Nick Aldis believes his time in TNA was shaped by a perception he could never fully shake.
During a recent interview with Soundsphere Magazine, the current WWE executive reflected on his run with the promotion and said he felt many people had already formed an opinion about him before they even got to know him.
According to Aldis, the issue wasn’t his in-ring ability. Instead, he said a number of people in the locker room viewed him as the former Gladiators personality who landed a spot on television because of Dixie Carter, rather than someone who had earned his place through wrestling. He explained that those assumptions followed him from the moment he arrived and made it difficult to get a fair opportunity. He said,
“When I came into TNA, a lot of the people there didn’t even know that I was a wrestler. They thought I was a guy from a TV show that Dixie had fallen in love with and wanted to put on TV. So now, of course, they’re all like, ‘Oh, f*** this guy.’”
“If I had a good idea for a spot or a finish in a match, I would say it to Doug and have Doug go tell them because if I went and suggested it, they were just going to say no… They were convinced they had to know better than me.”
“Doug helped change a lot of that perception… He would visibly consult with me on stuff so everyone could see that we were equals.”
“I worked every spot on the card, worked my way up to the top of the card, became the world champion, and within four weeks… because I didn’t tow the line for John Gaburick the way he thought I should, and because I got a really severe concussion in the match where I won the title, he completely changed his perception… He did a 180 on me.”
“He was going to do everything he could to basically devalue me so that he could justify taking the title off me and f**ing me off, and I would never be in that top spot again.”
“You could feel everyone in the company knew this. Suddenly they didn’t have as much time for you as they did before because everyone has to live in the autonomy of whoever’s calling the shots.”
“I like D’Lo and Al. I don’t want people to think I dislike them… They’re just trying to survive. Everything comes down to guys trying to survive.”
During the same interview, Aldis expressed his belief that too many people overanalyze things these days. He said,
“I like Vince Russo. I still keep in touch with Vince. I enjoy talking to him. He’s an entertaining guy and I get on very well with him. I don’t have to necessarily agree with everything he says and does, but I don’t agree with everything anyone says or does. I don’t agree with everything my wife says. I look back at some of my own s*** and don’t agree with what I said.”
“Vince has sort of been a victim of that culture, but he also helped create that culture because when all that stuff was happening… nobody at the time knew about it. They didn’t sit there and know there was this guy Vince Russo writing this stuff. They were just like, ‘Wow, this is nuts.’”
“How does he get this negative connotation but Paul Heyman with ECW is lauded as this genius? I like Paul… but it’s interesting to me. I don’t think that comes down to anything more than personalities because people are judging the work based on the personality of the person who wrote it.”
“There’s this overwhelming need to know whose idea everything was. Who came up with it? Why? Who wrote it? Who booked it? I didn’t… you liked it better when you didn’t know.”
“Once you associate what you’re watching with a personality that you now have to decide whether you like or dislike or agree or disagree with, it’s completely taken away your objectivity. Now you’re looking at it subjectively. A good idea is a good idea. If you’re going to dismiss stuff because you don’t like where it came from… no one successful should think like that.”
NOTE: If you have any news tips or podcast recaps that you’d like to send in for us to post (full credit will be given to you), please email me at [email protected].
