As we noted earlier today, the most recent edition of “Something to Wrestle With”, hosted by Bruce Prichard, contains numerous stories from Prichard regarding issues TNA has faced during his time with the company.
Of note is the story Prichard tells of how TNA let Bobby Roode’s contract slip away back in 2013, as the company had the option to roll his contract over for another year. Roode was under a deal which was set to expire, however if TNA signed off on the roll over in time then Roode would have to remain with the company for one more year. Prichard says one day he received an email from Roode saying his deal was set to expire in three days, and he hadn’t heard anything from management about a roll over. Prichard said he had the roll over signed well ahead of time, and in the necessary timeframe to have the deal legally extended, and he even had copies of the signatures as proof. Roode said he had received nothing, and was therefore free and clear to negotiate with any company he wanted.
Prichard then said he went to the person who was supposed to have mailed the contract, and the person told him it was mailed out. Prichard asked to see a copy of the bill proving the contract was issued and the person was unable to produce it. Prichard knew at that moment that the deal was never mailed out to Bobby Roode, and he later found out TNA was no longer using FedEx due to issues with their account and the company was using UPS instead.
“The folks that were in charge of actually doing that felt that Bobby Roode wasn’t necessary and that if his contract expired then they wouldn’t be obligated to pay him what his contract called for and they could renegotiate at a lower rate,” explained Prichard. “The problem with that is that Bobby Roode was worth every penny that he was being paid [and] probably more. The other thing about it was that we had him figured into our [creative] plans. We had long-term plans with Bobby.”
Prichard went on to say that Panda Energy, who was funding TNA at the time, had a philosophy that if you let things go they just go away and you don’t have to deal with the consequences. Prichard said he hated that attitude and the idea that Panda treated wrestlers like they are interchangeable parts. Prichard added Panda treated wrestlers “like plumbers, you can replace them with another plumber. That analogy used to drive me absolutely nuts because a plumber can’t paint a picture and tell a story,” said Prichard.
Prichard said he continued to negotiate with Roode and TNA ended up paying him a lot more money to retain him, but Roode ended up leaving the company earlier this year and signed with WWE. As we noted back when Roode signed with WWE, he was reportedly owed a lot of money from TNA.
Prichard then discussed instances of late pay in TNA, and recalled being told by accounting that the checks were mailed, however the wrestlers would say they never received them. He added sometimes pay was up to 6 weeks late, and wrestlers could not afford to travel to the next set of TNA TV tapings, but eventually TNA would overnight the talent checks. When he would arrive to the tapings, he would see 3 guys holding FedEx envelopes with the old checks, proving they were never mailed in the first place. When he brought the issue up with Dixie Carter, Prichard said she responded simply by saying “well they got paid.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
