Stokely Hathaway Reflects On His AEW Signing, Matt Cardona Talks Kayfabe

During a recent episode of the “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, AEW star Stokely Hathaway revealed how he landed a job in Tony Khan’s company following his WWE release last year.

Hathaway explained that his AEW debut at Double or Nothing 2022 was predicated on a handshake deal, and his signing wasn’t officially finalized until after the event. He said,

“I was available and Dax (Harwood) is one of my good friends. We were talking back and forth, and he sent me a screenshot. He was having a conversation with Tony (Khan) and the screenshot was Tony just being like, ‘LET’S GO!!!!!!!’ in all caps with 37 exclamation marks. That was the beginning of the talks of me coming in. We didn’t meet face-to-face until I would say Double or Nothing. I met you [Jericho], and you were like, ‘who is this guy?’ I walked in and half the people knew me. I was not signed, I was just backstage. I debuted, it was a handshake deal, and it became official a few hours after that.”

During a recent appearance on the “Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw” podcast, Matt Cardona offered his perspective on how wrestlers should maintain their in-ring persona and keep kayfabe alive on social media.

Cardona also discussed his mindset of trying to establish doubt on where the boundary lies between the reel and real life. He said,

“I think it’s a very challenging thing, road to walk down but it can be done because I think in no other industry… if you’re watching a movie or TV show, that actor [or actress] doesn’t tweet in character. But in wrestling, you can be tweeting about the guy you attacked on Raw and the next day, [post] a family vacation picture. If you can walk that line and still leave that doubt in people’s minds, I think that’s the best we can do at this point. I think for sure, at least for me, you’ll get the real me on social media whether it’s me with my wife or me in the pool with my dogs, but I’ll be a piece of sh*t to somebody. I’ll curse them out, I’ll give you everything where you can be like ‘Is this guy really a d**k?’ If you [have them] questioning, you’re doing a really good job. It’s tough because like I said, no other actor is tweeting in their character, so it’s a weird world that we’re all trying to play. I think you gotta keep playing your character on social media or else what’s the point, nobody is going to be invested.”

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