Josh Alexander on Turning Down Opportunity to Wrestle at WWE NXT Stand & Deliver 2025 & His Reasons for Leaving TNA to Join AEW

As noted before, former TNA talent Josh Alexander made his official debut with AEW this past April and had signed an official contract with the company.

A recent episode of the Battleground Podcast featured Alexander as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Alexander revealing that he had turned down an opportunity to wrestle for a title at WWE’s NXT Stand & Deliver 2025 event. Alexander also gave his thoughts about how a former TNA executive soured him on the idea and how it played a role in him leaving TNA to join AEW.

“At the time, TNA was under different management than it is now, and it was different management for the majority of the time I was there obviously, and the guy in charge that was dealing with the back and forth of all that, I did not agree with any of his business practices whatsoever. So that kind of soured me on it. There was things done to try to make me look bad, that I clear up obviously since. But I just didn’t appreciate it so, that was one thing that just kind of soured me on the whole process and then, in talking to them and stuff like that — I’m a guy that follows my gut. I’ll have a bad gut feeling. I’ll be like, ‘Something bad is gonna happen today’ and all of a sudden, my son falls at school and I have to go pick him up or something. I trust my gut, and I just had a really good gut feeling about AEW, from the second they came to the table and started talking to me. They were very interested, and they just laid out the welcome mat for me, and it was just like, if they want me this bad, then they’re gonna appreciate the things that I can do for them and I can do things to make them money, be it promos, pre-tapes, matches, anything like that. If they can appreciate the work ethic that I put into this to try to pay them back for taking a chance on me and signing me, then, hell yeah, that’s a good relationship for me and a ton of my friends are here already and it seemed like a fit right away.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com