Young agreed to sign an NDA before exiting the company.
In 2022, Eric Young wrapped up with IMPACT Wrestling when he was written off the show by way of being ‘stabbed’ by Cody Deaner. Young was written off as he was headed back to WWE and he would later reveal that he ‘signed up’ around October/early November of 2022.
Young dove into that during his appearance on Sunday Night’s Main Event. He credited writer Eric Tompkins for keeping his write-off open-ended. He went on to heap praise onto Tompkins, stating that he’s doing the work he’s doing without an adequate amount of resources and little to no money to back him. Young feels the weekly show is as good as it is solely because of Tompkins.
Circling back to his write-off, there was no thought that Young would be coming back to IMPACT. He revealed that he signed a four-year deal with WWE.
Yeah, it’s happened several times, right? I’m certainly not the only one (that has been killed off of IMPACT/TNA TV).
It’s true, it’s true. Murder does seem to be a real problem there. But I think it was kind of the brainchild of Eric Tompkins… How it ended is we’re shooting in this kind of jailhouse set where we shot a lot of the promos and Cody (Deaner) definitely — one, you can’t show him stabbing me because it’s cable television and also, there’s not (a) thought or even idea that I’m going to come back. I’m leaving, I’ve signed this four-year deal and that’s gonna be it, right? Kind of thing. But they still leave it open-ended, because he’s an artist I guess. I don’t know. I don’t have the forethought to be honest. But when I said, ‘I think that this is happening and I’m coming back’ and he goes, ‘Oh, we can do this and we can do that’ and just, he had it in his head before they’d even signed my name on a contract so… I’ve talked about him 100 times, but people aren’t talking about Eric Tompkins enough in the pro wrestling world. I mean there’s just not. He’s one of the best at what he does, he’s a great dude, a great human being, a good father, a good husband, good friend. But most of all, loves pro wrestling and cares about it with his entire soul and you can see it. He’s doing stuff with little to no money. They just don’t have the resources, they don’t have the staff, they don’t have any of that. He’s doing it all himself. Him and a small army of other people. But, he is the Head of Production there and I believe the show is as good as it is solely because of him.
Following up on that, Young shared that when he signed on to return to WWE, he never actually left his home to go to work. He added that he signed an NDA and cannot say names, but he did not want to be or work around an individual that came back to the company after he did.
Young believes that present day, he could still work at WWE. He is still good friends and in contact with Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque. He has the utmost respect for Levesque and 95 percent of the people that work at WWE.
I didn’t, no. I actually never left my house (after agreeing to return to WWE in 2022). I mean, the whole story’s wild. Again, I had to sign an NDA, and I’m not allowed to say names… (Host asked if Young’s NDA is as ironclad as Janel Grant’s NDA) I don’t know. It depends if it goes federal or not. I mean, I might be able to say everything here within a few months but, the truth is, I don’t need to talk badly on it. It is what it is and I talked to Hunter and he hired me back and wanted me back there and I was and another person came back and I won’t work for that person, I won’t be around that person and I said that when I left there the first time when I got fired and I meant it and you know, for me, there was tons of professional reasons. But mostly, it’s a personal and moral decision. I don’t have to be there. I have a very good life outside of there and there’s no doubt, it’s the pinnacle of sports entertainment. We just saw this weekend. I mean, I don’t know if it could be more perfect, to be honest. It’s the big fish in the pond and no one will say that, I will never change my mind on it. That was my goal. I went there and I had a bunch of cool things. I was hired back there to do something very cool and it just didn’t work out and in the end, I was gonna be forced to compromise who I am as a person and as a man and I’m not willing to do that and it’s not lost on me that I was able to make that choice because a lot of people aren’t gonna get that choice. You’re gonna make decisions and you’re gonna be forced to do what you gotta do. If this was 10 or 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to make that choice.
In the end, I guess you can say joke’s on me, because that person is not around anymore… I can give you 1,000 percent guarantee, (if) I wanted to work there, I could. It’s just at this point in my life, I’m just not interested. I believe in what I’m doing and that’s worth more than almost anything to me right now and it has nothing to do with disparaging anything that goes on there. I still talk to Hunter (to) this day. We’re still buddies. I still have utmost respect for him and 95 percent of the people that work there, and especially the people that make that show go and that’s the people in the ring and if that’s what you wanna do and that’s your decision then that’s your decision. It was never about being a leadership or proving a point or anything like that. I think some people took it that way and some people went, ‘Man, it’s really cool.’ In the end, it was a selfish reason, because I couldn’t live with myself. It’s just as simple as that. I made a promise to myself and I kept it. So, that was that.
Young has been back with TNA/IMPACT coming up a full year and his first match back was at Slammiversary in a tag match with Scott D’Amore. In February, D’Amore was removed from his role as President.
Young detailed his longtime friendship with D’Amore and shared that he knew the termination was coming long before anyone else. Speaking about those currently in charge at TNA, Young said they have been respectful and kind. Eric believes Anthem owner Leonard Asper, who stated that he loves pro wrestling. As far as D’Amore goes, Young believes he could still work in wrestling if he chooses to.
Obviously a shock (Scott D’Amore being terminated from TNA) and I’ve said this in other things, Scott D’Amore is one of my dear friends. I had 30 people at my wedding and he was one of them (that) I’ve known for over 30 years and my friendship with him and my care for him and my love for him will never change no matter what position he’s in or any of that. That’s got nothing to do with it. This is real life. Obviously, I knew long before a lot of people knew. At the time, I was shocked, just shocked. Like you said, the glue or whatever. TNA is not in the position that it’s in now, if it wasn’t for Scott D’Amore. There’s nobody more important over the last decade to its well-being, to its resurgence and to its overall health than Scott D’Amore. I still believe he’s one of the best in that position, I still think he could be doing it. That’s a position that I’m not asked to make that decision. I can tell you that the people that are making the decisions now have been respectful, have been kind, have listened to the things that I’ve had to say. Whether they follow through on those things, I don’t know and I’m not afraid to say those things. Me and them have a very open communication and I would say things have gone as well as they could be at this point. But it was a massive shock to me and a massive shock to the roster and all the stuff that happened after and… felt like the Dutch pointing the dam there for a little while. Me and Frankie (Kazarian) and a couple of the guys. I’ve been through 10 or 12 of these, right? Where leadership there changes… There are a lot of the roster, Scott’s been the only person they’ve ever worked for. I get it and a lot of people took it personally. I took it personally too. But, in the end, it’s business. Lots of sh*tty things are gonna happen to you in the longer you do this, in anything in life. It’s just part of life and I wish it didn’t happen. Just like I said, Scott’s still one of my good friends. We talk often as we can and he’ll be fine. He’s got his hand in a million other things and I think if he wanted to work in wrestling, he could. But yeah, I’ll just say this, it was a massive shock, I was very let down by the decision. But over time have come to see that it’s what they believe is right and in the end, they’re the ones paying the bills and they’re the ones with their hands on the pulse analytics and business expenditures and all this other stuff. I don’t know that stuff, I don’t concern myself with those things because it’s got nothing to do with me. I got no say in any of that. I show up on time to work, they give me what I’m gonna do and I nail that as hard as I can and work myself to the bone that day and then come back and do it the next day. That’s what I can control and I think, you know, as you get older, you realize you just control the things that you can control. I can’t control that and if I could, Scott would still be in charge. But that’s not the truth and the guys that are in charge are excellent people, are hard-working people, seem to be honest and I think most of all, Leonard Asper, who’s the owner of Anthem and IMPACT and TNA and all of it, stood up and just kind of said, ‘I love this sport and I love this business and this is gonna go’ and I believe him. Whether that was lip service or not, I think we’re all gonna find out. But I believe him and I wish it never happened for Scott. It sucks I don’t get to see him as often as I did. But yeah, it floored everybody. It floored everybody. But, it is onward and upward and also, they gave me the very distinct responsibility of kind of doing a — kind of a pulse of the business kind of speech before New Orleans. We did it before we went on the air but it aired on the internet everywhere.
Coming up for Young is a Full Metal Mayhem match against Frankie Kazarian at the Rebellion pay-per-view on April 20th. To get a recap of the latest episode of TNA iMPACT on AXS, click here.
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.
