Johnny Swinger Explains Why He Returned To Impact Wrestling

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Johnny Swinger spoke about why he decided to return to Impact Wrestling after a nearly fifteen-year absence from the company. Here are highlights:

On the process of returning to Impact: “I have a really long history with Scott D’Amore. We go back about 25 years and he was the man behind my original break in wrestling with WCW. He was also behind me in TNA so he’s always been a big Johnny Swinger proponent. I’ve always said that Scott knew how to use Johnny Swinger better than anybody. I’ve only seen one other person do this – Paul Heyman being the other – will actually get in my face and do a Johnny Swinger promo with the facial expressions and the voice. That’s how I know I’m in good hands and they’re gonna know what to do with me.”

On why he went back to Impact: “It’s not just Scott as Don Callis also. I go back to day one with him as he was the booker in Winnipeg, Canada for my first match ever. He was always a big fan of my talents and then we worked together in ECW and TNA. So we go way back and Tommy Dreamer is involved in the creative process and he was my boss and friend in ECW. So, if you stick around long enough, you get better, you’ve got good friends and all of the stars align.”

On the similarities between Impact and ECW: “Very similar. Paul Heyman and Scott are very similar in a sense that [Scott] knows me, knows the roster and knows how to plug them into certain places like Paul did. The other things is that Paul took a lot of advice from the wrestlers and I see Scott and Don kinda doing the same thing. One man can’t oversee everything and you’ve got to get input from the people are doing it. Impact reminds me of ECW where everyone is working together. They don’t just want one thing to go good, they want all of the segments to go good. We want people to watch a show and not just turn it on to watch Swinger and then turn it off. We want them to watch the whole show…Everyone’s in on the creative part of the show.”

On what fans can expect from him: “Kind of a new lease on life as 25 years is a long time. So I’ve picked up some stuff from them that I’m gonna start putting on TV that people haven’t seen in a long time. The older fans will go, ‘Oh, I remember that move’ while the younger ones will go, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen that!’ I’m just gonna make my matches look different and draw the people in. Whatever’s going on before me, I wanna have something different and then the next match is gonna keep it going.”