Former TNA star AJ Styles was recently interviewed for a shoot DVD by RF video. You can read some highlights below courtesy of TNAinsider.
On Christopher Daniels ever getting his just due in TNA:
Definitely hasn’t. He should have been TNA champion by now. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why people get so angry with Chris because he’s so smart. He knows the business so well and has so many great ideas and they get pissed off because he is sharing ideas as if well how dare he tell us his ideas are better than ours. What it is and that’s probably what pisses them off is that his idea is better than yours. And it makes them angry and as result Chris has to suffer the consequences for asking a question or maybe see if it can be done in a different way that makes sense that doesn’t piss people off. Doesn’t make much sense.
Lot of times Chris was known as the “ring leader” that would put these things in our mind in Frankie, Joe and myself to get us all mad about what was going on and it was absolutely not the truth. I would make my own decisions as I had my own ideas on why things weren’t working but they always picked on Chris. Never understood that. I loved what he was doing in Ring of Honor when it was kind of being this cult and I wish they would have went with that in TNA, it made sense, it was easy to do, no one was doing it and he did it better than anybody. They never went through with it and I never understood it–I think his promos are great and the stuff he and Frankie Kazarian are doing with Bad Influence is awesome! You can tell their having fun and their funny and creative. Throwback Thursday…These guys are brilliant.
Advice to Daniels and Kazarian on their contract re-negotiations with TNA:
First thing you’ve gotta take care of your family. That’s what I want them to do. With me leaving was hopefully being able to open a door and letting them know the independents are not dead. They’re still alive. First
things first, take care of your family…whatever happens, happens.
On Samoa Joe being booked and if they ruined him:
Absolutely! There’s no question. When people are chanting Joe’s gonna kill you, let him do it! When they brought in Kurt–and I love Kurt, he’s the machine. In no way though would I have had Kurt come in and headbutting Joe, never…Never! I don’t care how bad Kurt is as Joe’s your World Heavyweight champion and he’s the baddest dude and he should have been portrayed as that the whole time. I would have not had Kurt Angle beat Samoa Joe. He just had so much momentum at that time. I would have just went above and beyond, he was so different looking but people believed him.
On Dixie Carter taking over after Jeff Jarrett was dismissed due to relations with Karen Angle ( now Karen Jarrett ):
When Jeff left creative it seemed things go worse. It seemed like they were bringing more and more people from WWE. Like when they brought in Hulk Hogan and Eric Bishcoff. She thought she needed more help with that situation because Jeff wasn’t there any more and so therefore stuff wasn’t making sense because there wasn’t a guy who was a wrestling in there with a wrestling mindset. They didn’t have that guy and we missed that guy. That was difficult, putting up with that kind of stuff. So many things did’t make sense. There were times we’d understand why Jeff would do things when he was in charge but boy were we missing him when he was gone.
Feast or Fired concept being a rip off of WWE’s Money In The Bank: Absolutely!
The crazy thing about Feast or Fired is somebody actually gets fired… They really got fired.I think that’s stupid to do that to somebody on national tv. Just makes you makes you look bad as a company that you would actually out this on television. I think that’s terrible.
On Fortune Four:
Loved it! Could have been so much more done with it than it was, could have been so much bigger. I wanted it to be the new DX, I think we had the potential to be something bigger and better but they did’t give us the opportunity to do that. Especially when we turned to the good side, the crowd was behind it, everything was behind it as we had a way of making our characters different but we were still part of the same faction, so many things we could have done. They didn’t capitalize on that as I thought we had alot of steam.
I don’t know if they thought they needed a new World heavyweight champion in bobby Roode which is fine but the fact of the matter that Beer Money was so popular at the time and gaining! Not getting worse but better as a tag team that you wouldn’t split them up. I even voiced my opinion like–you don’t break these guys up right now. They are so hot as a tag team, please don’t break them up. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, still more money to be made with these guys please. They didn’t want anything to do with that and AJ Styles is a stupid wrestler who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
TNA Gutcheck Concept:
I think it’s a good idea to try and get that reality tv involved, it’s bad that you know these guys aren’t going to be used. That’s sad as they have no where else to go and they never were on tv and if they were it was for very little and that sucks for them. I hate seeing that and the fact that they make it reality television and break somebody’s heart and say in front of millions of people hey kid you’re not ready yet, in front of millions of people…
I don’t like that. I have a problem with that as it’s real and this is something they’ve done their whole lives and you’re telling them they aren’t good enough on live television. There was no room for anybody else as some of these guys aren’t getting on tv anyway and you’re trying to bring in more guys? That’s not how it works. We don’t have a development system to house this many people and for them to make money. I didn’t like the whole concept it just bothered me.
Claire Lynch:
It wasn’t them that came up with this story. It was Frankie, Chris and myself that came up with this story. It could have been great but it was the things they took away from it that destroyed it. The thing with Dixie and I was great, I don’t care what you say as everyone believed Dixie and I were banging which was great! Now you gotta see how I saw when we were going through this story…Claire Lynch wasn’t suppose to look like Olive Oil (from Popeye the sailor man). She wasn’t suppose to be this hideous thing, she was suppose to be this smoking, hot, blonde-haired blue-eyed wow knockout. And when she came down to the ring and told us who she was–she wasn’t suppose to be a family friend is what Dixie said. She was suppose to be the niece of Dixie Carter and the reason why I took it upon myself to help Claire is because I didn’t want to hurt the company. I didn’t want it to get out that a Carter was going through rehab and embarrass the company. I took it upon myself to help and didn’t tell nobody, my wife, not a soul. I’d update Dixie which explained the hugging and embracing because I was helping her niece. That was the most important part but what it came down to was is AJ banging the niece? I wanted for every guy to go listen I don’t if he is but I don’t blame him!
That would have been the keeper right there and I think it all would have worked out but it was the little things that hurt that storyline that I think could have been really well done. She (the Claire Lynch actress) quit because she was getting over as a heel. People were actually Facebooking her and saying hey you’re a real whore! Don’t you understand? She thought it was affecting her ability on these shows selling pots and pans. What it should have been is hey you’re doing such a great job that people believe you. You’re an actor or actress! She went the other way said she didn’t wanna do it any more which pissed me off so I had no problem calling her ugly whore but of course I’m talking about the character. It was sad how it actually could have worked but didn’t.
