Kazarian Talks Talent Leaving TNA, TNA Being Different Now, Past TNA Sale Rumors, His Departure

Frankie Kazarian spoke with BetweenTheRopes.com about parting ways with TNA Wrestling with his contract almost over, what went into the decision, when he started wondering about his future with the company, if he wanted to stay and more. Here are some highlights from the interview:

His last few months with the company:

"Honestly, since after Bound for Glory, there just wasn't any direction for Bad Influence the tag-team. We continued to ask questions, we continued to pitch ideas and it was just like 'OK, we're thinking of this or that' but we never got a straight answer and we were just kind of floating. It kind of bothered us because, honestly, we're too good for this. We should really be involved in something. When Davey (Richards) and Eddie (Edwards) came in, we were kind of licking our chops. Sweet! This could be six months, a year. A lot of folks on the internet and within the wrestling community were excited for the potential matchup of us and The Wolves. So were we and so were they when they came in. So we thought we were going to get back in the fold and it never happened and we never got a straight answer other than we're going with other teams. What can you say other than OK? After the UK, we did Lockdown with Muta and Sanada. That was great and after that we were left off television. Right then it was like OK, they literally have nothing going on for us. And here we are now."

Seeing so many longtime TNA wrestlers no longer with the company:

"It's different. My last day at TNA, I said this to a few people, I didn't feel like I was leaving TNA because I didn't feel like I recognized the company. There was still people I'll miss but it didn't feel like I was leaving TNA. Honestly, there was a couple of red flags, and this was even preceding when I was starting to make up my mind about my current situation, AJ Styles leaving obviously, because I'm very close to AJ and knowing what he was going through and talking to him, that was huge. I was like wait a minute. I say this as his friend and I say this selfishly, I don't understand why they didn't do whatever it took to keep him there. And I'm not just saying that because he's a friend. I'm saying that because he's a franchise guy. He's one of the best in the world. He's a good human being. He's a guy you can continue to build the company around. He leaves and real soon thereafter Jeff Jarrett leaves so that was a big red flag being waved. Wait a minute ? things are changing. I don't know that they're changing for the better. It could just be me. Internally, management, complete turnover, people on the creative team, people in management. It really is just different."

The talk last year of TNA being close to being sold:

"I didn't know. I heard the rumors and there's no one I can really ask. It's not like I can call Dixie (Carter) and go hey, are we being sold? I could but I would never do that. Obviously, it's none of my business. I would hope and pray that if that were to go down that they would call a meeting and say "hey guys, by the way, we're selling the company". When it was all going down, I had people here i the gym near where I live asking me if TNA is being sold. I was like I don't think so.

"And then we all got an email from Janice Carter one day saying, first email and last I promise you I'll get from Janice Carter believe it or not, saying please don't believe the rumors, we're not being sold. And I thought that was odd because I was like wow, all these years and all these rumors of TNA and everything that's ever been said and now we finally get a letter saying don't believe the rumors. OK. All I can do is take that at face value but we later found out that maybe that was ? I still don't know what the situation was because that's all part of the business side. I had hopes that whoever wanted to buy it wanted to buy it because they were passionate about wrestling and wanted to try and do something different with the product. But apparently it's not being sold, it's not for sale, there's not a for sale sign on it."

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Source: Between The Ropes