AJ Francis Re-Signs With TNA Wrestling

AJ Francis‘ TNA deal was set to expire on December 31, but he has re-signed with the company.

Speaking with Steven Muelhausen for The Takedown on SI, AJ Francis announced that he had re-signed with TNA Wrestling, as he agreed to a new contract. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Francis discussed his decision to re-sign.

“TNA has taken care of me over the last year,” Francis said. “A year ago, I wasn’t the most sought after free agent. A year ago, people thought I wasn’t going to wrestle anymore. People thought that my wrestling career might be done. And a year ago, TNA took me in for their very first show, Hard To Kill in (Las) Vegas. It’s been a blessing with the fact that TNA has done so much for me in the last year.

“Obviously, this is a business. It’s not called the wrestling friendship. It’s called the wrestling business. I always wanted to go back to TNA. Even though over the past week, I’ve made it clear that I could go anywhere. There were feelers out for me potentially going over to AEW, maybe going back to NXT because I never really got a run in NXT, maybe go back to SmackDown. Obviously going to Netflix for Raw would have been cool too.

“But there was a lot of options out on the table for me. TNA just feels like the best place for me. TNA has always since the day that I got there changed people’s perception of me. My last match in TNA was for the TNA World Title, an absolute banger of a match in the main event of Final Resolution against Nic Nemeth.TNA, in one year, took me from someone that people pretended couldn’t wrestle to a bona fide main eventer to the best big man in the business. If TNA could do that in one year, imagine what they could do in another year where I start the year as a bona fide main eventer. I’m very much happy with the decision to take my talents back to TNA.

AJ Francis On Re-Signing With TNA

Francis was asked to comment on when he made the decision to stay with TNA, and he said that they had a discussion “yesterday” at the time of the interview.

“Yesterday. Literally, we had a discussion yesterday. We had a final discussion really this morning,” AJ Francis said. “Today was the last day of my current deal. I know my worth. I’m glad that TNA was able to make it happen. I got what I wanted out of the deal. I was willing to go into free agency if it didn’t pan out how I wanted it to. Luckily, everything was able to come together. Another year in TNA, another year proving that I am the best big man in the business. Another year chokeslamming people out of their damn boots. So, it’ll be another great year.

“It means a lot to me that these guys understand my value and how good I am. Because for the longest time, I was the only person that seemed to understand it. So a year ago, I told anybody who was in my life a year ago. I told people this going to happen. When I got released from WWE, I told Bully Ray the only place I wanted to go was TNA. I was like, in a year’s time, I’m going to show people that I’m a main eventer. And that’s exactly what happened.”