TJP discusses returning to Impact Wrestling and NJPW, a potential MMA career and WWE (Exclusive)

Following on from our interview with TJP shortly after his WWE release, the former Cruiserweight Champion joined me for Episode 12 of Dropkick DiSKussions to chat all about his recent returns to Impact Wrestling and NJPW, rumors of a Bellator fight, and to look back at Perkins' WWE career ten months out from leaving.

You can watch the entire interview below, or read on for the transcription in its entirety.

Now, I need to get it out the way. There have been a lot of rumors that Bellator have offered you a deal to compete in MMA action for them. I believe you cleared it up last week that there was an offer, but you decided against it. Have there been any other developments or is that a closed book?

I mean, I don't think that it's closed. We're still bouncing ideas back and forth but the offer I got was very specific. I don't want to go into exactly who the other camp was, just because if it doesn't come about and we don't do business, I don't want to have used them for press or anything like that, but I think once we kind of realised that the two sides were vastly different weight classes, not vastly but at least one or two weight classes separate, it made it kind of tough, and then money was kind of tough just because of the timing, for me the amount of time I would have to block off from my schedule...

Fighters fight once or twice a year. You miss a quarter of a year, a third, maybe even half of your year to take on a fight and, especially for me, I haven't been training in like camp for a long time so I would have to put in some time.

Obviously timing's an issue for me. This is the first time I've been a free agent for wrestling in like 10 years. Ring of Honor, TNA, WWE, almost back to back to back, having the opportunity now to go back to Japan, back to Mexico, and doing what I'm doing with Impact Wrestling, stuff like that, that definitely is going to drive my boat so timing is an issue because it's like trying to figure out where I can fit it in between these things and so that's kind of specific and obviously he's got a rhythm of what he wants the schedule to be like on the other end.

So I think because of the amount of hurdles, maybe it's kind of a no go but I don't know that I would say I closed the book on it. It just seems like this one might be kind of tough to do.

Next: Returning to Impact and NJPW

Coming up: TJP on his WWE run

Excellent, now we can get to the wrestling!

You recently returned to two major companies - Impact Wrestling and NJPW. I believe you previously wrestled in a mask for both of those promotions. Does it feel like a fresh start being able to return to both as yourself and, ultimately, were you happy with how both returns went?

Very. On the note of the mask or not, New Japan was funny because the J-Cup, the first day I got on the bus, I said hello to Liger and talked him for a second and he didn't... It wasn't until later in the day, he approached me at the arena, he didn't realise it was me because I'm so much older and bigger. When he had seen me before, I was a lot skinnier and smaller, and younger, I didn't have any tattoos, and I was wearing a mask a lot.

Other than the Super Juniors that I did, even that was eight or nine years ago almost now, that was the only time I was ever really was there unmasked other than my very first debut when I was a young boy, everything after that I was Puma or whatever.

Impact was interesting. I was really excited to go back because their roster is incredible right now. For the last couple of years, I had seen them put it together and I've watched a lot of stuff... I don't watch a lot of contemporary wrestling but I'll watch a lot of the stuff my friends are in and stuff like that, so even when I was at WWE for those few years, I was watching them build their roster and I'm like, "Man, these are really good guys."

I thought for a while if I was ever out, obviously New Japan is kind of in my blood so I've always wanted to go back to New Japan and Mexico and stuff like that, but I felt for a while that Impact was the place where a lot of my friends went there and their roster was so good, so I was a little bit like, I didn't know what to expect.

I came back to New York and that is a tough wrestling crowd, that city is tough and I remember thinking, I'm already polarising for die-hard fans. To die-hard fans I'm like the Kobe Bryant. Some people irrationally love me and some people just hate my guts, so I remember thinking, "This will be a tough crowd, it'll be interesting to see," and I was a bad guy for the last two years in WWE so I'm like, "Man, I've conditioned them to give me the heat," but they were awesome and the atmosphere has been great. Every show that I've been back, and the roster has far exceeded my expectations of it, and I thought they were going to be killer already.

Every single night, anybody in that locker room can open or close a show and it happens that way. There are shows where I have opened in the main evented the next night. Some nights the X Division will open then close the next, the women will open then close, and will be having the best matches on the show.

The tag team division, because a lot of times it feels like tag team wrestling is dying but I feel like with what Impact and obviously the stuff that AEW is doing with the pairings they have, that's what is making tag team wrestling relevant again and I think that's awesome.

Next: More TJP in NJPW?

Coming up: TJP on his WWE run

Something I couldn't research online. What better way than to ask the man himself? NJPW - was that a one-off or will you be spending more time there?

Definitely not just a one-off. It's hard to kind of predict when you get later in the year because that's when things are getting into the culmination stages of what people are planning for example, and I don't know maybe I didn't get out of WWE sooner, I could have maybe started with the Super Juniors but I was a little late so I had to wait until the J-Cup.

There was the East Coast and West Coast tours, and they have another something else that scheduled for me to do coming up but I'll wait for them to announce that one. But there is at least a few more things coming up which I was grateful for because whether I come back once or a million times, I've always considered that place my home because they really were my first place that I got to cut my teeth.

Now, there's an immense wealth of talent in both promotions - who are you most looking forward to facing, or who would be your dream match in either promotion?

For a little while, one of the reasons that really swayed me to pursue doing some work with Impact was the amount of friends I had there. Willie Mack is like my best friend in wrestling in real life, a lot of people don't necessarily know that because we're not ever really in the same place at the same time but I got a home in Las Vegas a few years back and he moved out here kind of at the same time, and we were both friends in LA and we came out here.

He's literally my best friend in the world so when I saw that he was laying some roots there and with Rich Swann going there, obviously people know we are really good friends and there's a lot of guys there that I always really enjoyed on a personal level being in the ring with, guys like Eddie Edwards and Sami Callihan. Elgin came in, that was just coincidental.

These guys are all incredible dudes. Then there are some guys I hadn't been in the ring with like The Rascalz, Trey Miguel, I've had a few matches with him now in different forms and he is incredible. Those guys do amazing stuff and I'm really looking forward to doing more stuff with them.

The North as a team. And primarily Fallah Bahh, a fellow Filipino. I didn't even meet him yet and I was already coming through the door saying, "I've got to get with this guy," and so it looks like we will have a chance to do some stuff together, which I'm excited about.

Next: Looking back at TJP in WWE

Coming up: Friends in WWE

TJP got to represent the Philippines in WWE

Definitely, that's a match made in heaven right there. We spoke earlier about you now wrestling unmasked, one of the things that I had the pleasure of speaking to you about last time was representing the Philippines. I know it's a hugely important thing for you, I know you really pushed for that in WWE.

Do you feel like wrestling unmasked as may be important for you representing the Philippines as well and with Fallah Bahh, is that something you can bring forward a bit more ?

Yeah, definitely. I never really knew whether I needed to be masked or not be masked, or whatever, if it would help. I do think it helps that a lot of people are interested in, I guess just my life story. A lot of people I think, it's like a single element thing. They really worry about cultivating and telling their story as far as a character in the ring but it just turns out over the last 20 years my career trajectory has become kind of a character of its own and a story to tell, and it's been inspiring to a lot of people.

When I was at WWE, I remember the first month I was there, the Performance Center for NXT, they would have mail that was allotted for everybody that was kind of coming in and they would have bins for me, just dump these bins with millions of letters and boxes, packages of people sending me things, and a lot just from people sending me letters and telling me their life story because they were depressed or suicidal, or bullied or something like that and they were like, "Man, you've been through so many things," that they felt they could relate to, so they would write these letters and reach out to me.

I came to realise that maybe being myself and being unmasked was more of a social commodity than I realised - and not a commodity in terms of making money but a commodity in terms of being able to reach people and to help people, so being able to do that for my people is pretty incredible and part of my bridge was.... I wanted to build this bridge so it is not just for fans but for people like me inside not just this business but any business to represent your heritage proudly, even if you're not necessarily Filipino, if you're just any kind of... Asian-American, or South-East Asian or something like that, because there's a lot of... Not a lot of Filipinos wrestling, but there are others who are not claiming it and I feel like either they don't feel safe claiming it, it's not something that would be advantageous for them, it would hurt them, or they just feel like it's not something to be proud of.

The reason I slung the flag on my back and put everybody on my shoulders at least for that one was because I was like, "Look, be proud, proud of what you're doing, be proud of who you are", there's a lot of us that don't and I wanted to inspire them to be open about it because it can lead to good things.

It's been almost one full year since you left WWE. Last time we spoke, you opened up about how great your relationship was with Vince McMahon and Triple H, but maybe not so much the people in between. Looking back, do you have any regrets?

No, I mean, I don't have any regrets at all. I look at it more as it was nice to be given the chance on one of the teams that I grew up watching, I guess is the best way to put it.

We joked but I don't think I had bad relationships with anyone in the middle or anything like that, a lot of that is kind of blown out of proportion. I think people asked me my take on stuff and I'll explain certain things that made me unhappy but being unhappy doesn't mean that I'm kicking trash cans over or throwing a fit or anything. Or even that I make it necessarily overly known.

I might just ask a question or something if I think something can be done better or whatever and most of my unhappiness I just kept to myself, so it wasn't like I had issues with people, it's more just that I was unhappy with the culture of where I was and I felt like maybe I just didn't fit in there because of that.

Some people enjoy certain atmospheres. Some people enjoy political atmospheres and they enjoy blue collar, hard-working but may be underappreciated atmospheres, or some people enjoy whatever atmosphere it is and whatever the case is whereas for me, how that was, my personal experience, I just wasn't that happy.

But I think they gave me a chance to do some really good things and I made a little bit of history, help some people along the way and I'm really proud of the group that I kind of lead in the door because now they've been able to do all these different things and they all have personal goals that they've now been able to start to chase those. Before we did that tournament, nobody like us had an opportunity to do that so I'm very, very happy with what I was able to do in the few years I was there.

Next: Friends in WWE

Coming up: The wrestling world right now

TJP stole Gran Metalik's mask - but he's worn a fair few.

Have you spoken with or kept in touch with anyone there since departing?

A lot of the people from the crew. The seamstress crew, I talk to almost every day. A lot of the people from catering, our parking lead security guy, I talk to him all the time. One of the lead floor stage managers, I talk to all the time. Some of the producers and stuff, TJ Wilson and Shane Helms, I still talk to them a lot and a lot of the guys.

I'm still really good friends with Lince and Cedric. We always had the car and the rooms together. Every week, that was kind of my car, my circle and we talk all the time, and Kalisto, Sasha Banks, and Charlotte are some people I still text and talk to every now and then.

Yeah, I talk to most of them. The community is pretty much still the same. It's funny because when you're in the same company, a lot of the times, you don't even talk as much as when...

You talk about the same as if you are on different parts of the world because I probably talk to them the same amount now as I did when I was there. Especially a place like that, it's so big and sometimes you go months without seeing somebody because you're not on the same schedule but I still keep in touch with most of the guys.

You've wrestled everywhere, you've been everywhere. WWE, AEW, Impact Wrestling, NJPW, the list goes on. Where do you feel you did your best work?

Let's see, I don't... Unless I have CT already, I don't think I did AEW yet, but we did talk a little bit about maybe future stuff.

Sorry, I meant the appearance at Starrcast. Poorly worded on my part - or trying to catch you out.

Oh, yeah, I had the signing a Starrcast. It's weird, let's see, I started back on the road in May, and it was from May until this November, I had... 70 or 80 dates packed into my schedule, so I had a lot, and it's been everywhere. UK, Australia, Canada, obviously America, some stuff in Mexico had come up and I had to postpone some of it but I ended up still going there with Impact and obviously Impact and New Japan came up, some tournaments and stuff that came up like King of the Indies for example.

It seems like every week I'm in three or four different cities, and it's not even slowing down, but as far as my best stuff, I don't know, it's a mixed bag because I feel like I'm doing a little bit of everything and everywhere I go is pretty much... I guess consistent because I've been waiting three years to paint this way, you know? Now I've got the brush back in my hand.

It's funny. A lot of times I think performers get out of a place like I came out of and they get into this position and they work a lot, and it starts to wear down on them because of who they are and where they come from. They will go to these places and every night, it's like doing a WrestleMania because they will go to these places and it's like that place the biggest show of the year with probably the best wrestler and that might be one of his biggest matches he's had. Then the next night, you have to do it again in a different city with a different guy and it's the same scenario all over again.

Usually what will happen, 99% of the time, is as guys in my position start to get worn down because they are like, "I just came out of one groove and I'm not ready to change gears," but in my case, it's almost the opposite because I will go to these places and people are like, "Man, you must be tired having to do that," and I'm like, "No, I want your WrestleMania match every week because I have not been able to do a lot of the stuff that I just want to do," so for me, I look forward to that every night having somebody's... Not that I'm special to them but it's a case where they are looking to have the best match they've had, or one of the more important ones and, bring it on, brother, that's what I'm looking for.

I want to do what I love. I started to fall out of love with it and I don't want to ever... I never want to feel that again.

Next: The wrestling world right now

And one final question on that point - there's more televised wrestling than ever before. We're looking at RAW, Impact, NXT, AEW and SmackDown all on television, and of course there's the likes of NJPW and ROH, and even MLW making waves.

Is now the best time ever to be a wrestler, and what do you think of all the quote-unquote "competition" going forward?

It's crazy the amount that is going on. I wish wrestling fans would look at it more like, say, boxing or fight fans, or MMA fans, because imagine if we had, I don't know if you followed MMA for a long time but my favourite thing back in the day was Pride. I loved Pride and I think Pride did pro wrestling better than pro wrestling. Pride is the best pro wrestling company in the history of the world - but imagine if we had Pride from then with UFC from right now and also Bellator - and what if we still had Strikeforce and all this stuff?

A lot of the fans wouldn't be like, "Strikeforce is better than UFC is because of this," "You just don't realise because UFC has more money," blah, blah, blah. "Pride is better."

You just watch what you like, K-1, Pancrase whatever it is. Imagine having all of this in the greater world of MMA but now that is what we've got for wrestling and every roster is now so packed with guys who are ready for the stage they are on, and it's like moving the independent boom to the mainstream, and now we have that.

A lot of the times I will get that. I had this in a recent interview where they said, "What do you think of the prospect of Impact with the new TV deal going head-to-head with this place of that place?" It's like, man, there's like eight places you're going "head-to-head" with, that's not even head-to-head any more.

You might as well just put what you do out there, just put your rock 'n' roll out there and see who listens, and just go with that. Grow how you grow, because there's too much of it now. I think that's too much of a good thing.

I think if people were to be a little bit more patient, a little bit more positive, then you'd realise what a wonderful time this is - because it's incredible.

A huge thanks to TJP for taking the time to speak with us. You can follow TJ Perkins here.

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