Ethan Carter III recently appeared on Busted Open Radio to discuss joining TNA, who gave him the chance to join the promotion after being released from WWE and becoming the TNA World Heavyweight champion.
Here are the highlights.
On who from TNA gave EC3 his chance:
Coming over, I was on NXT before NXT was cool and awesome, you know, it was a chop-shop game show, I was on the internet, it was throwaway. We did the redemption thing and nobody cared. It was whatever. Probably people, major players in the office never even watched it or barely looked at it. That’s fine because they have better things to worry about. So I was at NXT then and John Gaburick was over in WWE and he’s in the truck all the time and he’s watching everything. When he came over to TNA, I was free and he immediately brought me in for a try out and next thing you know, I’m dropping Norv Fernum on his head and we’re off to the races. He saw something … a couple of other people vouched for me from over there to him and he brought me in and I was sort of his first “guy” to bring in and you know, regardless if I shit the bed or didn’t, he was going to be behind me because that’s wrestling and you get behind “your guys” and give them every chance to succeed even if they fail. Fortunately, it was pretty good and successful thus far.
On being the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion:
Well I do have a heart but it’s pumped black full of panda-energy oil. I can take you on a trip down memory lane … First off, I know that this was built as a Slammiversary match but unfortunately circumstances negated that and we were kinda in a lose-lose situation because if we did it at Slammiversary but filmed TV prior … you know, it weird, but it did work out. It worked out great, I think Bell-to-Bell was our best show that we’ve had in a very long time. Everyone killed it on that show, it was great… great matches. The match with Kurt was perfect for what we were doing. It told the perfect story. It was my dream match as a kid to have and to have it for a World Championship was out of control and surreal. I mean, there was some definite knocks on the way, it’s been a long journey to get any sort of vindication for success, there’s been personal and professional ales that I’ve had to but I’m here and it’s AWESOME.
