TNA World Champion Frankie Kazarian appeared on “Insight with Chris Van Vliet,” where he discussed various topics, including his Mount Rushmore of TNA Wrestling.
Kazarian said, “I mean, you got to put Jeff Jarrett on there. I think you have to put Jeff Jarrett on there, 100% you have to put Jeff on there. And now this is where it gets dicey, because you can say Yes, Sting, you say Kurt, but those guys also came from somewhere else, but, like, it’s hard to not put Kurt on. There has to be Jeff, Kurt. Of course, you have to put AJ on. Of course, Jeff, Kurt, AJ and probably Samoa Joe or Sting? I would go with Joe, just because Joe made TNA and TNA made Joe. Sting was already a massive global star, and I’m not discounting what Sting did for our company.”
On how he came up with Kazarian:
“So that’s a name, my father’s background is very strange. He was adopted, but he knew his real mother, was raised by his real mother and his two aunts, my aunt June and my grandma. I called her my grandma, June and my aunt Buddy, but never knew who his father was. I think they’re weird, old school, Russian, secretive. I think they all knew, but they wouldn’t tell him, because it was back in the day, it was like, ‘Oh, his mother got pregnant very young, and we don’t want to tell who the father is, blah, blah, blah.’ My dad has three different birth certificates, and one of the names that he thought he was was there his father was this guy named Lester Kazarian or something. So I think he had a birth certificate that said Kazarian. I always remember thinking, that’s a cool name. That’s what I’m going to use when I become a wrestler. Because it just has a z in it, and it just sounded cool and unique. I’d never heard it. That’s it. Frankie Kazarian.”
On TNA currently resembling the magic of its heyday:
“It is. And I always tell the locker room that, I always say that it’s like, especially with this new AMC deal, I was there when we got the news that we’d be on Fox Sports West, whatever it was at 4 pm on Friday, whatever. But that was TV, and it was an hour, but it was TV. We were thrilled. Then hearing that we’re going to Spike network television, massive. Yeah, this is even bigger. There’s so much excitement. Like I said, TNA’s strength has always been its locker room. Just the work ethic of the guys in the locker room, management changes and all that, but that attitude has always been there. And this team, this crew we got there, the management team, everybody on the roster, is just a joy to be around. And again, a united front all wanting the exact same thing.”
On if his wife Traci Brooks ever wants to make a comeback:
“No, no, she is very, very comfortable being a mother. She spends a lot of time volunteering at my son’s school, and that kind of was always our vision. What we wanted. We wanted her to be home with my son, because I travel so much, and her doing that. I’ve missed so many moments, but we both would miss those moments without her there. The reason our son is the wonderful young man he is is because of his mother being there with him. So 2023 TNA brought her back, put her in the Hall of Fame. We did her last match, a mixed tag match myself and her against Alicia Edwards and Eddie Edwards, and that was real closure for her. She’s like, I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. So she got that, she got the Hall of Fame, and she’s been back to some of our bigger pay-per-views like Slammiversary, and Bound for Glory. She was part of the Hall of Fame ceremony this past year when Mickie James went in. She still loves it. She still follows her friends who are still involved in it. She still knows what’s going on. But, no, she’s very, very satisfied with her career. She did more than she ever thought she could or would. She’s been asked to do things on smaller scales, it just comes to convention stuff and like in terms of being employed. But we are very, very blessed that she can be a mom and she can spend time volunteering, and she can spend time going home to Canada and visiting her family and everything. So, yeah, it’s worked out well.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
