Christian Cage asked Tomko about coming to TNA.
After his four-year run with WWE came to an end, Travis Tomko a.k.a. Tyson Tomko ventured to New Japan Pro-Wrestling and made his way to TNA.
He shared during a Café De René livestream that when granted his release from WWE, the plan was for him to return. He recounted the events that led up to him requesting his release. It started with John Laurinaitis asking him about doing a dark match with Sean O’Haire.
By this point, Tomko was fed up with the direction he was going in so he told Laurinaitis that he was not going out there to make anyone look good.
It (my WWE career) was at a point where Brian Gewirtz had proposed — they were doing something with me and Snitsky and I obviously was trying to break out into some singles stuff and I think I was supposed to do something with (Chris) Benoit and then he got moved to SmackDown or something and so everything just kept almost happening and falling apart. I just vaguely remember Brian saying, ‘Oh! Next week, I got something we’re gonna talk about. It’s gonna be big’ and then it just took four or five weeks and I believe it was right at WrestleMania and I think I told John Laurinaitis, like, ‘Dude, I don’t know what to do here but –’ oh! I remember what it is… I love Sean O’Haire. He’s a great guy. But Sean was there to do a dark match… This is the point how fed up I was. John comes to me and he goes, ‘Hey, are you gonna do a dark match with Sean tonight?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, it depends, John. What are you trying to get out of this? Are you trying to get Sean his job back? Because I’m not going out there to make anybody look good.’ I told him that. He’s like, ‘I respect that’ and then I said, ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m just trying to figure out –’ and he goes, ‘What if I could get you in Japan?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’d absolutely do it.’ So he made a call to Simon (Inoki) at the show and then Simon’s like, ‘When is he available?’ I asked for my release and then they gave me my release.
The plan was to come back. John’s like, ‘Go there for a year. You’re gonna love the strong style,’ because you know, that’s where Johnny was. So he loved Japan. He’s like, ‘You’re gonna learn all the things that…’ Then at the time, Jay (Christian Cage) was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you come to TNA?’ So that happened and so I was supposed to go right back to WWE.
Elsewhere in the interview, Tomko spoke candidly about the injuries he tallied up and surgeries he underwent that stem from his 14-year wrestling career. To read his comments, head over to this link.
If the quote(s) in this article is used, please credit Café De René with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
