TNA star Matt Hardy has weighed in on the wave of departures and cost-cutting at TNA Wrestling, pushing back on talk that the company is in financial trouble or about to be sold to WWE.
Hardy made the comments on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, shortly after TNA confirmed a mid-June workforce reduction that has seen several on-screen and behind-the-scenes names exit the company. On the idea that TNA is struggling financially, Hardy argued the opposite is true.
“We’re actually going in the opposite direction. They’re actually saving money,” Hardy said, referencing online claims about the company’s finances. “The reason a lot of these people want to leave is because they’re being offered per-night deals, and it is what it is.”
He also took on the WWE rumor directly, while noting he can only speak from his own vantage point.
“So financially, TNA is okay. We’re not about to be bought by WWE right now. I know that’s the rumor. I think down the road in a few years that [could] happen, whatever. But right now that is not happening,” Hardy said.
Hardy on Carlos Silva
Hardy spent part of the conversation on TNA President Carlos Silva, framing him as an executive focused on the business side rather than the product. By Hardy’s account, that approach is why some talent have been allowed to walk.
“Carlos, his job, love him or hate him, is to streamline money and make the company profitable and maximize profit as much as you can,” Hardy said.
He went further, contrasting Silva’s outlook with how WWE has operated under Vince McMahon and now under TKO.
“He doesn’t have a wrestling mindset at all. If someone goes like, ‘Hey, if I can’t get a full-time deal, I want to go,’ he goes, ‘Okay, if this isn’t working for you and you don’t want to be here, I’m not going to hold you up. I’m going to let you go.’ Which is definitely not the wrestling mentality, not something that Vince would do, not something that TKO would do,” Hardy said.
Hardy on TNA creative
Hardy also offered a suggestion for TNA’s creative direction. He named a former WWE writer he worked with during his and Bray Wyatt’s run in the company.
“I would bring in Nick [Manfredini], who worked with myself and Bray [Wyatt] back in WWE, [and] who was a writer there already. Because I felt like he was really layered in the way he could do stuff,” Hardy said. “He knew how to treat us as special or as different. If there’s something in a supernatural aspect you’re trying to get out of these two characters, he knew how to utilize them. Where he also was very good at utilizing characters who were just legit wrestlers, who just go in the ring and wrestle.”
Hardy added that he would be open to helping with creative himself, though he sees a complication in his and Jeff Hardy’s standing as two of the promotion’s top names.
“I think I could help with that,” Hardy said of creative. “I feel a little torn and split, because I am still, obviously with Jeff. I think they look at us as the top draws of TNA, so that makes it a little trickier too. But when it’s all said and done, I would like to work on other people’s stuff and try to do what I could to maximize everything. I do know, from what I’ve heard, there is someone’s going to be coming in very soon, someone new, and it should help things out as well.”
The TNA cuts
The mid-June workforce reduction included the exit of longtime creative and talent-relations figure Tommy Dreamer, who mutually parted ways with the company. Former Knockouts Champion Tessa Blanchard was released, and producer and in-ring veteran Sami Callihan said he was let go. Digital producer Luke Paron also confirmed his departure, while Steve Maclin and Myla Grace were granted releases earlier in the month. Multiple reports have indicated some remaining talent were asked to take pay cuts to stay, with further departures rumored.
Reporting on Callihan’s exit indicated he had been expecting to take on a larger role overseeing creative before he was let go, an outcome that stands out alongside Hardy’s comments about who should be guiding TNA’s storylines going forward.
