Steve Maclin on His TNA Release & Interest In Joining AEW

TSN held a recent interview with former TNA and current Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling talent Steve Maclin. One of the topics discussed included Maclin’s thoughts about his departure from TNA Wrestling and his frustrations in his final year in the company for his reasons why he wanted to leave.

“I kind of felt towards the end of my fifth year I was just spinning the wheels where I was throwing ideas to creative and they were taking them and then nothing would come of it. Even when I became International Champion (in April of 2025), it was like, ‘All right, cool, where are we going to? Am I going to Mexico, Japan? How are we going to make this title mean something?’ And every pitch that I threw just never came to fruition like I imagined.

It just felt like I was always fighting an uphill battle where I just folded every time, like, ‘Okay, cool, whatever you guys want, then.’ For me, that’s not something I like to do, especially when I try to put every bit of me into a story to better the product, to better the company and to better the person I’m in the ring with.”

Maclin also gave his thoughts about how he attempted to add some of his real-life disappointments in TNA to his feud with then TNA World Champion Mike Santana.

“I was trying to really dive into that story, like here I was as a guy trying to be so selfless for so long for the company and (management is) just clamouring for people getting ready to leave right away. The writing was on the wall with certain talent just leaving as to how the story was going to end. All right, cool, so how do we make the most of this story to make the product, for when they do leave, continue to move on instead of just coming to a dead stop? None of it made sense sometimes.

Obviously, I’m not part of the creative process. I can add my two cents, which I’m really appreciative of, where I can throw my opinion into the hat, but it just doesn’t come out of it. It was just one of those things where I was trying to take real-life situations and feelings and add that into the storyline.”

Maclin also gave his thoughts about his interest in potentially joining AEW in the future.

“Yeah, I’m always interested in that end of the world with AEW, especially with my wife there, but then a lot of my friends are also there – my best friend, Josh Alexander, you got the Rascalz (Myron Reed, Zachary Wentz and Dezmond Xavier) there now, too – a lot of TNA alumni, but there’s also a lot of the talent on the AEW roster I’ve been around a long time. There’s dream matchups for me, as well, and if that were to come to fruition and I ended up there, that would be awesome. I would love the opportunity to go out there on AEW Dynamite, Collision, Ring of Honor.”

“To be able to work is all I’ve ever wanted to do. Even with my time in NXT, RAW and SmackDown when we were the Forgotten Sons, all (Wesley) Blake and I ever wanted to do was just wrestle. We didn’t care what it was, just give us something to sink our teeth into and we’ll try to take the ball and run with it.”