Chavo Guerrero Says TNA Tried To Actually Fire Him After Feast Or Fired, Contacted Lawyer

TNA has had it's fair share of ups and downs, but in conducting several interviews lately, a point of frustration among subjects has been TNA's once-annual Feast or Fired match.

Similar to WWE's Money in the Bank match, four briefcases are put on poles. Three contain title shots, while the other contains a pink slip. The winners are of course predetermined, but who gets fired isn't necessarily. I spoke to Lucha Underground's Chavo Guerrero Jr recently, and brought up the concept to him.

Chavo laughed looking back, but at the time, it doesn't seem he was too happy.

"You know what? It's the craziest thing. They didn't tell anybody. All of a sudden you're in a storyline and you get to work that day and you're in this match called a Feast of Fired Match. Four briefcases on poles, three have title matches, one has a pink slip. So we did it, and after that match a production guy came up to me like 'are you leaving?' and I ask what he's talking about, so there's obviously some inside scoop there. I start thinking that this can't be right. I ask 'is that the way you guys are letting me go?' I was pissed. It was very underhanded and conniving, and unprofessional. One of the most unprofessional things I've had happen in the wrestling business," Chavo told me.

Chavo then elaborated on the aftermath, saying that he had to contact his lawyer to review his contract. He said in the end he left the company, but he had a sour taste in his mouth after the whole process.

"After that happened I talked to my lawyer and he looked over the contract, and he said they can't do that. There's a clause in my contract that prohibited something like that. I went to them, and a good friend of mine was Bruce Prichard, who was in talent relations and had also been let go unprofessionally. I called him up and asked if they could do this, and he said no way. My lawyer CC'd his lawyer and CC'd everybody, and said 'you guys can't do that.' We came to a mutual understanding to part ways, because out relationship is a little burned and won't be the same, but I had some say-so in how it was done. Usually I don't. It left a really bad taste in my mouth. You treat a talent like that? I came in from a wrestling family and from WWE, I was on the booking committee helping out and all these different things, and you're doing that? I didn't want to work for them after that anyway. I'd probably never want to work for a company like that ever again," said Chavo.

Beyond that, Chavo said that he wasn't the only talent who had the same experience. I would later speak to another TNA talent who confirmed he received the same treatment. Chavo saw it as an unprofessional experience.

"It really was not professional. You see everybody that leaves, they start talking about how that happens. Christopher Daniels, he's lost two of those matches, and they were just thrown upon him too. He came back there two or three different times, and I'm like 'is this the way it is here?,' and he said 'Yeah, I didn't know.' Wait a minute, this is not real," he said.

Ultimately, Chavo said that working the talent backstage is in poor taste.

"You don't have to kayfabe your wrestlers. It's the weirdest thing!," he said. "It's super bad taste. Now you have your other wrestlers see this and they're going to want to work for you based on how you treat them. You don't want to treat anybody like that," Chavo said.

TNA didn't run a Feast or Fired match again until 2015, when Velvet Sky ended up with the fired briefcase. She would return to the company just months later.

We'll have the full interview with Chavo soon, where he talks Lucha Underground, WWE, Los Guerreros, and his new VLR clothing line.