In a recent interview with the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Kevin Kelly discussed several topics, including his decision to leave New Japan Pro Wrestling after the Wrestle Kingdom 18 event on January 4th, 2024 which will see him work strictly for All Elite Wrestling thereafter, where he is part of the commentary team on AEW Collision.

“My wife said, I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m not lying, we’ve been together 33 years, married 30, I told her when the time is right, you tell me and I will stop going to Japan, because I’ve been gone weeks at a time, months at a time, come home briefly, go back weeks at a time.

We’ve all missed birthdays and family vacations and those types of things, but when you’re missing Christmas and you’re missing New Year’s and you’re missing Anniversaries and you’re missing everything, it just gets to be too much, so when this AEW opportunity came around, the first conversation that Tony and I had was about still keeping up on New Japan commitments and he said yeah, that’s fine, we’ll have Ian or somebody fill in.

He and I figured it would probably be 12 dates a year, and I talked to my wife about it and she was like, I don’t want to be alone anymore. I was like okay, say no more, that’s it. I talked to New Japan, I talked with Tony, I got these two that I definitely have to do for New Japan, but after that, I’m just going to be here in the States, here in North American within a couple of hours flight. I’ll be gone away from home as much as AEW needs me, but I’ll always be that close, I’ll never be more than half of a day away.”

The full interview is available at this link.