The recent partnership between TNA and NXT has garnered a great deal of attention, following their collaborations on WWE NXT Battleground, TNA Against All Odds, and most recently in a Battle Royal where two TNA stars fought for the chance to become the new #1 contender for the NXT Title on Tuesday’s NXT.
In an intriguing discussion on the Gorilla Position podcast, Nick Aldis, current GM of WWE SmackDown, shared his insights on the evolving relationship between TNA and WWE, mentioning,
“I feel good about it. I don’t know much about it, truthfully, so I can’t speak too much to it. I thought Jordynne Grace put in a tremendous performance. She’s probably a lot of the driving force behind the whole relationship because once you have a talent like that, a promoter, which Hunter and Shawn are, they are looking at it like, ‘I don’t care how we have to get it done, I want that person on my TV show.’ A lot of times, that’s the genesis of a lot of working relationships. I certainly hope that there can be more between WWE and TNA. TNA has a rich history. I came into TNA arguably at the peak in 09. We were doing a couple million views on SpikeTV and were in hundreds of countries around the world and had a world-class roster, which I think gets overlooked. The quality of that roster, I was very fortunate to be around that talent and learn from them through osmosis. I think it would be beneficial for WWE to be able to harness some of that history, particularly when you look at AJ Styles, Drew, LA Knight, to cover that part of a character’s history. What we’re looking at now, and as we’ve moved into the digital age, people want the full story. The idea of ‘everything you did before here doesn’t exist,’ has faded away because people say, ‘It’s more fun to know about other things,’ and planting seeds. The ability to dive into that and enhance stories would be beneficial and a major shift in WWE going forward.”
Despite the uncertainty around its future, the relationship between TNA and WWE seems to have a promising future, based on these insights.