Carlos Silva opened up about the controversy around TNA talent being pulled in matches against AEW talent during WrestleMania week.
The TNA President was on Busted Open Radio on Wednesday, where he took responsibility for the decision and offered reasons for it.
It was super tough. All these business decisions are tough, and I don’t like being called a “little bitch” on social anyomore than anyone does. It’s OK. You take the goods with the bads. You gotta make the hard decisions. My job sometimes is to make the hard decisions, and for the fans, for all of you, our locker room, we’re gonna make the decisions that are good for TNA. And we gotta protect TNA. As Kevin Plank at Under Armour used to say, “You gotta protect this house,” and it’s a real slogan.
We’ve had some other folks come at us, and they’ve moved into our nights. They’ve made some decisions. They’ve tried to block us in arenas and venues, and that stuff’s real and it’s out there. And it’s OK, because everyone’s got to make the decisions for their business, but we’re also not just going to lie down and not make decisions that are good for our business. And unfortunately, sometimes those decisions are tough, and we’re very thoughtful about them and we try to do the best to make good when we have to make those decisons.
And in the case of Nic and Leon and a few of the matches that had to get shut down, we tried to make good and make calls and take care of the business as best as we could.
Carlos Silva responds to why the decision was made to cancel the Nic Nemeth & MJF match.#bustedopen247 pic.twitter.com/nGEVG8MqYz
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) April 29, 2026
Silva and TNA initially cited “partner conflicts” after removing Nic Nemeth and Leon Slater from independent events. That came hours after Moose was pulled from a Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling event.
It was reported that Silva was unhappy that Collision aired the same night as Thursday Night Impact, with an hour-long overlap between the shows. That was despite the move being a Turner network decision because of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament airing on Saturday, which AEW reportedly preferred to stay on.
POST Wrestling’s John Pollock and Wai Ting interviewed Michael Bochicchio of Highspots about Slater being pulled from the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow. Bochicchio debunked the claim that one of the reasons Slater was pulled was that he was going to lose to Ricochet. Bochicchio added that they had worked out a finish between both sides that was agreed upon before the show. Pollock also supported that by noting the match had been agreed to by both sides.
Bochicchio revealed in the interview that he only heard the news online and that he received a call from TNA hours before their Rebellion pay-per-view. At the time of his interview with POST Wrestling, he had not sat down with Silva.
After receiving criticism from across the wrestling world, TNA reimbursed Wrestlecon for hotel and airfare expenses related to Slater’s appearance.
