Alexander discusses his deal with TNA, working through injuries and explains the hourglass tweets.
TNA Wrestling exercised their option to extend Josh Alexander’s contract. He’s publicly spoken about that in-depth and did not rule out the possibility of re-signing when his deal is up in early 2025. Alexander also expressed that he’s interested in exploring free agency.
He spoke about his run in IMPACT/TNA while on Sunday Night’s Main Event. Alexander has had two reigns as IMPACT World Champion. He first captured the title at Bound For Glory 2021, lost it immediately and then won it again at Rebellion 2022. Alexander had to relinquish the title after suffering a triceps injury but he shared that throughout his title reigns, his knee was torn.
He underwent surgery for the knee injury after he went down with the triceps injury. His knee operation was 10 days after the triceps operation.
I just never wanted to get out of the ring. I had this true passion for this that if my knee got banged up when I was training, I might be stupid for doing this but I didn’t wanna show that my knee was banged up because I didn’t want them to tell me I couldn’t train. So I’d be hiding all this stuff that was happening whether it was a bruise or a swell or a sprain or all this other stuff but, I just never wanted to get out of the ring. So, that’s kind of the mentality I always had and then when I trained with (Johnny) Devine, it was like, ‘You don’t know what hurt is. I’ve been wrestling with a torn ACL for a year and I just wear this brace’ and as I progressed through my career, I’ve wrestled with a torn knee for two-and-a-half years of my IMPACT — my whole title run, my knee was torn and I didn’t get it fixed until my tricep went and then I just called the surgeon, he was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll fit you in next week and you’ll be healed in six weeks.’ I had knee surgery in secret just to clean out my knee finally, you know, to get me back to 100 percent but, wrestling, there’s no off-season, there’s no time to get stuff fixed, especially if you’re on a run so, you just gotta keep going.
I came home from triceps surgery and it was like 10 days later, my surgeon fit me in to do my knee… Knee surgery is amazing now. I had the same surgery done when I was 17 and I was out for months and this one, I was on the stairs at the gym a week later. He was just like, ‘The more you can move, the better.’ I was like, ‘That’s great for me’ so, yeah.
Circling back to present day, when new management took over after Scott D’Amore’s termination, they held a meeting and asked Josh what he wants to do next in the company.
He shared that him and Steve Maclin have talked about the idea of forming a team and that turning into a feud between them. Within the forthcoming transcript, Alexander confirmed that Hunter Johnston (Delirious) is working on the TNA creative team.
Well when new management came in (at TNA), we had a sit-down meeting and they asked me that exact same question. They were like, ‘What do you wanna do?’ And I was just like, ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’ If you look at the checklist of things, I have done everything here and there’s new names trickling in and out. I would love to work with Mustafa Ali, I would love to work with Nic Nemeth. These new names that come in and may leave, you know, we never know. But, yeah, I don’t know. There’s always a story to tell to keep me interested. Me and Steve Maclin are best of friends. We’ve worked together. I think there was more meat on the bone for us having a feud rather than the one match we had after I returned from my triceps injury. So I’d love to dip back into that. We’ve also talked about what if we tag up and do a Two-Man Power Trip thing that ends up in a feud and stuff like that. It’s just fantasy-booking in the lobby after the show being like, ‘What can we do next? What can we pitch?’ Blah, blah, blah, but for me, I’ve always just trusted the writing team. R.D. Evans and now Tommy’s a part of it, Hunter/Delirious is a part of it. I trust them all to tell these stories, I think now, especially more than ever. R.D. especially knows me, the character Josh Alexander, just as good as I know the character Josh Alexander. It took me a very long time to know who I was. It’s only in the past year or two that I’ve really come into my own skin and felt very natural doing everything I do, especially in promos and stuff like that so, you know, I have a great deal of trust for them. It’s just all these things on the table right now, like, am I gonna sign an extension? So I’m gonna be here for two more years and they can write these crazy stories or is my deal gonna come up in February, I’m gonna shop elsewhere? So it needs to kind of put a hold on all that stuff to figure out what’s going on. It’s just, the business part gets in the way of the in-ring part sometimes.
Two weeks after D’Amore’s termination from TNA, Alexander sent out a tweet of an hourglass emoji. Fellow members of the TNA roster such as Masha Slamovich, Chris Bey and Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace sent out hourglass tweets as well.
Alexander stated that the hourglass idea came to mind after he saw LeBron James do it. He was of the mindset that his TNA deal was coming up and he told the company they had a certain amount of days to act on that. Other members of the roster saw his tweet and decided to join in for the fun of it.
Okay, so, LeBron James in January before the trade deadline — I’m a big basketball fan — he just tweeted an hourglass one day and NBA Twitter lost their minds. They were like, ‘He wants out, he wants a trade, he wants this.’ You know, ‘LeBron is crazy, he’s power-hungry,’ all this other stuff and literally I was like, ‘My deal’s up. I just emailed them to tell them they have 10 days to extend my contract if they want…’ I put it up and then everybody else on the roster was just like, oh, Josh’s thing got 1.1 million interactions. I’m gonna do it too and I was just like, ‘What are you idiots doing?’ Because they made it look like something it wasn’t and it was totally just me screwing around, just copying LeBron James and everybody else had no idea who LeBron James was. I guarantee Masha Slamovich has no idea about that or whoever else did it. But they were just like, oh! Josh’s thing is getting attention. I’m on board and they all fabricated their own thing that this hourglass thing was and I just told them that they were all dummies. That was it.
When it comes to his future, Alexander is sure when his deal comes up in 2025, he’ll explore his options. He named talents from NJPW, WWE and AEW he’d like to wrestle such as Shingo Takagi, Chad Gable, Bryan Danielson and Swerve Strickland.
By the time this year’s up, I’m sure I’m gonna explore other options and see what’s out there, whether it’d be, you know — I’ve always wanted to wrestle a very good amount in Japan. I have not been able to do that a great deal. That’s something on my bucket list. There’s wrestlers I wanna wrestle that are in other companies that I will otherwise not get to wrestle unless I go to those companies so, there’s stuff I need to take into account and it’s just that weird part of the business… Well, New Japan for sure, I wanna wrestle Shingo (Takagi) before — he’s getting up there in age. He’s in his mid-40s right now. Before he slows down. (Tomohiro) Ishii was at the top of the list and I got to wrestle him a few times now so, that’s amazing but like, there’s of course the Bryan Danielsons in AEW or the Swerve Stricklands in AEW. I love their work. I wanna see what I can do with them. WWE, Twitter has been going crazy for like two years trying to get me fantasy-booked against Chad Gable. I would love to do that. There’s no shortage of wrestlers in either company that I have a great deal of respect for that I think I could have some magic with so…
On TNA iMPACT, Alexander is currently engaged in a feud with Alex Hammerstone.
The latest on that front occurred when Alexander and Tracy Williams were showing respect to each other after their match and Hammerstone made a run-in and took them both out.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Sunday Night’s Main Event with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
