WWE and TNA Wrestling; two of the major promotions of today's professional wrestling world signed a multi year partnership deal recently. This huge news was announced by both companies following this deal was signed. The two promotions were seen working together for the last 3 years in many occasions through cross promotion appearances.
This is not the first time WWE has signed a partnership deal with another promotion. Previously they worked with other promotions like ECW and famous Mexican promotion AAA. All of these deals were in work in the 1990s. But in most of these deals only WWE was more successful. AAA is still not much known, and ECW went out of business in 2001.
Tommy Dreamer Remembers WWE - ECW Deal in Reference to The Recent WWE - TNA Partnership
Once ECW announced its bankruptcy in 2001, WWE purchased it and by 2003, WWE owned all the assets of ECW. So it was clear that the previous WWE talent exchange deal did not go very fruitful for ECW. One of the biggest legends of the original ECW, Tommy Dreamer recently remembered this partnership deal while talking about the recent WWE TNA deal. Speaking on "Busted Open Radio" recently, Tommy Dreamer explained;
Tommy Dreamer is an ECW Legend
"What it was told, you know, for a bunch of us — they were gonna give talents that they were interested in, or talents first right of refusal, so they didn't go to WCW," Dreamer recalled. "The deal that was told to me by Paul Heyman ... It was: if talent get over, they wanted to send people to us, and if talent got over, they wanted first right of refusal — whether they want them or not — greatest example: Al Snow."
Tommy Dreamer is a two times ECW Champion
"[TNA] is ecstatic, you also got to think about the opportunities for the men and women across different platforms," Dreamer said when asked about how things are backstage. He then looked back at all the crossovers that occurred last year, namely The Rascalz and Joe Hendry, and how it seemed to generate a lot of good publicity for both WWE and TNA. "So, across the platform you gotta be excited, you have to be; there's a lot of cool stuff you can do and cooler stuff on the horizon."
Vince McMahon was regarded as a selfish businessman but presently Vinnie Mac is not associated with WWE anymore. However, WWE did not treat TNA Wrestling equal to their main roster. Most of the TNA stars that worked in WWE were seen performing in NXT which is the developmental territory of WWE. Still in most cases that TNA Wrestling talents lost. Despite this controversial treatment, TNA did not seem to be bothered much about it as it looks like they just want to get relevant once again, and collaborating with WWE would help them.
Credit "Busted Open Radio"
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
