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One of the biggest stories inside the so-called “wrestling bubble” heading WrestleMania 42 earlier this month was TNA pulling two of its stars from already announced matches against AEW stars on the independent scene.
The decision was said to be TNA president Carlos Silva’s alone, and Silva said he made it due to “partner conflicts” caused by his talent working the shows or matches — Moose from a Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling card, TNA’s Leon Slater vs. AEW’s Ricochet at a ‘Mania week WrestleCon show in Las Vegas, and the Nic Nemeth/Maxwell Jacob Friedman bout that was set for this weekend in New York.
Despite taking heavy fire for the decision online from MJF, a couple of the promoters involved, and a fair number of wrestling fans, Silva hadn’t spoken on the decision to pull Moose, Slater and Nemeth from those matches (and Slater from the entire show, for which TNA did finally reimburse WrestleCon for Slater’s hotel and airfare expenses after not even returning WrestleCon promoter’s Michael Bochicchio’s calls for a couple of weeks).
Until today (April 29), when he was asked about it during an appearance on Busted Open:
“It was super tough. All these business decisions are tough, and I don’t like being called a “little bitch” on social anyomore than anyone does. It’s OK. You take the goods with the bads. You gotta make the hard decisions. My job sometimes is to make the hard decisions, and for the fans, for all of you, our locker room, we’re gonna make the decisions that are good for TNA. And we gotta protect TNA. As Kevin Plank at Under Armour used to say, ‘You gotta protect this house,’ and it’s a real slogan.
“We’ve had some other folks come at us, and they’ve moved into our nights. They’ve made some decisions. They’ve tried to block us in arenas and venues, and that stuff’s real and it’s out there. And it’s OK, because everyone’s got to make the decisions for their business, but we’re also not just going to lie down and not make decisions that are good for our business. And unfortunately, sometimes those decisions are tough, and we’re very thoughtful about them and we try to do the best to make good when we have to make those decisons.
“And in the case of Nic and Leon and a few of the matches that had to get shut down, we tried to make good and make calls and take care of the business as best as we could.”
Sounds good, coach.
I don’t remember Max throwing “little bitch” at Silva in his messages, but I may have missed it in between the stronger invectives. That isn’t the main question the TNA boss’ statement conjures for me, though.
Much more curious about these “other folks” coming “at you”. Bochicchio’s on record saying Slater wasn’t going to lose the nixed Ricochet match, and we doubt Nemeth and Create-A-Pro co-founder Brian Myers would have let MJF make the former WWE and TNA World champ look like a chump.
Rumor had it Silva was upset about AEW Collision airing head-to-head with TNA Impact Wrestling when it was bumped off Saturday by TNT’s NCAA Basketball Tournament coverage, and the “moved into our nights” accusation seems to confirm that. We hadn’t heard about the venue-blocking (perhaps this is something Maple Leaf owner and former TNA president Scott D’Amore came at Silva’s promotion with), but that also sounds kind of like a “promoter 101” tactic. It’s one we’ve heard TNA’s partner WWE has deployed over the years.
But other than cancelling already announced bookings, Silva’s new policy is his prerogative. Provided he’s measured by TNA owners Anthem by the promotion’s performance*, his career path should tell us if this was a good move or not.
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
* In my experience, the higher up the corporate ladder people climb, the harder it becomes to tell what they’re being rewarded for.
