Former AEW Producer Claims Hostile Environment And Bullying Backstage

It might not look great. AEW is in a weird place as a company. They have only been active for a little over a year and a half and have a loyal fan base, but they have not quite been hit with any real difficulties as of yet. There have been some bumps in the road, but for the most part everything is still going well early on. That can only last for so long and now they might have someone a little less than happy with them.

It takes a lot of people to run a wrestling company, including a lot more people than just the wrestlers. Of course they are the most important people to the whole thing and there isn’t much to present without them, but you also need someone to make the show work. That requires a lot of people to put together a presentation and one such worker does not seem happy with how things work backstage.

Louie Benson, a digital content producer for AEW (as an employee of Comeback Studios) has released a series of tweets, claiming bullying and a hostile environment while working for AEW. According to Benson, he was not allowed to mention any of his AEW work on social media and that Cody did not like him due to an experience between the two of them at All In. However, he does say that he and Cody interacted somewhat later on and had no major issues, with Cody never saying anything negative to him in person.

Benson also says that he was called lazy for asking for three days off to move, as well as his job being threatened after he had to miss a week due to his girlfriend’s Coronavirus scare. As a result, Benson was told to impress AEW by working sixty hours a week and learning new skills. Benson finishes by saying he knows his career in wrestling is over as a result of sending these tweets, but if wrestling is like this, he does not want to work in the business anyway. AEW has not commented on the allegations.

I'm very nervous about this, but I'd rather share my story just in case I don't make it through covid-19. This is the story of my year with AEW, and the bullying and gaslighting that came with it. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/Dn8npa6Ha4

— Louie Benson (@TeamLouie) November 19, 2020

2/3 pic.twitter.com/sast1TqUkk

— Louie Benson (@TeamLouie) November 19, 2020

3/3 pic.twitter.com/keSMNJZ0IP

— Louie Benson (@TeamLouie) November 19, 2020

If you read all of this, thank you. It feels cathartic to finally write it. This isn't anti-AEW at all. This is just a log of what I went through at the time. And I have friends and screenshots that can prove a lot of this for the people who I'm sure won't believe me.

— Louie Benson (@TeamLouie) November 19, 2020

I've also been told that I'll "never work in the wrestling business again" if I tweet this, and I'm prepared for it. I'm not saying that everywhere is like this, but if it is, I wouldn't want to work there anyway.

— Louie Benson (@TeamLouie) November 19, 2020

Benson would have worked on things like this. Check out some of AEW’s digital content:

Opinion: I’m not sure what happened here but this sounds like a situation where I would like to hear AEW’s side of things. I’m not sure why they would treat Benson this harshly, but at the same time, it also does not exactly make the company seem like complete monsters. This just might not have been a good fit and if that is the case, AEW is hardly coming out looking terribly.

What do you think of the story? How does it make AEW look? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. Thank you for reading!