Ricky Saints Addresses Period of Being Kept Off AEW TV

Ricky Saints is opening up about his time sitting on the sidelines in AEW, and he made it clear that being kept off television took a toll on him mentally.

While speaking on Getting Over: Wrestling Podcast, Saints talked about the stretch when Tony Khan wasn’t using him regularly on AEW television. He said there wasn’t much communication from his side about why he wasn’t wrestling, which made the situation even tougher to deal with.

Saints explained that staying active in the ring has always been part of who he is, so suddenly not wrestling created a strange mental challenge.

“Yeah. No, no, you know, no real discussion or or anything like that from my side of it in terms of uh you know, what was discussed and all that, but there was some restlessness just because I'm so used to wrestling all the time. And I think that's the type of person I am. I'm used to creating. I'm used to using my body for these things. And to not have that was a very odd uh place to be at mentally.”

He also said that trying to stay active outside of AEW wasn’t always easy because getting independent bookings approved could be complicated at the time. Even with those challenges, he made it clear he doesn’t hold bitterness toward the situation and is grateful for how things turned out.

“And so you're having to figure out these other things, especially when it goes to like the independence. It was not as easy to get some of these independent dates cleared. And um for there's no that's not a knock on the company itself. It's just conflict of interest for AEW and whatever independent that I wanted to do. Um, but at the end of the day, it all worked out. Truthfully, it all worked out. And I'm thankful for both sides. I'm thankful for AEW. I'm thankful for the Independence as well.”

Saints’ comments pull back the curtain on how difficult it can be when a wrestler is under contract but not being used regularly. Even though he stayed professional about it, he admitted the lack of ring time created a mental struggle that stuck with him.

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