>>8237220Johnny stole Candice from Kenny and Bucks BFF Joey Ryan.
Candice was in a long term relationship with Joey, where he constantly cheated on her; when Candice found out, he bullshitted her into accepting an open relationship thinking he could keep stringing her along only for Johnny to swoop in and steal Candice from Joey, then fleeing California to the East Coast and NXT, where Joey and the Elite couldn't touch them in terms of blackballing them from the indie wrestling scene. Leading to Joey and the Elite having to privately seethe at Johnny and Candice as a traitor and whore respectively, while pretending to still be friends with them since Johnny was the first person in their little circle to make it to the WWE and they feared he'd blackball them from ever getting in the WWE.
Lumis meanwhile was close friends with Nick Aldis and Aldis famously told Kenny Omega to fuck off and die when he tried to bully Aldis into losing the NWA title to Kenny. Since Aldis was NWA for life, Kenny and the Bucks could only retaliate by blackballing Aldis's friend Dexter.
It's why neither Gargano or Lumis even bothered to send out feelers to AEW when they left NXT. So long as the Elite are in AEW, they'll never be allowed to set foot in the company.