Foley Talks TNA Name Change, WWE Dropping Wrestling

IGN recently posted an interview with Mick Foley where he discusses a variety of things, including TNA’s name change to Impact Wrestling, WWE dropping the word "Wrestling" from their name, TNA’s growth and more.  Below are a few excerpts:

IGN: First off, TNA’s weekly show is now called Impact Wrestling. Your thoughts?

Mick Foley: I love it. For example, I am proudly wearing my Impact Wrestling shirt right now during my publicity day. I’ll probably change it tomorrow just out of necessity, but if I has a second clean one I’d wear it. Not that I wasn’t proud of TNA, but it was confusing and people didn’t always know what it meant. But now Impact Wrestling is pretty self-explanatory. It’s wrestling and hopefully it’s impactful. So I love the name change and I’m embracing it. And I think our fans will embrace it as well.

IGN: What do you think of the WWE’s choice to eliminate the word wrestling from their rhetoric?

Foley: That’s been an on-going issue for them for years. I remember I would be reprimanded after doing an interview because I called myself a wrestler. I always considered myself a wrestler and I still do. I don’t fault them for distancing themselves because they feel there is a stigma attach to it. But at the same time there are a ton of people who still love the traditions attached to wrestling and who don’t consider the business anything other than "professional wrestling."

So I think if the WWE is going to distance themselves then we are going to embrace it. I never saw it as being that big of an issue though. The Rock would always talk about "Sports Entertainment" and I always liked to call myself a wrestler, but clearly when we got in the ring together those two styles worked. So I never thought there was that much of a difference there. But then again I love the fact that wrestling is in our name now. We are entertainment, but wrestling is such a unique form of entertainment that I think it deserves its own title. Pro-wrestling.

IGN: What kind of change and growth have you seen in TNA-slash-Impact Wrestling since you joined up back in 2008?

Foley: Internationally we’ve definitely seen the growth. But sometimes, you know, every time we take a step forward we also take a step backwards. We have the same ratings that we had two and a half years ago. People sometimes get angry with the company because there’s no one else out there and they say, "Oh that’s a little group with limited talent and they’re living up to their potential." I think the truth is that we have not lived up to our potential. And sometimes fans expect more out of us. And hopefully this name change will be the boost, the kick in the butt that makes us get more out of it.

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