Amazing Red Reveals How His TNA Return Came About, Calls His Experience ‘Surreal’

Amazing Red recently spilled the beans on how his recent TNA return came about. The reigning HOG Crown Jewel Champion made his return to TNA after a 15-year gap at the recent Slammiversary event, battling in an Ultimate X match for the X-Division Championship.

After the match, it was announced that the former X-Division Champion will be inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame at Bound for Glory this October.

Red appeared on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet this week. During the conversation, he commented on how his TNA return came into being. The 44-year-old revealed that he previously turned down offers from the company for a return, as he wanted to focus on HOG, his health, and his family.

TNA, Red noted, would continue to reach out to him, and he finally decided to make a comeback after being convinced that he was mentally ready to do so. Red said he felt “surreal” after returning to a TNA ring after 15 years. Below are the highlights:

On How His TNA Return Came About

“So I’ve been wrestling for House of Glory actively for the last couple of years, and a lot of people that knew of me from TNA didn’t know I was still wrestling. I even got the tweets where they’re like, ‘I thought Amazing Red died,’ and it just su*ks to hear stuff like that. But the wrestlers knew, all the workers knew, and they would constantly hit me up and say, ‘TNA, we’re doing good. They would try to get me to come back in some kind of way, and they tried Hall of Fame, and once they knew I turned that down because I’m not that kind of guy, they were like, ‘How about a match?’ ‘How about helping us in the back?’ There was a certain point where I was just focusing on House of Glory. I was just focusing on my family, focusing on my relationship with God, and I just wanted to stay home, stay busy from what we were doing.

“Make HOG get bigger as a wrestling company, and I kind of wanted to turn everything around me off. So I kind of said no to a couple of things, but not in a way where it’s closed forever. Then once my body started getting better, like I’m healthier. I feel like I’ve grown a lot since the last couple of years. They kept a close eye on my social media, or lack of social media because I only had Twitter at the time, and it’ll start off with, “Hey, you still wrestling?’ ‘Hey, you look good.’ ‘The last match you did was great.’ ‘This clip is insane.’ ‘You sure you don’t want to wrestle?’ As it got later and later on in my career, which is recently, I was like, ‘You know what? I think it’s time to get back out there and try this again. I think I’m mentally ready for that.”

Amazing Red on How He Felt Being Back in a TNA Ring

“Very surreal, very surreal. Especially coming back to a match like the Ultimate X. I’m afraid of heights. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m afraid of heights. The Ultimate X match always scares me. The ropes that you have to climb up and grab, they’re not the local monkey bars. They’re harder ropes. They hurt. Sometimes it’s the buckle part of it. I know it doesn’t look like it’s high, maybe on TV, but I’m shorter. So once I get to the top rope, I have to climb the truss on the side in order to jump up and grab the rope. But guys like Frankie Kazarian can just jump up and Spider-Man up there, and Frankie’s amazing, by the way.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Amazing Red commented on John Cena using his trademark move during his Farewell Tour last year. Check his comments RIGHT HERE.