Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialExclusive Interview - Former TNA Champ Magnus Speaks Out

Exclusive Interview – Former TNA Champ Magnus Speaks Out

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Nicholas “Nick” Aldis is an English Professional wrestler signed to Global Force Wrestling competing under his real name. He is best known for working for the American professional wrestling promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling under the ring name Magnus, where he is a former One-time TNA World Heavyweight Champion, two-time TNA World Tag Team Champion and one-time IWGP Tag Team Champion.

In professional wrestling, he is the third English world heavyweight champion in history after Gary Steele with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1999 and Nigel McGuiness with the ROH World Championship in 2007, although TNA recognizes him as the first.

Magnus is and always will be a gifted performer for any federation he is aligned with. He recently was a guest on the Pro Wrestling Experience to discuss some of his memorable moments and recent wrestling news. The highlights and his insights are listed below.

Would you say it’s a great time to be in the business?

“It is. There are a lot of great products that are being put out there and great new minds behind the scenes in different areas. There’s more talent now than ever. There are a lot of places right now outside of the big companies who are really carving out a niche for themselves here and overseas.”

What are you looking forward to with your upcoming appearances with GFW?

“First and foremost is working with new talent. It goes without saying over the past six years I have spent time with TNA Impact Wrestling and I’m very grateful and proud of those years by the way and I work with just about every single person that was there. I was fortunate to get work with somebody spectacular talent that it helped me become a better performer. Everybody from Samoa Joe to AJ Styles to Doug Williams back in the day, Bobby Roode and James Storm, Sting, Booker T, Kurt Angle the list goes on and on. I’m looking to wrestle places where I can mix it up with good talent, so I can showcase what I can do. I’m looking forward to mixing it up with new and hungry talent.

My first night I’ll be competing against Tommaso Ciampa and that’s a match a lot of people are excited to see. After that I’ll be fighting a guy named Konga Kong who I heard a lot of good things about as well. I think there’s a lot of energy with Global. Everybody there is excited about it and wants to work hard instead of being bitter and job scared over stuff that happen in the past. Everybody here wants to deliver and be part of something new and exciting.”

Any particular talents that you are interested in working with at GFW?

“I’ve been a big fan of PJ Black (Justin Gabriel) for a long time. I hope to get to mix it up with him sometime. Jeff has always had a good eye for talent. I love tag team wrestling and the fact that the Bullet Club are working with Global is pretty exciting. I’ve got to work with Gallows quite a bit. I love Gallows he’s a great talent and I’ve always been a fan of Karl Anderson. So to get an opportunity to do that with those guys would be sweet because I love tag team wrestling and it’s a different style of storytelling than singles competition.”

How was it getting work alongside Douglas Williams in the British Invasion?

“It was perfect and it was exactly what I needed. That time I was very green I was pretty comfortable with the microphone, but that was about it. I needed someone to help me through the mechanics of the work inside the ring because you just don’t pick this stuff up over night. Thankfully Doug and I complemented each other very well because Doug was reliable in the ring, but needed someone to help him get out of his shell and show his personality and that was me. I had no problem with the personality side, but I needed help in the ring, so it was a good marriage from that aspect. We also had Rob Terry who was an amazing specimen. It was a great piece of business there.

Can a new foreign based faction be successful in today’s wrestling?

“There’s always a possibility. TNA tried something called World Elite which I was part of and it ended up being half hazard. I thought it looked good on paper, but unfortunately it didn’t pan out. There needs to be a right mouthpiece for it. A good faction in my opinion needs a proper motivation behind it instead of “Oh these guys are working with each other great”! They need a reason to be together for the right cause and that’s what I think makes a good faction.”

Was your run as TNA World Heavyweight Champion everything you wanted it to be?

“No not really, there were circumstances out of my control that made it a little bit difficult at the beginning. I can’t speak for them, but I guess. I feel that the problem with AJ Styles leaving TNA left a bad taste not only in the mouth of the fans, but also people who were working within TNA at the time. Some of that through no fault of my own kind of rubbed on me, but that’s my take on it. I felt it created a strange atmosphere. I just turned 27 and I was still continuing to mature and I sort of felt this responsibility for AJ’s departure even though I had nothing to do with it. I was just doing what I was told. I felt that I was put into awkward spot and I got scapegoated for it. They made me a knee jerk reaction because they thought Eric Young was going to get a lot of mainstream attention. They thought that this was a good opportunity was coming their way and that’s my understanding of it. I was like ok if that’s what you want.

Honestly at that point I was happy to get out and it was like every single week there would be some new big issue that was supposedly going on. I just got to a point where I felt that the people who were running the ship at the time were spinning their wheels in so many different directions they didn’t really know what they wanted. In some way I was grateful to be away from that because I just wanted to be a good performer and deliver. Also just wanted the opportunity showcase what I can do and never got that chance. I had chances before I became the guy. Once I got the title I felt that I constantly had to make chicken salad then just go out there and tell great stories and do what I was essentially doing before I won the title.”

***Hopefully you enjoyed this interview and learned some new and interesting things about Magnus. I would like to personally thank Josh Lopez for sharing this interview. His show, The Pro Wrestling Experience airs on ChicagoLand Sports Radio and is live every Wednesday 10am-1pm CT.

***You can follow the link here to hear the interview: www.spreaker.com/magnus-interview

***Come follow my sports site fantasysportsaddiction.com and all my editorial articles along with many interesting minds at the eWrestlingnews FB Fan Page…Come join in and let your presence be felt!

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