Rhino Weighs In on Why He Chose to go to Impact Wrestling

Rhino talked with Sporting News about why he signed with Impact Wrestling instead of re-upping with WWE and more.

On Signing With Impact: It means a lot on several different things. One, just for the simple fact that it’s a company on the right path for almost two years. They have been moving in a direction where wrestling fans want a company to go in terms of letting the talent be the talent, having bookers booking the matches on the card opposed to writers.

I think a lot of fans are drawn to a promotion like that. Not speaking against other promotions, but you other promotions doing it differently because they’re very successful. But I think there’s nitch where you have to let talent be talent and have enough talent where it’s not drowned out too much and where you don’t have enough TV time and run enough shows to use them. It’s up to the talent, whether to sink or swim. And Impact because guys have more control when their contracts are up.

On His Appearance At Slammiversary: I cannot confirm or deny. But I will go on the record of saying I was still under contract no matter who I worked for. Whether it’s my word or a contract, I will do it justice. But with that being said, Rob Van Dam was also under contract when he appeared on Monday Night Raw for the Reunion show.

So, does Impact and WWE have some sort of backdoor understanding type of agreement? Or was that not me? Or was that me? Did WWE allow me or give my blessings? Because at the end of the day, what are they going to do? Fire me? But at the end of the day, doing business is one of the essential things in wrestling. I try to stress that to younger talent. It’s always beneficial to do good business because it ends up being best for the wrestling business and the fans.

On Turning Down A WWE Deal: That is true. Basically, I was talking with Mark Carrano (WWE Senior Director of Talent Relations), and Vince (McMahon) threw out a number. It was double my downside. It was more money than I would have made in wrestling altogether. I love being on the road whether it’s working with independent promotions or with Impact, AEW, or WWE.

My window of being on the road is closing. I realize that. My thing is I enjoy being in the locker rooms and helping people out. My goal is to find the next John Cena, the next Steve Austin or the next RVD. I can’t do that if I’m sitting at home. I’m more beneficial to being on the road.
One of the things I talked to Mark Carrano about is putting in the car with guys that are coming up from NXT or currently in NXT. I don’t need to be on TV. Put me on the live events. I can show up at TV’s and do whatever. A lot of the men and women who get to Raw or SmackDown are very talented in the ring.

I told Carrano, ‘You and I both know it takes a lot of money to get a talent to Raw or Smackdown. And then you’re investing more money in TV time to get them over. And if they mistake in this day of age, they are in trouble due to the social media and are likely to be fired. I can get the talents in the car for a few weeks and teach them the ways of the road and do something like that’.

But I thought I wouldn’t be on the road and be able to do that because there are so many people under contract. So that’s one of the reasons I turned it down. I figured I would throw a stupid number out there and if they bite then if I sit at home, I’ll have to learn how to be happy. But I realized money doesn’t always make you happy. I’m glad they turned down my counter.
They made a counter and wondered if we could meet in the middle. I was like, ‘No, I don’t think we’re going to meet.’ I realized there that I just didn’t want to collect a paycheck and told them we’d just part ways respectfully. There was no heat or anything. At the end of the day, I would have been miserable, and there isn’t an amount of money to make you happy when you can’t do something you love.