On the screen, on a brand-new channel, all of a sudden, the test pattern gave way to the logo for AEW Plus…
….and then there was a video entrance before the title of the show came up:
AEW eXplored:
Chapter 1, Part I: Old glory….
[The set of the show was simple with a stand-up podium with a screen behind it, and then also a sit down area with a couple of chairs for some close up interviews. Out from the back comes the host of this season of the show, “The Professor” Mike Tenay.]
Hello everyone, and if you are watching this live then it means you are witnessing history as AEW hits the waves on our very own channel. Not only do you get all the archives of this companies history with AEW+, but you are also going to have access to our streaming channel. Here you will be able to watch shows that look back at our history, watch daily news specials looking at all that is new in the wonderful world of wrestling, but also watch live Podcast specials featuring myself, Taz and a host of others in the weeks to come. Now some may wonder why this show is beginning in January 2010 with the change in name to AEW, as opposed to our beginning in 2002 as NWA: TNA. The good news is that there will be more shows coming that will look at all aspects of our history, but none of us would be here if not for the events of late 2009, early 2010 when we were purchased by this man. Let’s have a look at the early life of one, Jack Tunney IV.
{From there Jack Tunney appeared on the screen and spoke about the first time he actually went to see a wrestling event live as a six-year-old in Calgary. The main event was a stretcher match between Hulk Hogan and Earthquake, but it was the WWF Tag Team Championship batch between the Hart Foundation and Power and Glory that really caught his eye. A few years later it was a WWF championship match between Bret and Owen Hart that would cement me as a fan of these great Canadian wrestlers. In 1997, JTIV followed Bret from WWF to WCW and quickly became a fan of their product, preferring the wrestling style of workers like Hart, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and the Cruiserweights over anything on any of the other wrestling shows that Tunney had sought out. As tape trading was becoming more popular Tunney was able to collect tapes from all sorts of promotions: the Flair/Steamboat Trilogy, matches from NJPW that included Lyger, Pegasus Kid, Black Tiger as well as some of the amazing matches that came out of AJPW.}
After the videos ended it was back to the set where Mike Tenay was now seated in a chair across from Jack Tunney IV who had been watching the videos on the screen set up behid the chairs, and let out a bit of a bemused chuckle.
JTIV: Wow, who’s that guy they are talking about eh?
MT: Well that is actually someone a lot of our fans do not know a lot about, so thank you very much for taking this time to actually let us talk about you a little bit.
JTIV: You’re right Mike, I have no intention of ever being one of those owners who has to be all over their product. Our talent is who the fans actually care about, and that is who they are going to get. So hopefully we can move on to start talking about them pretty quick.
MT: I get the hint, and we will definitely start talking about the talent soon enough, but there are a few questions that I do want to ask about yourself if you don’t mind.
JTIV: Sure, but before you ask….no, no matter what the magazines say, Jennifer Aniston will not be leaving fellow JT, Justin Theroux to hook up with me at the Tunney residence, much to my eternal sadness!
MT: No, no, I wasn’t even going to go anywhere near that rumour. I think that the fans are more interested in the rumour that you tried to buy WCW back from Vince McMahon and WWE?
JTIV: Yeah, okay that rumour I am willing to address, and it is sort of true. A few years ago, I came in contact with WWE on the production side as they were making the transition to HD and acted as sort of a technical advisor after I had been working with HD for so long in a few of my companies. Using that initial introduction, I figured I would roll the dice and attempted to get in contact with Mr McMahon in order to purchase some of the assets they had acquired with the purchase of WCW back in 2001. I was not aiming to get all the copyrights, or outright purchase the company back, but was trying to get the name as well as the title belts back so that I could look at possibly starting fresh.
MT: I take it that did not go over very well?
JTIV: To be honest, I’m not sure if the first offer was even brought to his attention. It was mostly done through attorneys and was quickly denied.
MT: That was the first offer?
JTIV: Yeah, I tried again a couple of times. The second time around I doubled my initial offer which I think got a bit more attention, but was also denied. Finally, I went back a third time after drumming up some investors and really put forward what I thought was a solid offer. Again, I don’t know if it was enough to come across the desk of Vince McMahon himself, if I learned one thing from this experience it is how bureaucratic they are there in Stamford, but it caught the attention of someone in the industry. The relationships that came out of that are what brought me to this point, including that gentlemen who showed up in the first speaking segment on the inaugural Dynamite.
MT: Before we get to that, I just wanted to remind folks that immediately following this program if you are watching us live, there will be a repeat of that first episode of Dynamite from January 6, 2010. Prior to watching it though, I strongly recommend that you check out the AEW website. There under the AEW+ section you will find a link to resources, and in there you are going to find scanned copies of the booking sheets that you hand created, isn’t that right?
JTIV: Absolutely, if the fans are interested in really understanding what goes behind each week’s show, I strongly encourage looking online. As some may know I keep records of everything, and thus far we have been able to release a few books looking at AEW through the years. But this will be the first time that each week’s notes will be available to look at. This isn’t just the typed-up notes that would be available to whomever needed them, this is my actual copy where I hand-wrote any notes that came to me from the Agents, wrestlers, fans, or picked up myself. You will really be able to get inside my head, as scary at that sounds now that I say it out loud.
MT: Now that we have that out of the way, lets go back to that transition from trying to buy WCW to making the commitment to purchase TNA as it was known at the time.
JTIV: So as I mentioned, I had gotten some investors and had made enough of a noise that my name was now out there in the summer of 2009. Initially I looked into purchasing the NWA as I figured if I couldn’t get the Big Gold Belt, at least I could go after its processor the 10 lbs of Gold. But when I was doing my due diligence, I was amazed by just how confusing everything was there in regards to who owned what, and I just wasn’t sure that I wanted to get into that. With that said I was very happy when Billy Corgan stepped up and took over, and I wish them all the best.
MT: With the NWA out as an option, did you look anywhere else?
JTIV: Up next was looking at ROH and possibly joining them, but they were going through their own backstage drama that of course would end up in Gabe leaving them and the formation of EVOLVE, which of course is a story we will have to talk a bit more about at some point.
MT: Absolutely, their role in developing talents for AEW cannot be overlooked, and I know that their success would not have been possible without some of your help, and even the work of Dixie Carter so we shall return to them. I take it that this was around the time that representatives of Bob Carter and Panda Energy reached out to you?
JTIV: Yeah, this would have been the fall of 2009, around September and October when things started to move really quickly.
MT: There are of course two sides to this story, your side as well as the side that involves Dixie Carter, Eric Bischoff and wrestling Legend, Hulk Hogan.
JTIV: Are we really going to go there? I’m not sure if I am even legally able to talk about all that.
MT: I know you’re joking, but for the fans who are not aware, there is no controversy here as we did make sure we cleared everything we’re going to talk about in regards to them through legal.
JTIV: Hey, kayfabe Mike!
MT: Sorry, just need to make sure we got that legal disclaimer out there so you don’t get sued….again.
JTIV: Well thank you for that, and yes, there is a bit of a story to be told there. And I’m not sure I truly can tell the whole story, but I will do my best. While I was dealing directly with Robert Carter and his team, Dixie had reached out to a few names. Initial attempts to contact Paul Heyman were rebuffed, and we know why that was. So next she went after Hogan and Bischoff. My understanding from what I know is that originally their big plan was to sort of reboot everything that happened at the end of 2009 and go head to head against WWE Monday Night Raw, live beginning on January 4.
MT: Of course the details of how far things had gotten are still very much up to debate.
JTIV: Yeah for sure, and I really don’t want to get into that. But suffice to say that did not happen, as instead Carter and Panda Energy ended up selling to my corporation at the time named Dynamite IV TV Productions LLC.
MT: My understanding is that this sale included everything?
JTIV: Yeah, all the debt, and well as all the assets of TNA Entertainment was sold to my LLC, with Panda maintaining a 5% ownership stake initially. This was done in a way to appease Dixie, as well as the corporation position that she was guaranteed with the company for at least five years after the finalization of the sale.
MT: Which of course is where things get complicated, as my understanding is that Dixie was unaware of all of these dealings.
JTIV: Well and here is the part that sometimes people forget, this was a multimillion-dollar deal that could fall apart at any moment if things did not go exactly according to our agreed upon rules. For this reason it was mostly dealt with between lawyers, with the final approval on the detail coming directly from myself and Robert Carter only a few hours before things were announced publicly.
MT: Yes, but that announcement also only came a few days prior to Dixie Carter was sent to make the announcement at Madison Square Garden.
JTIV: That’s what I have heard, yes.
MT: You were unable to commit to signing Bischoff and Hogan though, and my understanding is that this all created some bad blood for you?
JTIV: Let’s just say that we don’t exchange greeting cards at Christmas.
MT: But Hogan and Bischoff are two very well-known names in this industry. With Bischoff showing he had a history of beating Vince McMahon and the WWF at their own game, why didn’t you want them involved?
JTIV: Well from an organizational standpoint I already had a great staff, and I wanted some different creative ideas going forward. That’s why I brought in guys like Don Callis and Court Bauer as part of the booking team to provide some different, and hopefully fresh, ideas. It was nothing against Bischoff and Hogan who I believe are great talents, but the 90s were done and I wanted new. And I’m pretty sure that Bischoff and Hogan did pretty well for themselves going forward.
MT: That they did, and for that matter so did Bret Hart. When the rumours first came out about Impact moving to Monday Night on January 4 with Hogan and Bischoff, it did not take long for WWE to counter that by mending fences with Bret Hart. Possibly the biggest bullet they could ever have in their arsenal. Of course, things did not end up going quite the way they expected with AEW Dynamite actually making its debut on Wednesday, January 6. Are you willing to talk about that a bit?
JTIV: Well as I think the videos made pretty clear, Bret Hart has always been one of my favourite wrestlers. So, while I was sad, I was unable to have him join my company right away, I was happy for him that he seemed to finally put some of the bitterness behind him, get some closure, and reunite with the company that had meant so much to him. As for WWE using him as a weapon to try and take our ratings….well there may be more then one reason we waited so long to make the official announcement of the switchover in ownership, the change in name, night and direction.
MT: Well and that whole thing was done very subtlety on Impact as 2009 ended. I mean there was even acknowledgement on the show with Mick Foley and Kevin Nash about Hogan and Bischoff, although in subtle ways. And then the very brief cards that came up at the end of each episode, like this one….
JTIV: Yeah, we were really trying to build to something different without giving away too much.
MT: Alright, well with all the build up out of the way, shall we talk about that first episode of Dynamite?
JTIV: I remember it like it was yesterday…..starting with the four way match to determine the challenger for the X-Division Championship….
OOC: First off I want to thank steesh07 for the Mod I am using for this dynasty, and then a thank you to Wildfire1324 from the ol' GDS Forum who was my original inspiration, The Final Countdown who kept my desire for writing a Dynasty going with his three amazing diaries and for leading me to this board, and then Beejus, Smasher1311, RKOwnage and others who kept me going.
