Frankie Kazarian is best know for his work in TNA Wrestling, but some fans might have forgotten that he was a part of AEW at the very beginning of that company’s journey.
As part of SoCal Uncensored, Kazarian was “All Elite” for the first three-and-a-half years of its existence before leaving at the start of 2023 to re-sign with TNA for the first time in nine years. He is still with TNA to this day, acting as one of the veterans of the locker room since his first appearance for the company came way back in 2003, and during a recent appearance on the “Talk is Jericho” podcast, Kazarian opened up about his journey back to the company where he made a name for himself.
“When I left AEW, I had not had a conversation with anybody, TNA, AEW, WWE, anything. It was just a situation of ‘Let me get out, and then once I’m severed clean, we could talk.’ At the time, Scott D’Amore was running TNA and it basically took one conversation with him, and just really kind of convinced me that this is looking [good]. I had done some stuff with him while I was with AEW you know, and I saw the vibe and stuff that was happening there and I was like ‘This is going to–seems like it could be a good fit.’ So yeah, one conversation and was able to talk and debut on a pay-per-view two days later.”
Kazarian has been able to work with WWE as well thanks to TNA’s working relationship with that company, and he has still kept in contact with those in AEW as he was part of the 2025 Jericho Cruise experience, wrestling as “The Masked Brother” against the likes of Serpentico and even his old tag team partner Christopher Daniels, or adopted his Curry Man gimmick one final time before retiring.
Please credit “Talk is Jericho” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
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