The original plans for Josh Alexander and Steve Maclin at Slammiversary.
The 2024 installment of TNA Wrestling’s Slammiversary pay-per-view was headlined by a six-way elimination match for the TNA World Championship.
Competing in the bout was Nic Nemeth, Moose, Josh Alexander, Steve Maclin, Frankie Kazarian and Joe Hendry. Emerging victorious to become champion was Nemeth.
The original plans for the match did not include Alexander nor Maclin and that was revealed when they were the focus of a stage show that was hosted by the Johnny I Pro Show. That conversation started with Maclin stating that him and Alexander pitched to be a team in TNA.
Maclin: If we could even rewind, we (Maclin & Josh Alexander) pitched so many different ideas for us to feud for over a year. Even to be a tag team, take over the tag division, also go after the World Title. Obviously, that didn’t happen but we got to the point where we finally got the feud that we would joke about. ‘I’ll see you next year’ and then here we are…
Alexander then went on to unveil the original creative plans for Slammiversary 2024. He nor Maclin were going to be in the six-way main event and Alexander was not going to turn heel on Joe Hendry. Maclin and Alexander were supposed to be challenging for the TNA World Tag Team Titles.
Alexander added that they would win the belts and then eventually drop them to The Hardys (Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy) and that would lead to a Maclin-Alexander program.
Alexander: The original creative plans were I was not supposed to be in the six-way at Slammiversary. Neither were you (Steve Maclin). I was not supposed to turn heel on Joe Hendry and do all this stuff with Joe Hendry and stuff prior to that. The original plan on paper was we were supposed to tag up. I think we were supposed to defeat The System? At Slammiversary for the tag belts. We were gonna be tag champions and we were gonna feud with The Hardys or something and then after we drop to The Hardys — August, Septemberish or something — that’s when we were gonna go into this feud to go to Bound For Glory and obviously, things in wrestling, fluid and they change all the time. No matter how disappointed you might be. But, yeah, so we ended up scrapping all that. I end up turning heel. We kind of just had to run into this feud and built it up really quick for Bound For Glory and then pay it off at Turning Point.
Josh is no longer with TNA after finishing out his contract. He wrapped up at their January television tapings and he fell in defeat to Eric Young in a singles match. Maclin is currently involved in a storyline with Young on TNA iMPACT.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Johnny I Pro Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
