AEW Commentator Kevin Kelly On Timeline Of NJPW Role Ending

There's been some questions about Kevin Kelly's role as the English commentary lead for NJPW ever since he signed on to be part of the broadcast team for the recently launched "AEW Collision." Early on, Kelly claimed that his new AEW duties wouldn't affect his role with NJPW and that a temporary fill-in — which came in the form of ROH commentator Ian Riccaboni — would sit in his AEW chair when he was called away by NJPW scheduling conflicts. Kelly was absent from "Collision" during this year's NJPW G1 Climax, but has since returned to AEW programming following the tournament's completion. 

However, it appears Kelly's time with NJPW is slowly coming to an official end. When asked on the platform formerly known as Twitter whether he was leaving NJPW in the future, Kelly was blunt in his response that his time with the Japanese promotion is short, and he was leaving it in NJPW's hands to relay that information to the fans. "I am at some point soon but I'll leave it to New Japan to announce it or not," he wrote. "I plan on calling Destruction at Ryogoku and Wrestle Kingdom-New Year Dash."

Kelly provided no details as to whether or not his contract was simply coming to an end with NJPW or even if this was a mutual parting of the ways due to his new commitment to AEW stateside. But what is certain is that Kelly still factors into NJPW's English commentary team at least in limited capacity in the months ahead. We await word from NJPW as to just exactly how much.