Eric Young had to sign an NDA before his departure.
December 2022 featured one of the many bizarre things that TNA Impact has done and that featured the murder of Eric Young to officially write him off before he signed a contract with the WWE soon after.
It was reported by Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp that EY cited moral reasons before he departed from the WWE for a second time due to not wanting to work for Vince McMahon.
During a conversation on Sunday Night’s Main Event, this is what Young had to say about being “killed” off and how he found his way back to TNA Impact.
“Murder does seem to be a real problem there. But I think it was kind of a brainchild of Eric Tompkins. How it ended is, we’re shooting in this kind of jailhouse set, where we shot a lot of the promos, and Cody [Deaner] definitely, one, you can’t show him stabbing me because it’s cable television, and also, there’s no thought or even idea that I’m going to come back. I’m leaving, I signed this four-year deal, and that’s gonna be it. But they still leave it open-ended because he’s an artist, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t have the forethought, to be honest. But when I said I think that this is happening and I’m coming back, he goes, ‘Oh, we can do this, and we can do that.’ He had it in his head before I’d even signed my name on my contract. I’ve talked about him 100 times, but people aren’t talking about Eric Tompkins enough in the pro wrestling world. They’re just not. He’s one of the best at what he does,” Young said.
EY would then go on to note that before leaving the WWE, he had to sign an NDA before coming back to TNA.
“I didn’t, no. I actually never left my house. The whole story’s wild. I had to sign an NDA, and I’m not allowed to say names. The truth is, I don’t need to talk badly on it. It is what it is. I talked to Hunter, and he hired me back and wanted me back there, and I was. Another person came back, and I won’t work for that person. I won’t be around that person. I said that when I left there the first time, when I got fired, and I meant it. For me, there’s tons of professional reasons, but mostly it’s a personal and moral decision. I don’t have to be there. I have a very good life outside of there. There’s no doubt it’s the pinnacle of sports entertainment. We just saw [with WrestleMania XL]. I don’t know if it could be more perfect, to be honest. It’s the big fish in the pond, and no one will say that, I will never change my mind on it. That was my goal. I did, I went there, I had a bunch of cool things. I was hired back there to do something very cool, and it just didn’t work out. In the end, I was gonna be forced to compromise who I am as a person and as a man, and I’m not willing to do that. It’s not lost on me that I was able to make that choice because a lot of people aren’t going to get that choice. You’re going to make decisions and you’re going to be forced to do what you gotta to do. If this was 10 or 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to make that choice,” Young said.
Young made his return by joining Team Canada at Slammiversary back in 2023.
h/t from Fightful.
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