Bully Ray Expresses His Concern With Newly Announced Deal Between WWE & TNA

This week, WWE and TNA Wrestling formalized their partnership with a multi-year deal that will allow talents from "WWE NXT" and TNA the continued ability to crossover into each other's territories. Naturally, Bully Ray, who has ties to both WWE and TNA, is excited about this development. At the same time, though, he has one worry.

"My concern, if I have to look at this from the other side, is will the WWE allow TNA to do business their way?" Ray noted on "Busted Open Radio." "Will they just say, 'Listen TNA, you run your creative the way you want to run it.' Because one of my concerns when we had the conversation a year ago, is that when we first saw the relationship was if the WWE were ever to buy TNA or be involved with it too much, would their creative now just take over TNA's creative?"

According to Ray, if WWE's creative team begins to overpowers that of TNA, then TNA will effectively become another branch of WWE, instead of its own separate entity, which Ray has enjoyed for several years. "I hope to continue to see [TNA] do their things on their own. Then if WWE goes, 'Hey, this girl Jordynne Grace, she looks amazing. She's doing great in the ring. We'd like to bring her in for the Royal Rumble. Oh, by the way, she did great at the Rumble. We'd like to continue to use her,' blah, blah, blah, that [is a] working relationship with that."

The latest notch in the WWE-TNA partnership saw the surprise appearance of TNA Knockouts Champion Masha Slamovich on this week's episode of "WWE NXT," in which Slamovich exchanged glances with "NXT" star Cora Jade.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.