguilo as the replacement for Kelly shortly. Gargiulo, who also announces for Women’s Extreme Wrestling and has done work for Ring of Honor and the Japanese Hardcore Wrestling PPVs in the past as well. The plan is for Gargiulo to handle commentary live at MLW events. The promotion plans to add a backstage “reporter” as well.
As noted earlier on the Newsline, the promotion came to terms this week with J.J. Dillon to work as a manager. Dillon will also be working backstage in an agent capacity for the company. I have heard that the promotion has reached out to another old school manager as of late, hoping to bring him in.
MLW Underground TV returned to the Sunshine Network in Florida last night, running a repeat episode. New material will begin the first week of January.
