GCW promoter Brett Lauderdale says he did not expect PCO would do an anti-TNA Wrestling angle during his appearance at Hammerstein Ballroom last weekend.
TNA Digital Media Champion PCO shocked many after winning a kickoff rumble at The People vs. GCW on Sunday, taking a sledgehammer to his title in the middle of the ring and beginning a promo about his time with TNA.
A report from Fightful later that evening claimed that the incident took more than just fans by surprise: Reportedly both TNA and GCW weren’t aware that he was going to provide such a shocking moment either.
Lauderdale, GCW’s leading figure, told his side of the story while appearing on Bodyslam.net’s Game Changer Weekly podcast (Question at 16:30 in video). He explained on Tuesday night that while he expected PCO to do some sort of angle following his win, what happened didn’t align with what he was told ahead of time.
“PCO is like a longtime friend of ours. He’s a longtime friend of GCW. I’m a big fan of his, personally and professionally. I admire him and I have a lot of respect for him. So, in most circumstances, I give him the benefit of the doubt, or I trust him, or whatever. What he ended up doing and what I thought he was going to do beforehand was a little different. I was under the impression that we were assisting in a storyline for him. Let me just be clear: Maybe we are, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a work going on and I don’t know. But what happened and what I thought was gonna happen were slightly two different things. I thought we were kind of doing him a favor by letting him advance a storyline and returning to GCW at the same time. I only kind of realized that it was more than that after the fact when I started reading reports that he may or may not have done that on his own. I don’t know, it is what it is. It doesn’t seem like an end-of-the-world scenario here, and I guess the only people that really know what the situation is are PCO and TNA. If I would’ve known exactly what was going to happen I would’ve either suggested doing it a little differently or I probably would have reached out to TNA to make sure that they were in on it. But again, I give PCO the benefit of the doubt and I respect him as a person and a performer, so I really thought we were kind of more doing him a favor than assisting in anything that would’ve been over the line.”
Also on the podcast appearance, Lauderdale gave his thoughts on how Sunday’s show went, giving the card a “7, 7.5” out of 10. You can watch his full appearance on the podcast here.
