Sam Shaw Talks TNA Release And How He Found Out, If He Had Pay Issues, TNA Storylines, More

Recent TNA departure Sam Shaw appeared on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, and spoke about the details surrounding his release. You can check out the highlights below, or listen to the full podcast at this link.

His TNA release:

"I wasn't too surprised to be perfectly honest. I had sort have been on the shelf not really doing anything for quite some time and I was extremely ready to get back on TV, just busting my ass in the gym and being a student of the game and pitching ideas like crazy. Just doing everything I could to get in front of the right people and get back on TV. Things just didn't pan out the way that I thought they might, I'm not heartbroken over it whatsoever, I'm excited about the future and I think that there are a lot of great opportunities out there right now for someone like myself."

How he was notified of his release:

"I got a call from John Gaburick or "Big" as everyone calls him and we had a nice conversation and he was responsible for getting this character for me off the ground and he had a lot of faith in me to run with a character like that and I give him a lot of credit for that. We had a nice conversation, he just told me that in all honesty that "we have two hours of TV a week and we have so much talent on the roster" and said he felt bad just keeping me off TV and wanted to give me the freedom to get out there and use my talents and I think that was a very nice thing of him to do."

TNA's storylines ending abruptly:

"I just feel like TNA in a sense has an identity crisis. Since I signed there in 2012 and not to mention that I've been doing stuff with them since 2008 because I trained at Bubba and D-Von's School in Kissimmee, Florida and that is basically in TNA's backyard with Universal Studios and The Impact Zone. I've seen the place change so much and it seems like they have a lot of momentum going into a new regime change and then it just sort of fizzles out and they not so much drop the ball but they really know how to start something that looks like it has longevity and is going to be great and it just seems like they don't know where to go from that point. They get to a high point and it just fizzles out."

If he was booked into a corner:

I was pitching ideas left and right. I feel that maybe coming in and having such a strong presence as the character I was portraying it may have put me up against the wall from a creative sense, I was known as the "creepy bastard" and just the "creepy guy". What was he going to do just creep on the knockouts and move on to the next one? It's basically what a psycho does just repeats the same thing over and over again but I think there were so many different directions the character could have gone and I feel like there was so much longevity to the character and in a lot of ways the writers did too and that's why they kept me around for so long. They just didn't have anything at the moment and they kept signing new guys and new talent was coming in and they were ready to move forward with other guys and I was sort of sitting at home not doing anything but was ready, willing and able to do something.

Did he experience any pay issues:

I never put all my eggs into one basket and I've always had other little things going on. I didn't really pay attention to when my checks got to me. I was just staying busy and not trying to worry myself to death over little things like that. But I never had a case where I did not get paid. I don't think my checks were very late whatsoever and they have never not paid me.

How was he approached with the Samuel Shaw character:

"Big" approached me about doing somewhat of an "American Psycho " gimmick and I was very receptive to that because that is one of my favorite movies of all time, Directed by Mary Harron, and Christian Bale is phenomenal in the movie and as luck would have it it's just a movie I would gravitate towards. Not to mention the Dexter element, that is just a tremendous TV show that I've enjoyed tremendously and sort of taking elements from both of those; the movie and the TV show and putting it in a wrestling related environment was going to be a challenge but I think it had a pretty big impact initially and there was so much more that we could have done with this character. To be honest, I don't think I'm done with this character, my creative juices are flowing now more than ever before.