Nick Aldis says the hardest fight of his TNA career didn’t happen inside the ring. According to the former TNA World Champion, he spent years battling negative perceptions and backstage politics before he was ever given a fair opportunity to prove himself.
Speaking to Soundsphere Magazine, Aldis revealed that many people had already made up their minds about him before he even arrived.
“When I came into TNA, a lot of the people there didn’t even know that I was a wrestler. They thought I was a guy from a TV show that Dixie had fallen in love with and wanted to put on TV. So now, of course, they’re all like, ‘Oh, f this guy.’”*
The situation became so frustrating that Aldis stopped presenting ideas himself. Instead, he would run them through Doug Williams because he knew they’d be taken more seriously.
“If I had a good idea for a spot or a finish in a match, I would say it to Doug and have Doug go tell them because if I went and suggested it, they were just going to say no… They were convinced they had to know better than me.”
He says Williams played a major role in changing how others viewed him.
“Doug helped change a lot of that perception… He would visibly consult with me on stuff so everyone could see that we were equals.”
After years of working his way up the card, Aldis finally captured the TNA World Championship. But instead of things getting better, he says everything unraveled within weeks.
“I worked every spot on the card, worked my way up to the top of the card, became the world champion, and within four weeks… because I didn’t tow the line for John Gaburick the way he thought I should, and because I got a really severe concussion in the match where I won the title, he completely changed his perception… He did a 180 on me.”
Aldis believes that decision ultimately cost him his place at the top.
“He was going to do everything he could to basically devalue me so that he could justify taking the title off me and fing me off, and I would never be in that top spot again.”**
He says the shift was impossible to ignore backstage.
“You could feel everyone in the company knew this. Suddenly they didn’t have as much time for you as they did before because everyone has to live in the autonomy of whoever’s calling the shots.”
Despite his experience, Aldis praised Al Snow and D’Lo Brown, saying they were simply doing their best to navigate the same political environment.
Do you think Nick Aldis could have been a bigger star in TNA, if not for backstage politics Let us know in the comments below.
