Kaun Discusses His Experience Working AEW Dark, Talks The Future Of Shane Taylor Promotions

Post Wrestling’s Andrew Thompson recently spoke with pro-wrestling star and former ROH six-man tag champion Kaun about a wide range of topics, including his thoughts on the future of Shane Taylor promotions and what his experience has been in AEW thus far. Highlights from the interview are below.

Feels that Shane Taylor Promotions made trios wrestling relevant while they were ROH Six-Man Champions:

Oh yeah, we made history with that [Shane Taylor Promotions’ run with the ROH Six-Man Tag Titles] and I don’t think the trios titles got as much respect as they deserved. I think people looked at them like a secondary title but yet, we were the only ones who were truly defending those belts it seemed like. Every TV taping or we told them, ‘We’re taking these on the independents and defending them. If you don’t have any six-man teams here that can beat us, then we’re gonna go find our own competition if you’re not gonna bring that competition for us,’ and honestly in my mind, other than like the MexiSquad holding those belts and they never defended them over the COVID period, we have the longest reign in my mind. We’re gonna go down in history as the greatest six-man unit in history and I’ve said this before, we made six-man wrestling relevant again. So, I stand by that claim.

His AEW Dark/Dark: Elevation experiences so far:

So I was actually supposed to wrestle Frankie [Kazarian] the first time but his flight, something happened with his travel so he came to the show late. It’s funny because I’m like a huge fan of Andrade [El Idolo]. I was a huge fan of his in NXT and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m wrestling this dude.’ But I’ve been watching AEW Dark since they started and I’ve been studying these match structures and I know they don’t get a lot of time and I think a lot of people do a lot of stuff that doesn’t really mean too much so in my mind, all right, I’m like, ‘I’m just making a moment. I’m just making a moment.’ When I was working with Andrade, fortunately we didn’t do too much because why? It doesn’t mean anything. There’s only three or four minutes. If I’m trying to show off my physicality and make a moment. This dude pulls my hair, I slap the sh*t out of him. He can slap me back, but, I make sure I had that moment and look, I’m not here to play either. This is my opportunity to try to get signed. Came to the back, Mark Henry’s been like a huge fan of mine for a couple of years so I talked to him briefly. He put me over on commentary too so I definitely appreciate that. He’s a legend so, him saying that I have a great physique and I’m an athlete, thank you. Same thing with Kazarian… talking to him about the way that I was trained by Joey Mercury and he was at ROH right when — right when he left ROH, that’s when I got signed there so I briefly crossed paths with him. But same thing with him, ‘Hey, we don’t have a lot of time. Let’s take this slow, let’s make this work, let’s show this struggle, let’s make this mean something because that’s gonna be so much more important to these people than just like doing all this stuff.’ I don’t even wrestle like that. I’d rather show off my physicality and came to the back, same thing, Mark Henry loved it, Kazarian liked it, [Christopher] Daniels liked it so, I think I’m going back for a couple more opportunities. Hopefully some good things come out of that. But it’s been great. I know a lot of those people from ROH, I know some people in the office, I got to meet people. Surprisingly, they remember me when I was at ROH when they were there. So it’s like a great vibe, it’s cool to see people like Austin Gunn, Fuego Del Sol and catch up with people so, hopefully good things happen in the next few weeks.

Future of Shane Taylor Promotions post-ROH:

I think the biggest thing we run into sometimes is like costs honestly [moving all of Shane Taylor Promotions around at the same time]. Definitely traveling places but it’s — we’re a collective, right? It’s like five people so a lot of these indie shows, they don’t have the funds. I understand where that could be possibly a struggle. We have talked about it. If anything, we try to keep S.T.P. together. I understand the politics — not the politics but like the struggle of bringing five people into wherever. But I’ve said this with them, if people get opportunities [at] places, why wouldn’t you support your brother getting these opportunities? And this opens the door. Like you can’t help people get into the door if the door’s closed, so someone could open that door for you, then you can help pull your brothers through.