Bobby Roode was one of the most decorated wrestlers in the history of the TNA promotion but getting older, and wrestling less in the latter portion of his tenure there led to his decision to leave the promotion in 2016.
Roode discussed his reasoning behind leaving TNA in a recent appearance on Edge and Christian's podcast, E&C's Pod of Awesomeness.
Roode, who turned 40 years old this May, said that TNA's decision to stop running house shows and tape a month's worth of television at once actually was harder on his body than a more regular schedule.
"I couldn't go to work and be home for six weeks and go to work and expected to wrestle twice a day or five or six nights in a row," he said. "There was one loop we did nine days in a row. … sometimes we would do 2 ½ shows a night."
The inactivity also bothered Roode, whose 256-day reign as TNA Champion remains the longest in company history. Roode previously has gone on record that he felt like he was "in a rut" in the latter portion of his time with the promotion.
"I got in the business to be in the business. … I didn't want to be home all the time," he explained. "I wanted to be on the road and I wanted to get all those reps in and I wanted to be on all the live events and I wanted to kind of tour around and have that sort of schedule. With TNA, I felt like I was really just spinning my wheels near the end of it, and I started to really not like my job. Which was kind of an eye-opener for me cause I was never in a position the last 17 years up to that point where I really hated wrestling, and I really started to hate it. It became a job. I hated leaving home."
Roode said that he had one year left on his existing deal with TNA when the two sides "kind of just mutually parted ways."
Roode has become a fixture on NXT, with a reign as NXT Champion that will surpass the six-month mark by the time he heads into the next Takeover event in Brooklyn.
