Konnan Heavily Praises Impact Wrestling for Turning Things Around, How Management Treats Talents Differently Now, and How Slammiversary XVI Was a Great Show

– During his latest Keepin It 100 podcast, Konnan had high praise for Impact Wrestling and Slammiversary XVI. Below are some highlights (transcript via PWInsider).

Konnan on how Impact Wrestling turned things around: “What was amazing to me was that when the Hardy Boyz left and Jeremy Borash left, I was like, ‘Wow man, this place is gonna be f***ed’, you know what I’m saying? That’s a big loss. But they just put it all together.”

Konnan on the last Impact Wrestling show:“(The Impact Wrestling episode) that was two weeks ago, I thought that show, I don’t watch all the Impacts because I don’t have time, but I just happened to catch the one two weeks ago and I just thought it was phenomenal, and I was talking to a couple of wrestlers that watch the show and they were saying the same thing, because all the video packages were good, the verbage like you said was very realistic, the in-ring was great and you got the pay off in Slammiversary. They continued the great angles, they had the great matches. It’s really cool right now, everybody kinda knows there’s a little buzz about us. But that’s the main problem that we’ve got that studio audience. But some people may overlook that and say, ‘F*** the audience. We like the storylines and the action.'”

Konnan on Impact leaving Orlando: “And the other thing that we did a great job of is we got the f*** out of Orlando. So we’re in Toronto, then we’re going to go to New York, and the place we’re going to in New York is the same place MLW went to in Queens and you wouldn’t believe the energy in that place. It was f***ing ridiculous, and we’re gonna go there now, Impact, and we’ve got a real big surprise with LAX that’s gonna go over f***ing huge in New York.”

Konnan on management treating talents differently: “So it’s a real cool time to be on… it’s fun, bro. It’s very fun right now. Because a lot of the people that are running these companies are not old school grizzled vets, ‘F*** you, you can’t do this and you can’t do that.’ You know what I’m saying? That stick for the room and all that old school s*** we went through, everybody now they’re mostly fanboys, so they respect the wrestlers instead of trying to f*** them over in general. And everybody knows that now, you’ve gotta just treat people with respect and gotta treat them right, you can’t treat them the way they used to treat us.”

His thoughts on Slammiversary XVI: “That PPV was incredible, bro. I think Fenix might have been the guy that came away with probably the most buzz. I haven’t read all of social media, but I think Fenix showed everybody why he is one of the greatest wrestlers in the world right now, and that match was incredible to begin with. So that match was great, Ishimori was great, Morrison was great and when Rich Swann wasn’t in it because he got hurt in MLW, I thought I wasn’t sure if Petey was able to fill in that hole but Petey did a great job. The Tommy Dreamer match with Eddie Edwards was great, the storyline was great, the match was great, LAX was great. It was just a great show. Penta and Sami great match also. I think Impact showed it right now it’s got a lot of talent, management is real cool, it’s real easy to work with Sonjay and Scott and Don, they let you collaborate. It’s a real chill atmosphere backstage, because if you’re management and you’re a d*** and you disrespect the wrestlers like I’ve seen done throughout my whole career and Disco’s seen it himself, it trickles through the morale and through the whole character of the locker room. When the locker room is like it is right now where it’s very easy to talk to management and they let you collaborate and everybody’s joking around and having a good time, like the locker room’s real relaxed right now and everybody’s pulling together to really make this work. I thought that was a great PPV. I saw every single match and I thought it was really good.”