The temperature of TNA president Carlos Silva’s online heat went back up yesterday (April 29) when Silva finally went on record about the new policy he instituted before WrestleMania 42.
Silva says the decision to prohibit TNA talent from facing wrestlers from certain other promotions on independent bookings (seeming focused on AEW and its partners), which led to three announced appearances and two highly anticipated matches being cancelled, was necessary to protect TNA from the predatory business
practices of unspecified others.
It hasn’t stopped him from getting flak about his explanation. And TNA’s AJ Francis has heard enough, posted on X/Twitter last night in response to a follower asking if Silva was in the wrong:
No, because nobody had a problem w/ AEW not allowing Powerhouse Hobbs to lose to me at 4th Rope even though the next night in the SAME BUILDING I was in a SOLD OUT MAIN EVENT vs Nic Nemeth for the TNA WORLD TITLE… cut that victim bulls*it out. Every company protects interests
fka Top Dolla is right that every company protects interests, which is probably why AEW didn’t want one of their upper midcarders losing to the former 24/7 champ, regardless of his current position in TNA’s pecking order. It also doesn’t even necessarily apply to two of the appearances we know of that were nixed by Silva’s new policy, as Moose had only been announced as being on an upcoming Maple Leaf Pro card, and WrestleCon’s promoter’s said Leon Slater wasn’t going to lose to AEW’s Ricochet on the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow.
But Francis believes in his own work, and is standing up for his team. We get that.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman, whose Create-A-Pro match with Nic Nemeth was another casualty of Silva’s edict and who has been one of the loudest critics of Silva and the move, wasn’t buying it though:
At least Matt Hardy tells Ariel Helwani that for wrestlers who lost out on an indie booking, Silva “compensated them and paid them their full fee.” And Hardy is probably right about the whole ordeal in retrospect:
“But what should have happened most likely is that because we are partners with WWE, and AEW is this own entity that is a competing force, these matches probably shouldn’t have ever been cleared in the beginning.”
AJ Francis wouldn’t have to defend his boss if Slater/Ricochet and MJF/Nemeth had never been booked.
Is this the last we hear on this issue? Share your final thoughts on the topic below, just in case.
