Matt Morgan just made a pretty bold claim about Triple H and WWE’s attitude toward former TNA stars.
According to Morgan, there was a time when simply having TNA on your résumé could work against you if you wanted to get back into WWE. Speaking on Wrestling Life Online, Morgan claimed Triple H wasn’t interested in bringing in wrestlers who had built their names in TNA.
“There’s another truth that a lot of people don’t realize—that for a minute there, Triple H didn’t want anything to do with any former TNA talents.”
Morgan said that wasn’t just locker room gossip either. He claims he kept hearing the same message from people already working inside WWE whenever someone from TNA wanted to make the jump.
“He used to say, ‘If you want to come, then you got to get rid of that TNA stink.’ Or stank.”
Morgan explained he never heard those words directly from Triple H himself. Instead, he says the message came through friends in the company, including BG James.
“It wouldn’t come from him directly. It’d come from like BG James, other people that I’m friends with that work for the company…”
According to Morgan, that mindset was something he had to think about himself while deciding whether to return to WWE ahead of the 2014 Royal Rumble. The story wasn’t unique to Morgan. He remembered AJ Styles constantly picking the brains of former WWE wrestlers in TNA, trying to understand what separated the two companies and what WWE was really looking for.
“I’ve been around so many conversations when we were at TNA together where AJ would ask Christian, Tomko, me, others that had been in WWE like, ‘What am I missing? What… are they really sold on size that much?'”
The wrestling landscape looks completely different today. WWE has since signed and pushed several former TNA names, including AJ Styles, Abyss, Ethan Page, Jordynne Grace. But if Morgan’s story is accurate, there was a time when getting through WWE’s door meant convincing people you’d already left your TNA past behind.
Do you think WWE once had a bias against former TNA talent, or has that narrative been overstated? Let us know in the comments below.
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