Colt Cabana details his AEW roles: ‘I don’t ever want to leave this job’
Colt Cabana is happy with his place in AEW and hopes he never has to find a different job.
While appearing on a new episode of Talk’n Shop, Cabana explained that he has multiple behind-the-scenes roles with AEW. He also is still part of the AEW roster despite admittedly being in a stage where his in-ring career is starting to wind down.
“I’m a producer. I work with the merch team. I work with the VIP team and also I’m a wrestler, but I haven’t been getting the call to wrestle,” Cabana said before Doc Gallows added that Cabana has become irreplaceable.
“I’m trying to make myself irreplaceable. I don’t ever want to leave this job.”
Gallows then asked Cabana what a typical AEW show day is like for him.
“I get to the show. I wait until they tell me what match that I’ll be producing,” Cabana responded. “Sometimes Shop AEW or Pro Wrestling Tees will send stuff with me, and I’ll go get it autographed, or I’ll go give it to someone to get it autographed, or I’ll kind of work in the autograph/merch department, or I’ll get some promos done for socials for Pro Wrestling Tees or for Shop AEW. I’ll do that. Once I get my assignment, they give me the match, and then I just kind of go over my match with the wrestlers.”
Cabana said that, as a producer, he doesn’t like dictating to the wrestlers what they should do. If they have conflicting ideas, he’ll usually let the wrestler win out and try what they wanted. That allows the wrestler to either succeed or have a learning experience where they figure out what went wrong.
“You’re the artist, you’re the wrestler, you’re the one that got yourself here,” Cabana said. “I’m only here to help your ideas, maybe help them grow, help put them together, help form them, make suggestions. But ultimately, it’s your match and I want you to either do great for your match or I want you to eat sh*t. So you learn, like, ‘Oh, this is why this didn’t work.’ Like, if you don’t have the learning experience, you’re not going to learn. That’s kind of the way I produce.”
Cabana said he enjoys the process of communicating with the director’s truck while the matches he produces are going on. It taps into Cabana’s wrestling experience and lets him use that part of his brain for the 10 or so minutes the match is happening.
Before AEW shows, Cabana usually hosts the VIP experience for fans who purchased premium tickets. He’ll speak with the fans and bring in a couple of wrestlers or someone like Jeff Jarrett to meet them.
Cabana has been under contract with AEW since 2020. He noted that, when he signed, he had three different contract offers on the table. He could have signed with ROH, went to NJPW to team with Toru Yano full-time, or joined AEW. He’s pleased with the decision he made, especially given how much the pandemic impacted the wrestling industry shortly after he signed his AEW deal.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.