Alex Shelley has seen it all in the world of professional wrestling.
TNA Wrestling‘s Alex Shelley was a recent guest on Busted Open Radio. When asked about the recent termination of Scott D’Amore, Shelley had an interesting perspective on the situation.
“I’ve been a part of TNA for about 20 years, give or take,” Alex Shelley began. “I stepped away for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, was under contract to Ring of Honor. And when we were told about Scott D’Amore leaving the company, I think probably because I’m at the point of being an elder statesman, even though I’m only 40 in TNA, a lot of people came to me, and they were very upset.
“And understandably so because this isn’t just a change in management. This isn’t just a new booker being appointed, the old one leaving. This is people who had more of a traumatic loss, and what they lost was a paternal figure. They lost a coach; they lost a mentor. They lost somebody that they’ve known since they were a teenager like me.
Alex Shelley: You get used to this, or you’ve seen it before
“The difference is that when you’re around this industry long enough, and I feel comfortable saying this. You get used to this, or you’ve seen it before. And I think this is probably maybe the sixth or seventh time in pro wrestling. I’ve seen the booker or whoever is in charge upended and taken out of that position.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen it, in terms of, like, outside of wrestling too; it happened to me when I was in the workforce and physical therapy a few times too, and I kind of look at it from that standpoint as well because we had somebody who wasn’t just the booker, but he was in charge of a lot of the administrative work and the logistics as well, and he’s gone. And Scott wore both those hats.
“I also had to express to people that oftentimes, the worst-case scenario looks like this. It looks like whoever’s in charge is out. Somebody else is in, and with them come their crew and the people that they trust, and I don’t ever hate on anybody for that. That’s their prerogative, but often, you would see half the locker room just cut off, and you never see these guys again.
Looking at things from a different perspective
“That’s not what’s happening here. And I tried to express to everybody in our locker room who came to me for perspective: Scott aimed the gun, but you were the bullet. Like this is ours, this is our hard work. Yeah, we trusted him. And he was there for us in so many ways, but you got in the ring and wrestled. It was you. You did this. So try to remember that this is your legacy too.
“And I think when they get that bit of information, they start to ruminate on that a little bit. It’s like, you know what, they’re right. This is something that we created. Of course, we didn’t do it alone. Like as I’ve gotten older, I realized that nobody’s successful by themselves. You just aren’t, right? Certainly not in pro wrestling.
“At the same time, don’t diminish what you did. Everybody in that locker room, at least for the past two years since I’ve been back, they were the ones that brought TNA back too. So Scott’s gone, that happened. We move forward, and we deal with this because looking back on it at this point does nobody any good.”
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