Reigning TNA champion Frankie Kazarian sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California to discuss the controversial way he won the World title, why he left AEW to return to TNA, how close he came to signing with WWE and why his first run didn’t lead to more, being a part of the first Ultimate X match, his wife Traci Brooks possibly returning to wrestling, and more!

You became TNA World Champion at 48 years old. Did you think at one point it wouldn’t happen?

“Absolutely. I mean, there was a time early on, like 2007-ish, where I was kind of on the come-up as a singles babyface, getting some good matches, and had a lot of good momentum. But just seeing who was above me on the ladder was like, just don’t think it’s going to happen for me. I will say, at the time, from an in-ring standpoint, I think I was a very good wrestler. I don’t think I had developed my personality and promo skills to what you need to be a World Champion. Then years went by and kind of became a fleeting thought, it’s just not going to ever happen. But I always like to say this, dreams do not have an expiration date. So, 48 years old or 28 years old, doesn’t matter. I got the job done.”

People hate how you won this championship:

“Good. You know, it’s show business. Sometimes the Joker beats Batman, sometimes the bad guy wins. What matters to me is that they’re angry, and that tells me that they care, tells me that they’re paying attention.”

You picked your moment perfectly:

“From a character standpoint, why would I not go after a wounded animal when I see one? That’s kind of bad guy 101. We’re still in the storytelling business, and the business has evolved and gotten rather complex, but at the end of the day, it’s still kind of black hat versus white hat. At least that’s the way I approach it.”

What made you return to TNA?

“So I was with AEW before AEW was a thing, essentially. There was the group of us from Ring of Honor, we all, coincidentally enough, had contracts expiring at the end of that year. The Bucks and Cody, Hangman Page, myself, Scorpio Sky, and Christopher Daniels, we had been privy to some information about this guy, Tony Khan, and he’s a huge wrestling fan, his father’s a billionaire. You know how many times I’ve heard that story? ‘This guy has money. He’s gonna start a wrestling company.’ I’m like, Okay, I believe it when I see it. But ended up meeting Tony and he told us, kind of his vision and everything, asked if we were interested, and it’s like, yeah. All of us kind of collectively are like, we’re doing this. And bam, AEW was born, it burst onto the scene and exploded. It kind of changed wrestling for a while, at least. So I was there, 2019.”

You won their first-ever tag team championships?

“First ever there. Yep, me and Scorpio Sky. They switch it up and put us as the team, we had teamed in Ring of Honor as well. So another one of my best, dear friends and guy have amazing chemistry with. One of my best buds, still to this day. Had that first initial tag run, then that stopped, and then kind of just bounced around, did a pretty cool storyline with myself and CD [Christopher Daniels], where he had a match against The Young Bucks, where I put the stipulation out where if we don’t win this match, if we can’t win these titles, we’re done as a tag team and lost that. That story, if anyone hasn’t seen that story, I recommend go back and looking, because it’s really good, some of our best work, and The Young Bucks as well. Then kind of was starting to do my own singles thing, and then just kind of being used as a utility player. For example, when Christian came into the company, who’s another friend and wonderful wrestler, one of the most underrated dudes on Earth, I had his first match because he trusted me and he hadn’t wrestled in seven years. So they put me in there with him, and we had a great match. When Adam Cole comes, [I’m] his first match. So I was kind of the guy, I could have great matches with anybody, but that was it. That was kind of my role. A lot of times I was kind of relegated to sitting on the bench, and I don’t do well like that. I’m not wired like that. I cannot stand complacency. There came a point where I was thinking to myself, in my opinion, the most valuable thing you can give me, or that I can give you, is time, because that’s the one thing we’re all running out of. Money, possessions, all this stuff, fine, whatever. But for you to give me some of your time, I appreciate that. And so I just thought to myself, with the time I have left in pro wrestling, and this was the end of 2022, I needed to give that time to somebody that valued it and appreciated it. I don’t know if I have five years, ten years left, but I know there’s more years behind me than they’re in front of me. But with the time I have left, I want to give that time to somebody that is going to value and appreciate it more so than I felt it was being valued and appreciated at the end of AEW.”

So your contract came to an end?

“No, I just re-signed the year before. I just re-signed for another three years. And then December of 2022, I get a call from a representative in the office, and they’re like, ‘Hey, just wanna let you know we’re gonna roll you over and we’ll just see.’ I go, ‘Whoa, wait about that. I don’t want that to happen.’ They’re kind of taken aback, and had a long conversation. I said, ‘Look, honestly, I would like you if I could just get my release.’ Everything I just explained to you, I explained to the people at AEW. They were, I don’t want to say shocked, because it’s not like I’m such a giant star, but they were like, just taken aback, because nobody had left AEW at this point. Cody did. Cody had left a few months before. So it was like, wow. ‘Well, what if we do like a per-show? What if we do this?’ I go, thank you, but I need to bet on myself. I need to just sever ties and go. A little bit of back and forth, and eventually the message came down to go, ‘Okay, well TK respects you as a man and as a wrestler, and if this is what you want, we can do your release.’ I said, ‘Can you please have it to me in writing by today?’ Because I hadn’t talked to anybody, WWE, TNA, I just needed out. I needed that safety net pulled away.”

Why do you think they let you go?

“Obviously, they probably didn’t see anything long-term in me, you know, which was astonishing, because I was like, why would you re-sign me for very good money, for another three years, if they didn’t see anything? I get it, of course, that’s how it is. I could probably still be there today doing what I was doing, but I’m much, much, much happier where I am now.”

Do you remember how they pitched Ultimate X to you?

“They pulled us aside, us being myself, Chris Sabin and Michael Shane, and said, ‘We have this idea for a match, like a ladder match without ladders.’ So the original concept was chains going in the form of an X, and the belt is going to hang in the center, and it’s just like this new, innovative match. We’re like, okay. So they’re like, we’re going to fly you in a day early so you can see the structure and kind of get used to it, because they had never been done. So we all got flown into Nashville, and we go down The Asylum, the National Fairgrounds, and they’re still figuring out how to even build it. The original concept they had steel poles inside the ring posts. And they nixed the chain idea, and it was just cable. They finally got it to where, structurally, it looked good. It’s getting late at night now, and they’re like, ‘Alright, who wants to try it?’ I go, ‘I do, I’ll try it.’ I just jump up, grab and start shimmying. I start shimmying, and all four of the posts just go, then all of a sudden, I’m standing on the ground. So now you got a bunch of these engineers, construction guys, scratching their head like crap, and the pay-per-view is the next day. So, you know, uh oh. So they try to do something else. It doesn’t work. Now it’s like, midnight, one o’clock. So it’s like guys, we’ll figure it out. So we get there the next day. Still don’t really have it figured out. Eventually they did the lighting trusses, the four lighting trusses on the corners and that could support the weight and the cable and all that. But they didn’t have it set up until 10 minutes before doors opened. So we had all these ideas, but had no clue if we could pull them off. We did not get to practice, rehearse, nothing, all that stuff that happened was just in our head.”

So you didn’t get a chance to climb up?

“Nothing. So we went out there on a live pay-per-view, we knew it would support our weight, and that’s all we knew. But we had these ideas, and it’s not a regular match. You have ideas. One guy’s climbing, the other guy power bombs him, or this guy spears him. Thank God I was in there with two guys that were very, very capable wrestlers, Chris Sabin and Michael Shane. But we somehow pulled it off, man. It’s become an iconic novelty match in TNA, and in wrestling really.”