Callis embraces the hate as AEW's most reviled man

If you’re a regular viewer of All Elite Wrestling television, you know exactly what to expect when Don Callis comes to the ring.

The leader of the heel stable, The Don Callis Family, Callis is immediately showered with boos or worse. Routinely, the 57-year-old Winnipeg native’s promos are completely drowned out by crowd noise. “F--k Don Callis” chants ringing out in the arena are a regular occurrence. This is the most despised man in AEW and maybe in all of professional wrestling.

The fans’ hostility is loud – like really loud.

“There was a time about a year ago, and this has happened multiple times, but the first time it happened, Jeff Jones, who heads up [AEW] social media came up to me and says, ‘Holy cow, the heat’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I couldn’t hear anything,’” Callis told TSN.ca. “He goes, ‘No, you don’t understand. I have an Apple Watch. There’s a noise decibel warning for your ears.’ Everybody’s Apple Watch went off during my promo and Jeff said the decibel rating was the same as standing next to an aircraft, like a passenger jet, that was revving the engine.”

Dynamite is headlined by The Don Callis Family's Josh Alexander taking on AEW World Heavyweight Champion "Hangman" Adam Page in a grudge match. You can catch AEW Dynamite LIVE on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on TSN2, the TSN App, and TSN.ca.

Callis says the reactions he elicits are almost instinctive to the point it’s not even traditional heel heat. 

“I always say there are people in this industry who will get some heat with the actions that they take or the things that they do,” Callis said. “I don’t even really like to use the word ‘heat.’ It’s just how the crowd reacts because ‘heat’ makes it sound like it’s planned or stage-y and the reactions that I see from the people are really visceral in nature. Maybe for a time I wasn’t involved in a big program, or I hadn’t taken any actions that would get people upset at me, yet I would walk out and get booed out of the building.” 

What Callis experiences in the ring is pure hatred. 

“What I see is a visceral reaction that is bordering in some cases on legitimate hatred,” Callis said. “Now, I don’t know why they hate me so much. It’s certainly not the things I say in promos because if you listen to what I say in my promos, I don’t get into long dissertations. I certainly could – I have multiple advanced degrees, and I was a theatre actor in university. I did A Streetcar Named Desire. I know how to deliver a line, but – number one – sometimes it’s not even possible for me to say what I want to say because the people will boo so loudly that I can’t hear what I’m saying. I’m confident that I’m saying it and I’m hopeful that the TV feed is picking it up, but in the house, me, the fans, the announcers, the wrestler who’s out there with me or whomever, it’s like ‘Yeah, we can’t hear you.’” 

First as a wrestler and then a manager, colour commentator and executive, Callis is a veteran of five decades in the business that have seen him work in virtually every major promotion at some point, including a memorable run as the smarmy network executive “Cyrus” in Extreme Championship Wrestling. Callis says he’s used his vast experience to hone his work into what you see on TV today.

“The big difference for me now is that I used to work at it a lot, in terms of like thinking about what I was going to say, but now I don’t,” Callis said of his approach. “I think people may be surprised, but I don’t prepare for it. I just go out and feel it and I say whatever I want to say. I think this is indicative of how these sorts of segments were handled 20-25 years ago or even more recently where you would actively engage the crowd – I said to somebody the other day, for all the people who say, ‘Oh, [wrestling] was way better before’ – and I’m not going to sit here and argue one way or the other when the business was at its best and what metrics do we even use to measure that, by the way? 

"I will say this: I was a performer, a wrestler, a manager or whatever you want to call it in the ‘80s and the ‘90s all over and I can tell you one thing, this quote-unquote ‘heat’ that people talk about was a hell of a lot easier to get back then than it is now. If you look at how many people in the business in the ‘80s were genuinely hated and how many are genuinely hated now, I don’t think the lists are very comparable.”

Despite performing in front of adversarial crowds on a weekly basis, Callis says he’s turned the ring into a place of serenity for himself. No matter how loud the fans get, Callis stays cool, calm and collected. 

“People ask me if I get nervous when I go out,” Callis explained. “I am the most calm that I am in my life, other than when I’m with my family, when the red light is on because I know who I am, and I know what I bring to the table. I know that I’m for sure the best anywhere in the world at this right now – and if I didn’t think that, that would be a problem. But I don’t do it for the approval of fans, so as a result, if the fans boo me out of the building, or if someone throws something at me, or if it’s only the noise decibel of a freight train and not a jet engine this week, I don’t care. I am the best at what I do, and I’ve got the best platform to do it. I’m going to go out there and do my thing and I think this is what part of the audience senses: that I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care what you do. I’m not going to be a slave to pops or noise or anything. So, as a result, I am the most calm when I’m in front of the camera and in front of a crowd.”

Callis initially came to AEW in late 2020 as the manager of Kenny Omega, the man whose uncle, the late “Golden Sheik” Larry Dubensky, served as manager to a young Callis breaking into the business in Winnipeg. Callis says he quickly discovered a supportive environment in the company, unlike any he had been a part of in the past. 

“One of the great things about being in AEW is that [president] Tony Khan actually lets me be myself,” Callis said. “Like, he puts me out there, of course, but he lets me be Don Callis and he has faith in me and, at the end of the day, from a boss in wrestling, that is ultimately all you want – someone who will let you go out and succeed or fail on your own merits and give you the platform and the support. And AEW really is the first place I’ve ever been that does that.”

While Callis led Omega to the AEW World Championship, he turned the beloved babyface heel in the process. After turning his back on Omega in 2023, Callis formed his Family, which currently features a number of notable names with the legendary Kazuchika Okada, 2025 G1 Climax winner Konosuke Takeshita and Josh Alexander of Bolton, Ont. among them.

But the nucleus of the Family is the current TNT Champion, Sydney, Australia’s Kyle Fletcher, who will headline this month’s All Out pay-per-view at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena in his first AEW World Championship match against “Hangman” Adam Page.

A former IWGP World Tag Team Champion as one half of Aussie Open with Mark Davis, a confluence of injuries and opportunity led to a singles push for Fletcher in late 2023. Since then, Fletcher has taken the ball and run with it, becoming one of the industry’s best young in-ring talents and rising stars. 

There have been numerous performers in Fletcher’s shoes in the past, but success has proven elusive for many. A push is never any guarantee of results. For Callis, it’s no surprise that the 26-year-old Fletcher has shone where others have failed.

“He has all the skills, but the thing is, without the hard work, you’ve got nothing,” Callis said. “The business has seen that over and over again with people, but Kyle is the hardest-working guy in the locker room that I’ve seen. He could easily coast. He doesn’t. I told him recently, and a lot of people will be upset if I say this and I don’t really care, but I said, ‘You know what you’ve done?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ and I said, ‘You’re the f---ing man, you’ve surpassed Will Ospreay.’ He goes, “Come on.’ I said, ‘You’re bigger, stronger, younger and you’re actually a better wrestler.’ And Ospreay is one of the best of all-time. That’s how highly I think of Kyle.” 

Effusive in praise for Fletcher, Callis says his charge is a sponge when it comes to learning in all aspects of pro wrestling. 

“He also has a great brain for the business in the sense that – do I give Kyle advice? Of course, but here’s the thing: I’ve given a lot of people advice,” Callis said. “They have to not only take it, but they have to put it into action. And I’ve had guys put it into action, but what I see with Kyle is he’ll take a little piece of advice and he’ll not only do it, because some guys will do it because ‘Oh, Don asked me to do it,’ or ‘I’ll do it just so Don doesn’t get on me.’

“Kyle not only does it, but he finds out how to do it to directly benefit him and then he’ll come back and go ‘Okay, that was cool.’ So, Kyle puts these things into motion in a way that other talent who are as young and talented as him – well, nobody is as young and talented as him, but in that realm – just don’t do.” 

Even with the litany of talent Callis has with him, it would be easy for him to make himself the focal point of their TV time, considering the amount of vitriol directed at him by the fans. But for Callis, everything he does is in service of getting those he’s with over to those in the audience and those watching at home. 

“I’m not saying there’s no amount of money, because Tony Khan is a great booker and he’s very creative, so maybe Tony Khan can convince Don Callis to have one last wrestling match, but I seriously doubt it and my point in saying that is why would I go out there and talk about me if Kyle is standing there or Takeshita or Josh Alexander?” Callis said. “Don Callis is not wrestling at the pay-per-view. We need to feature the people doing the wrestling and I’ll play whatever role that I can.

“Do I happen to think I’m very good at it? Of course, I do. But to be honest, the best part of my job now that I’ve kinda evolved where I am mentally and emotionally calm in these situations, as opposed to worried or intense or whatever, that Zen state if you want to call it that, is the sweet spot of me being able to actually help people, help young guys, help talent. And then to be able to sit back and watch, because I don’t have an ego about it in the sense that I don’t need to get my stuff in. I don’t need to say anything. I say nothing and I get booed out of the building.”

AEW's All Out pay-per-view is set for Saturday, Sept. 20 at 3pm ET/Noon PT at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena