Tom Hannifan looks back on how he was feeling after being let go by WWE.
Alongside D’Lo Brown, Tom Hannifan is now calling the action for IMPACT Wrestling. He began his duties for the company at the Hard To Kill event and has been on commentary for the following television tapings.
He spent the last eight-plus years of his professional career with WWE and was let go from the company in May of 2021. Hannifan sat down with Jarrett Bailey for an interview and reflected on what he was thinking at the time of his WWE departure. A part of him felt he was done in wrestling, but as he began to converse with IMPACT’s Scott D’Amore and Josh Matthews, plans began to formulate and materialize quickly.
I think the ‘out of the blue’ part was obviously after I was released from WWE, I needed to take some time for myself and I was just kind of, you know — it was a very challenging situation, it is extremely emotional and there was part of me that was like, ‘Maybe I’m done in wrestling. Maybe this is it’ and a couple of months went by and I was really, you know, okay with it. Everything was feeling good and then just talking to a lot of friends in the business, friends that worked at IMPACT Wrestling, it was just kind of learning that there are other options, there’s other ways to go, there’s other places where it’s gonna be just a different experience and I might like it so, within the last month, I’d say somewhere in December, started talking with some friends that are over at IMPACT and they connected me with the powers that be and I just really liked everything that I heard. Speaking with Josh Matthews who ironically did my audition at WWE so you just never know who you’re gonna run into again. So I had a really good conversation with him. Talking to Scott D’Amore has been awesome, he’s been really good to me and I just try to be as transparent as possible with him just in terms of how I’m feeling about everything and after Hard To Kill, I told him, I was like, ‘I got my passion back’ so I said, ‘Thank you.’ So I’m really enjoying everything thus far and it just kind of materialized quickly, kind of like how things do in wrestling. You never know when it’s gonna come up and it’s just try to be ready.
Over the weekend, IMPACT held television tapings in Florida and the likes of Jay White and Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) were in action.
IMPACT’s next special is No Surrender on February 19th and currently scheduled for the show is Moose defending the IMPACT World Championship against W. Morrissey.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Jarrett Bailey with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
