Daniels & Kazarian on TNA Creative: Russo, Big John, Conway, Lagana, More

Former TNA Impact Wrestling stars and current ROH stars Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian recently spoke to AlternativeNation.net about TNA's creative team.

Kazarian: I don’t know if we fell out of favor, we were still getting great reactions, cutting great promos and doing very entertaining segments and nobody cared to tell me any different. However, we were just spinning our wheels and going nowhere. We were both pitching ideas, pitching ideas, pitching ideas and they just fell on deaf ears. We would also get the line: “You’re untouchable, bulletproof, it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re gonna get over,” and I’m thinking, “Exactly. Now, just imagine how over we’d get if you got behind us a little bit.” It just seemed like we never got any answers. I’m not blaming any specific person but it sure as hell wasn’t our fault because we were still at the top of our game and we still are.

Daniels: They had the people they wanted to work with and it seemed like myself and Frankie weren’t those people. We did what we could and what we were given but after a while it seemed like they wanted to focus on different people so that’s what led to us leaving.

Kazarian: Well you saw the last year of what Chris and I were doing, that will probably [show you] what I thought of that creative team, and I could of told you Vince was working with those guys for a long time. Vince, just knowing his style of writing, and what was happening with the company, it all screamed of Russo. I don’t know what that says about the company, that they were so ashamed to announce that he was with the company, and that they knew it would them even more of a black eye, that they would be shunned publicly. If the guy’s working with you, just say that he’s working with you. I just don’t get why they couldn’t say that he was working for TNA. I don’t know why they didn’t but I don’t care and it’s not any of my business.

Daniels: I mean, I heard scuzzlebutt but there was never any proof or anything that made me go, “Oh that had to be Vince Russo,” because a lot of it really, like any of those guys could of written that. I don’t think Vince was writing any specific stuff. I think it was just a collaborate effort and if he was one of the cooks in the kitchen, and nothing was so obviously him that it made me go, “Oh, it must be him.”

Kazarian: I had a very good relationship with Dave [Lagana] and Matt [Conway]. John [Gaburick] however, I honestly never talked to outside of a few e-mails in which I don’t think I ever heard back and I never developed any sort of relationship with him whatsoever and my last few weeks there, seeing where the stories were going , being told that they were going in a different direction I was like “OK, well if you’re going in that direction then I guess you are going in a different one. This isn’t for me.” That’s why I’m not there anymore and that’s perfectly fine and I say that with no malice or anything like that. It’s just what it is.