ProwrestlingSheet interview with Shane Helms
Host: Ryan Satin
Interview available at ProwrestlingSheet.com
On the reason he left Impact: “I think the technical term is bovine defecation. The street term is bullshit. Of course, financial played a part into it. But the reason there were too many agents or producers is because he brought in his buddies who aren’t qualified to be there. So if you hadn’t brought in unqualified people to put into those positions the situation would never have arisen.”
“I caught some residual heat when the contractual situation with Anthem and the Hardys broke down. I got text messages asking me what did I know. ”
Adding, “Just a lot weird, angry texts and very unprofessional and inappropriate texts to me. To the point where there had to be a phone call made and then I had to get loud. I’m not putting up with this. And having to tell Jeff, ‘You’re not going to talk to me in-person like you’re talking to me on this phone. At least you better not.’ My reputation for how I handle myself in the business is kind of well-known. Then he seemed to calm down. When we got to TV it was kind of like, ‘Is everything cool?’ And he assured me it was and nothing was going to happen and whatever residual heat that was there wasn’t there. But even when I met Ed (Nordholm) the next time there was some kind of weird standoffishness towards him.”
“But I still had my hopes up because of the job I was doing. I liked being an agent, I liked coaching people, I like teaching people and stuff like that. I was enjoying it and I was staying positive, but the writing was on the wall.”
On the pettiness of Anthem keeping the trademark: “That’s exactly what it is, and I know firsthand that Matt and them does a lot of the production of some of those events that came out of their pocket. Creatively, especially in the initial launch, it was a hundred percent Matt. Jeff started helping, and of course Jeremy Borash helped them with his part of it. People that got involved, we all chipped in a little bit. I was making airport runs to go pick up talent. I booked Hornswoggle for the thing. I facilitated his booking. That’s not my job to do, I don’t get paid to do that. But I was doing it to help out. There were so many people that were chiming in because Impact didn’t have the money and the financial backing to do it so we all chipped in. So there’s a lot of really personal pride that’s attached to this. And Anthem had shit to do with it. And Jarrett, Jarrett don’t have a creative bone in his damn body.”
On Jarrett pitching the “Make Impact Great Again” slogan: “His first creative idea in Impact, to ‘Make Impact Great Again,’ was literally to steal a slogan from Donald Trump. That was his first creative idea. The first one (while) he was there. And I was like, ‘Well number one that’s not creative at all. Number two, do you realize half the country hates this guy?’ And that’s why they took off the ‘Again’ part to say ‘Make Impact Great.’ Okay, we’ll change it up a little bit and nobody will know the difference. But that was literally his first creative idea was to steal somebody else’s slogan.”
On if any of Jarrett’s other ideas were vetoed: “I don’t really think he comes up with anything. I think he kind just sits back and lets the other ideas (come up) and tries to nitpick and pick the best one and take credit for it. That seems to be the case.”
On pushing Impact to hire Chuck Taylor: “That was before Jeff. Ever since I’ve been there I was trying to new talent. That was like when Dutch (Mantell) said, ‘Yeah, it was my idea to bring in new talent.’ I was like, ‘Everybody wants to bring in new talent. Is this some revelation?’ The reason Trevor (Lee) is there, the reason Andrew (Everett) is there. I endorsed Caleb Konley. We were bringing in new talent. I tried to get Cedric Alexander. I wanted ACH. Those were several guys I tried to get there. But their budget was limited or they just for whatever reason passed. I would hear, ‘Well, we don’t know if he’s going to move the needle.’ I heard that a couple times about certain guys and I’m like, ‘Well of course. If you want to bring in big stars, that costs money. If you want to bring in people that’s unknown they’re not going to move the needle. What do you want me to do? If you want new guys then we have to bring them in.’”
Unsurprising that a Hardy’s bestie has nothing but negative things to say about the opponents in the lawsuit. Where was Helms before TNA hired him? To the best of my recollection, there weren’t a lot of calls asking or his talents prior to that.