Josh Alexander’s original TNA deal was slated to expire on February 14th before it was extended days before.
It was a two-year deal with an option to be extended, which is what happened. Alexander’s current deal expires on February 14, 2025. While appearing on the Battleground Podcast, Alexander discussed what happened. Here are the highlights:
On TNA extending his deal:
“Two years ago, I signed a contract. it was two years plus a third-year option, which is a team option for TNA and Impact Wrestling at the time, Anthem, blah, blah. I didn’t even know that my contract was coming up, to be honest. All this stuff happened with the termination of Scott D’Amore and stuff like that. And I looked at my contract, I was like, ‘Oh man, February 14? That’s like in three days. That’s weird.’ So, I had to inform Anthem that my deal had lapsed, and they had 10 days to pick up the option if they wanted to. And, if you don’t ask, you might never find out. So I certainly asked if they could not pick up my option and if we could negotiate something different because I feel like I’ve outworked that contract I signed. But it was a team option. It’s something that the ball is in their court. I signed the deal. And it was totally within their rights to pick it up, and I’m completely fine with them picking it up. Like, it’s still a good deal. It’s not something that I’m upset about by any stretch. But just to read tweets and stuff like, I’m being held hostage and all this stuff and forced to stay here against my will, that’s not the case.
I signed that deal two years ago. I knew what I was signing when I signed it. At the end of the day, at the end of my career, I want to be able to look in the mirror, hold my head high, and say that I carried myself as a professional first and foremost above anything else I do in this business. I want to say I did things right. And I signed that deal, I’m going to honor that deal, and we’ll see what happens in the next 12 months. Something could be renegotiated for something long-term in the meantime. Anthem has certainly mentioned that they would be interested in something like that. But, at the same time, I thought it would be cool for the first time in my career to kind of hit free agency and see what I was worth on the open market and then renegotiate and see what could happen then.
I’m totally cool here staying in TNA. I’ve dreamt of being in TNA since I was a 15-year-old kid, and I tuned in on Wednesday nights for the first time. So for that to happen, finally get in a TNA ring at the Palms for Hard to Kill and then the next day against Will Ospreay for Snake Eyes. Man, that’s a dream come true. So I want to see this thing through, and I will for the next 11 months or whatever it is, and then we’ll see where we go from there. But not being held hostage. That’s a little too dramatic for me. It was just more of a bad-timing thing, right? It just happened that the resigning or the option picked up at just an inopportune time.
On the highlight of his TNA run so far:
“I mean, the feeling when you’re in the ring with somebody like Will Osprey and You’re just standing there, you haven’t done anything yet. And there’s like, what is like 2500 people all chanting TNA at the top of their lungs, man. The volume added some people to it. I never experienced it in my life, but like you couldn’t tell me that, like WrestleMania would sound any different for me. Like, I had goosebumps in the ring. For all the things that happened in that match, like I don’t even think I took a breath the entire time I was wrestling, it was like an out-of-body experience, and I could say that there was because I was on that big stage with all the pressure wrestling somebody like will Osprey and stuff like that. But I think it was just because of the fans, man. And I knew that Will came to the back, and the first thing he said was the same thing, man, he was just like, ‘that crowd was insane.’ Like that was a dream come true because he was a TNA kid to man.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Battleground Podcast with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
