In a candid conversation on The Ariel Helwani Show, former TNA Wrestling President Scott D’Amore broke his silence on his recent release from the company, the emotional toll of losing creative control, and his pivotal role in initiating the now-growing partnership between TNA and WWE.
Reflecting on his release, D’Amore spoke with passion about his connection to the brand.
“Decisions get made. I can be a strong cup of tea or a biting sip of whiskey, whatever analogy you want to use. I was passionate about Impact Wrestling. I spent a long time fighting to make Impact Wrestling, TNA Wrestling again, because TNA wrestling mattered to me. Impact Wrestling never really did. I was happy to tackle it, but in my heart, it was always TNA wrestling.”
“I fought hard for that branding. If it was left to Anthem upper management, I don’t know if you’d ever see TNA again because they went back to all the old stuff about the connotations with TNA, you know, tits and ass and everything else, and wanted to focus on Impact, which I understand, but me and a small group really believed in the TNA branding. I think that’s what led to a lot of the surge.”
D’Amore admitted he felt the brand he fought to revive was ultimately taken away from him.
“Would I like to still be there heading TNA wrestling? Absolutely. Do I feel like it got pulled out of my hands? Absolutely. Does Len Asper and Anthem Sports have every right to do that? Absolutely. I get a little frustrated. There’s times where I look at it and, you know, especially when I see them pulling the trigger on Joe, which was part of our plan, moving the tent pole pay-per-views to bigger venues. That was part of our proposal… that’s the name of the game.”
Despite the bitterness, D’Amore still expressed pride in what his team achieved.
“The guy in charge that’s holding the purse strings made a decision to make a pivot, and he made that pivot. Is it frustrating? Sure… But at the end of the day, I was a paid executive… I think myself and Don Callis and Jimmy Jacobs and, there’s so many people that I can’t name them all, did an amazing, amazing job of taking a brand that was completely effing dead and putting life into it… bringing back that TNA name, no matter where it goes from now. If that’s part of my legacy, I’m comfortable with that.”
D’Amore also revealed for the first time that he was the person who initiated the conversation that led to the current TNA-WWE working relationship.
“It started with me reaching out to Ed Norholm… and saying, ‘What do you think about this?’ It’s something that has been discussed… Even Richard Schaefer… was like, ‘I think the times are right. Let’s reach out.’ I won’t say the name of the person who reached out to because I’m not sure they would want to, but I reached out to somebody at WWE. I had a conversation. I got a text from a number I didn’t know. I had to send the number to somebody and say, ‘Is this really Hunter’s number?’ and they wrote back, yeah. I had a nice chat that got the ball rolling.”
While D’Amore acknowledged that he’s no longer involved in the day-to-day handling of the relationship, he expressed optimism about its potential.
“A lot of the stuff that we talked about in those initial calls is still going, which is great… I was able to get the conversation started, get Jordynne in the Rumble, get Jordynne on NXT. I was able to get them into the works, but the relationship has been picked up and handled without me since then.”
“I think there’s certainly been some upside to it… It was exciting to be one of the catalysts for that. Triple H was great to deal with… one of the first people to reach out after the news broke that I was let go.”
D’Amore’s departure from TNA may have been unexpected, but his fingerprints remain on the brand’s modern revival and its breakthrough partnership with WWE.
