TNA: Josh Alexander on TNA Career Future & Upcoming Free Agency, Nic Nemeth Comments on Being Current Face of TNA, Scott D’Amore on TNA’s Former Partnership with AEW

Sep 12, 2024

Josh Alexander Comments on Future of His TNA Career & Upcoming Free Agency

WrestleManiac UK held a recent interview with Josh Alexander. One of the topics discussed included Alexander’s thoughts about the future of his TNA Wrestling career and being interested in testing the market once his TNA contract expires.

“I can’t say I want to leave TNA. It’s just, I have never hit free agency. I have never been the belle of the ball. I’ve never seen what offers are out there from other companies. I signed my first contract with iMPACT Wrestling nearly six years ago. I re-signed three years ago. Now, that one is coming up. I think I’d be doing myself and my family a disservice by not seeing what’s out there. If there is something out there that gets me really excited, it’s all about what makes me happy at the end of the day. Everything in my wrestling career for these 19 years have been following my heart. There are many times when I was let down, or I broke my neck, or all this other stuff happened that would deter somebody from following their dream. For me, this makes me happy. I want to do it. I get excited doing it still after 19 years and 1500-plus matches. I’m going to keep following my heart with it and we’ll see where that leads.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Nic Nemeth Comments on Being Current Face of TNA & Putting Company on His Back as TNA World Champion

WrestleZone held a recent interview with Nic Nemeth. One of the topics discussed included his thoughts about his belief of why he was the best choice to be TNA World Champion and being the current face of TNA Wrestling.

“I feel like the equity built into my character, whatever the name is, for the last 19, 20 years has been someone that one, can do anything in the business. There’s a lot of superstars in the world, there’s a lot of great wrestlers, and they’re like, ‘Oh, they’re really good at talking or really good at giving you goosebumps or really good at doing these moves or really good at tapping people out or really good at talking on PR moves or interviews during the day to other people or really good at guest starring on shows or really good at talking politics.’ Then there’s people like me, who are really good at talking at all of those items. You go, ‘What can I improve on?’ Every day, you can get better. Obviously, that’s great. Every wrestler wants to outdo themselves from the night before, I hope. But you ask yourself, ‘Who can lead as a champion?’ Moose did a hell of a job, no joke, a fantastic job. His presidency as TNA Champion was fantastic and unprecedented. Two and a half years, undefeated, knocked everybody down, but there’s a little bit of an asterisk, Barry Bonds style, to where it’s like, well, he was the champ, but there was always two or three or four people watching his back and helping him out. I go, I’m not a legacy, when I was in New York. I didn’t have anyone in the meetings pulling for me, and if he was, everybody else was pranking on him and making me lose instead to make it all even. So you have this person who’s genuinely a ten out of ten on every possible scorecard if you’re creating a wrestler, and someone who loves doing it, can still go, somehow looks like this at 44. I feel like this is the perfect person to lead TNA into another era of fantastic success. Moose did fantastic, and now he is no longer champion. Now, I am, and we continue to move on. We continue to get great gates, we continue to get great sold-out shows, a lot of buzz from fans. I don’t know the critics, I don’t know the situation at all. I know the fans are behind this product because they know how hard the roster works. In a business where every roster works hard, people are talking about TNA’s roster going above and beyond. I love to be this representative and ambassador because I freaking am, no matter what, but as champion, with the company on my back, Moose did a great job, but now it’s time to go a little farther.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Scott D’Amore Comments on TNA’s Former Partnership with AEW

A recent episode of the Talk Is Jericho podcast featured former TNA Wrestling President Scott D’Amore as the guest. One of the topics discussed included D’Amore’s thoughts about TNA’s former partnership with AEW from 2020 to 2021.

“The idea was to do something with Don and Kenny. Kenny was getting ready to turn heel, Don I think has always been underrated for his ability to draw true heat. You know that, I know that, Dr. Luther knows that and others that have been around him. I think that’s been a forgotten thing in wrestling. The idea was for Don to come in and be a part of that. The discussions that I were a part of is that Kenny is so freaking good, how is he going to be boo’d? As Dutch Mantell would say, [you put that man with] Don Callis, he’s gonna have some heat. There’s that and that led to having Kenny crossover and come to Impact, win the title, have the Good Brothers go over there. It was, I think at the time for a company that was really in a tough spot, we hadn’t quite found our feet. We had improved, but going into COVID, we certainly weren’t on sound footing. To have Kenny come over, to have some exposure on AEW’s massive platform, it was a shot at the time that we thought we had to take. Looking back, I think there is a lot of positives to the relationship. I think there’s some things I wish we could’ve tackled differently, but overall, I stand by the fact that the decision had to be made. You look at what came out of it, buyrates with Kenny, even the buys with Christian. People are tied up in the fact that Kenny didn’t lose the belt, Kenny would’ve been happy to put over somebody at IMPACT, it was not what was in the cards. Of the options, here’s Christian. Here’s a guy who has so much equity and history in TNA. Here’s a guy who doesn’t get his due for being the first person to choose TNA Wrestling over WWE during a very scary time in the industry. When he first came, Vince McMahon wanted him to stay in WWE. He politely declined, flew in, and signed his TNA deal. He’s the first guy who ever did that. Sting had came, but Sting was sitting at home. Christian had actively took the gamble of saying, I may burn this bridge with WWE forever, which clearly he didn’t, but at the time, who knew? He chose to come to TNA. That’s such a monumental moment in TNA history that if it wasn’t going to be Kenny coming in to anoint his successor with the title, then having Christian do it, having the title featured on that massive rated first episode of Rampage and having Christian with his lineage come and be the guy to anoint Josh Alexander was a pretty great moment. I’m grateful for the relationship. Like I said, perfect? Nope. Certainly [had] ups [and downs].”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com