During the last few years, a company out of Nashville, Tennessee named Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), has slowly but surely grown into the second -biggest wrestling company in the country.

This weekend, TNA’s stars prepare for the biggest event of the year, “Bound for Glory,” on Sunday night, October 18th. But for each of them, the path to this big event has been very different.

In January, wrestler Tara announced her retirement from WWE, where she had performed for years under the name Victoria.

“It was a very emotional time for me. I really did think I was done with wrestling,” Tara said in a phone interview.

She strongly considered going into Mixed Martial Arts, which she ascribes to her strong competitive instinct. “I’m not the kind of girl that just sits at home, eats bon-bons and watches TV,” she said.

While she is still training for MMA today, her focus is once again on her wrestling career.

“When TNA called me to offer me the spot, it was like, ‘I don’t know, I really am retired. I don’t know if I want to do that travel.’ Because you’re gone 5 days a week, and sometimes you’d see your family on the road (the other wrestlers) more so than your family at home,” Tara said.

But TNA’s offer to her was quite appealing, thanks to the company’s less demanding road schedule: “They were saying we won’t have you travel that much…maybe five shows a month. I was like, ‘Really? I could do that with my eyes closed.’”

Nowadays, Tara appears as a regular fixture on TNA programming, and is a main focus of the TNA women’s division. At Bound for Glory, she will participate in a featured match for the Women’s title. And after what she says was an unsatisfying end to her WWE career, she is thoroughly enjoying her time in TNA.

“When I came to TNA, they said, ‘Do what you do best,’” Tara said. “It’s so refreshing to do whatever you want there…it’s so exciting to be in TNA.”

Unlike Tara, TNA World Champion AJ Styles has a long history with the company. He was on the very first TNA show in 2002, and has been a major part of its programming ever since. Now he looks forward to being in the main event of the biggest show in company history, opposite a wrestling legend, Sting.

“I’m looking forward to it, man,” Styles said in a phone interview. “I’m hoping to tear the roof off the place.”

This is Styles’s fourth world title reign for the company — “Every one of them was very special, and an honor,” he said — but this is his first chance ever to main event its signature event.

“Knowing that it’s our biggest pay-per-view of the year, we want to go all-out. I mean, it’s a big deal for us…It’s just special, man. It’s our Super Bowl. The one thing you can expect from every wrestler that goes out there, they‘re going to leave it all in the ring. That’s when it gets crazy, and you can do stuff you’ve been waiting a year to do.”

There is an added significance to Styles’ match, however, as he is wrestling a man who can legitimately be called a “wrestling icon,” in what may be his last match. Styles would not hazard a guess as to whether or not Sting will actually retire after Bound for Glory, as has been discussed.

“That’s something that Sting will obviously have to say for himself,” Styles said. “But I’m looking forward to (the match).”

For Sting, whose career began in 1985, Bound for Glory may well represent the end of a two decade run as one of the top stars in the wrestling industry — although he is also uncertain about whether or not this will truly be the case.

“I do not know for sure,” Sting said in a phone interview. “There is a good chance it will be. I’m going to play it by ear, and see how I feel, physically and mentally.”

Sting’s career as a major player in the wrestling scene really blossomed in the WCW organization, and he was loyal to the company that made him a star, becoming virtually the only major name that never jumped to Vince McMahon’s then-WWF.

“I always believed that Vince McMahon wanted to get me to undermine WCW, primarily,” Sting said. “And secondly, he wanted me as a talent. If it had been the other way around, I could have dealt with that. And I say that based upon what I saw happen over the years.

“Anyone that had a name with WCW that left to go to WWF, because the grass was supposedly going to be greener on the other side, the phone would always ring a few years later, ‘Sting, can you get me back in (to WCW)?’”

After WCW was purchased by the WWF in 2001, Sting stayed out of the wrestling spotlight for nearly five years, making only occasional appearances at shows. It was not until 2006, when he signed a full-time deal with TNA, that he re-emerged onto the national scene.

According to Sting, even that return was originally supposed to be short-lived.

“When I came back in ‘06, it was just going to be ‘06. And then it turned into ‘07. And then ‘08. And then I thought, okay, this is just getting crazy. So I never imagined that it’d be almost all the way through ‘09.”

And now, as he looks ahead to what may be his final match at Bound for Glory, Sting is hoping to steal the show, maybe for the last time.

“This is where wrestlers pull out all stops; to try to make it all happen and pull out their best stuff. This is going to be a big night for me.”

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Pop Goes the Culture.
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