Eric Young talks TNA/WWE partnership, Joe Hendry, more

[Chris]

Eric Young still talks with Triple H, thinks WWE & TNA partnership is good for wrestling

This year in wrestling has certainly come with a lot of surprises and some major headlines with one of those being the brand collaboration between TNA Wrestling and WWE. From Jordynne Grace’s entry…

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This year in wrestling has certainly come with a lot of surprises and some major headlines with one of those being the brand collaboration between TNA Wrestling and WWE.

From Jordynne Grace’s entry into the 2024 Royal Rumble to Joe Hendry generating millions of views on social media for WWE to different wrestlers popping up on each other’s programming, the “NXTNA” collaboration has been making headlines.

Someone who has seen both sides of that is former two-time TNA World Champion Eric Young who also worked with WWE from 2016 through 2020. He briefly returned in November 2022 before being granted his release in April 2023 due to his reluctance to work under Vince McMahon once Endeavor came into the picture.

While appearing in Hermosa Beach, California, to promote his upcoming Vinyl Obsession show on AXS TV, I talked to Young about his thoughts on the partnership where he shared that he still talks to Paul “Triple H” Levesque often, who he said is a good friend, as they both share a love for music but don’t talk about much wrestling.

“(The partnership) is good for both sides. What it’s really good for is pro wrestling because it has people thinking and talking ‘What if this person shows up or that person shows up?’,” he said. “I think this is the tip of the iceberg. It’s cool now, but we’re really just seeing the beginning, the genesis of it.”

While we did see Grace wrestle with main roster talent during the Rumble, most of the appearances have been made between NXT and TNA wrestlers. Given that NXT is the developmental brand for WWE, Young noted that having talents like Hendry appear on NXT adds legitimacy and helps young inexperienced talent grow.

“Joe Hendry is one of the most popular wrestlers in the entire world right now. Him showing up on their show adds a legitimacy to their show because it is populated by a lot of young, inexperienced people. I have been young and inexperienced. You can’t gain experience by not doing it. They’re learning as they go and having people like (Frankie) Kazarian and even now, they had Hammerstone and Jordynne Grace showing up several times, that only adds to them. Them coming over to us and us being in a partnership only adds to our show, and what it does is it has people’s interest and it has people talking about what could happen.”

“It’s a really cool thing to be part of. It doesn’t come to any surprise to me that those guys are in control and now this is happening. It’s a joint venture, a joint business agreement that is beneficial to both sides and for it to not be happening would be foolish. So, yeah, it’s great,” he said.

 

[Sky]

It's doubled the attendances too which is big

 

[Chris]

I think TNA's own crew deserves a lot of that credit too, they've went HARD on local marketing for their shows, like boots on the ground stuff

 

[Chris]

Some more quotes

“I don’t think (the success) is something that has happened just recently. This has been going on for two or three years, maybe longer. It’s doing the right decisions and putting the right people in place and just kind of sticking to what TNA stands for. TNA is a pro wrestling show written, produced and shown to the world for pro wrestling fans in those people’s minds. We have them in mind when they are writing the show. When I’m performing or when they’re writing or I’m cutting a promo, I’m thinking about people that consume the show, and those people are pro wrestling fans.”

He said TNA has not been a secret for fans watching the show for five or six years and that now, the secret is getting out.

“It’s the real world standing up and noticing that this is an unbelievable show, an unbelievable product, littered with unbelievably talented people and the people should be watching it,” he said.

 

[Canadian Dragon]

Yea tna was doing sellouts n good ppv number in January way b4 the wwe team up so it kind of annoyed me Meltzer tried to spin as its cuz of wwe. Not saying wwe partnership has not paid off but it's kind of taking away from Scott's work the last 3 years n it's disrespectful imo. Same w talent who've been busting their asses.