Konnan Talks TNA, WCW And More

Former WCW, TNA and Lucha Underground star Konnan recently spoke with Real Sport on a number of wrestling topics and below are highlights from the interview

Impact going through a number of name changes and if it hurts the company:

"I think it just hurts the image and the image of TNA has always been disorganized. When you that your TV is GFW, then IMPACT, then it's just 'What's going on?' I really believe that Ed Nordholm, who's the head there, is doing his best because I've spoken with him on many occasions. He's a very forthright person, unlike the other people that used to work there before that were not forthright. He's really trying to look at a way to make money, how to not be wasting money, how to be resourceful. He's looking at why we're still in Orlando 'Cos it's usually the tourists that are there and some of the local fans, right? But in Canada, people are gonna be buying tickets so there's a way to monetize. The Global Network is another way to monetize. He's looking for ways to monetize the product, be sleek, streamline everything, cut off all the fat that we don't need and try and make this a profitable company. I gotta give him a chance.

I just got there and he's on the right path. I like the creative and I wanna see what Sonjay [Dutt], Big John [Gaburkick], [Scott] D'Amore and Jeremy [Borash] can come up with without Jeff [Jarrett] being there. I wanna see what they do on their own. That's cool too. I'm sure Jeff had his ideas and they have their ideas. Well, let's see. But yeah, all this changing around doesn't do anything for their image, I don't think it affects viewership at all, but I think for their image they need to say 'Okay, this is what we're calling it and that's that.' I'm not even sure ... I think it's IMPACT, right? Nobody knows what's going on, so that's not good. I do know that Ed is working hard to turn the company around, and the perception, and that's something that makes me happy because the perception for many years has not been good."

His dream LAX member:

"Probably Rey Mysterio, but I don't think Rey Mysterio is the LAX type, y'know?"

How a number of Mexican wrestlers unceremoniously lost their masks while working in WCW:

"I'm not as upset about it as I was when it happened but, yes, it's a shame that it happened as it happened when it could have been done the right way. It was their cultural ignorance. You could have had a great, great match between Rey Mysterio and Juventud Guerrera – two second generation superstars about the same age – but they ended up doing Rey Mysterio vs Nash and, if Nash lost, Miss Elizabeth would lose her hair. Give me a break, who would be interested in that? They made a mockery of something they didn't understand and they were hell bent on doing it even though we tried to explain why they shouldn't do it, they did it anyway."