Tom Hannifan, (formerly “Tom Phillips,”) joined “The Oral Sessions” with Renee Paquette this week to discuss his new position with Impact Wrestling, his job in the wrestling world, and his relationship with Vince McMahon.
Tom Hannifan talking about joining Impact Wrestling:
“It’s only really developed within the last month,” Hannifan shared. “I have a lot of friends here and they connected me with the powers that be.”
“We had some good conversations and honestly, the schedule was very attractive. I just got done doing a 52-week a year schedule for about nine years. So I thought,‘This is great. This is really cool.’”
When asked what it is like behind the scenes Hannifan shared, “Everything that I was told about what the locker room is like in Impact, with Scott D’Amore and Josh Matthews, has been accurate thus far. I’ve worked one day, but everyone has been awesome.”
Tom was asked if he ever thought his career would be in professional wrestling:
“No. Never. When I graduated college, I was obviously trying to get into sports journalism or sports broadcasting or whatever. A job lead came up for WWE and I was like, ‘I need a job.’,” Tom said.
“I remember applying to the Billings Mustangs baseball team in Montana. I got to the second round of interviews, and a week later the WWE posting came up. I was like, ‘I might as well try that too.’ I can’t even begin to describe how lucky I got.”
“I was 23 years old, to be there for close to nine years, and to learn what I learned during that time is why I think that I can do anything. It’s why I believe I can do anything, so I’m really excited not just about what Impact offers me in terms of the schedule which is fantastic, but it gives me the flexibility to do things like the podcast that I’m already doing about Penn State football which is a passion of mine. I desperately want to get into voice over work. I think I have a deep voice, so that may work. I would love to work for video games, TV, movies, and anything like that. There’s so many things because of the WWE schedule, you understand why they need you available all the time, so they take priority and it’s justifiable.”
Tom talking about his working relationship with Vince McMahon:
“It was very professional. I know a lot of people wanted to make sure they were really close friends with him or something like that. I just always treated everything like, ‘Ok, you tell me what you want me to do and I’ll go do it. Period’, and I just left it at that.”
“I always felt I was very professional and we understood each other. If he fed me something, he fed me something, but like, I just tried to keep it simple that way. My dad was a marine, so when I grew up, he always taught me the value of ‘Go to work, do your job, and do whatever they ask you to do’, so I took that personally.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette “ with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
