Trevor Murdoch recalled his brief time as Jethro Holiday in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2009.
Following his successful run as part of a tag team with Lance Cade, Trevor Murdoch found himself outside of WWE in 2009 and was looking to rebound by going to TNA Wrestling. Not unusual for former WWE wrestlers at the time, TNA Wrestling was in the middle of its ‘Cross The Line’ era, with names such as Mick Foley, Kurt Angle, Booker T, The Dudley Boyz, Kevin Nash, and more on their roster.
Trevor, or rather, Jethro’s run in TNA Wrestling is brief but is filled with unique matches against the likes of Raven, Booker T, and more.
Speaking to Sean Ross Sapp, Trevor reflected on the short run, including his lack of understanding as to why he was booked in so many random gimmick matches, and revealing that he was supposed to originally come in with his normal tag team partner, Lance Cade, and why that never worked out.
“I was legitimately on a phone call week. Every week I was sitting around waiting to get a call going, ‘Okay, we’re gonna use you this week.’ Originally Lance and I had both exited from WWE,” he said. “They had started a tag team tournament. They were going to bring Lance and I in and we were gonna run to the finals. They hadn’t had a decision on whether or not who was gonna win the finals, but that was the original plan. The problem was, that tournament fell within a time where Lance was already booked in Japan. So he wasn’t gonna be able to make it. So I’m sitting there kinda like, ‘I still want to go.’ I talked to Terry Taylor, he’s like, ‘Alright, we’ll still bring you in.’ He tagged me with Eric Young.
“We made it to the semi-finals, I think, of that. But after that it was literally, ‘Hey, we’re gonna bring you in this week,’ and I wouldn’t even know what I was doing. One week I wrestled Booker T,” he continued. “In an I Quit match out of nowhere. I was like, ‘Alright. I’m excited I get a chance to work with Booker, but now it’s in an I Quit match.’ I was thrown in a match, a Clockwork Orange match, with Raven—which is basically a hardcore match. I’m like, ‘Why the f- am I doing this? But, alright. Let’s make the best of it.’ I did get a little bit of an angle with Abyss and Stevie Richards which brought me to a pay-per-view with Abyss.”
Also, while in TNA, Murdoch found himself having to protect his finishing hold, the Top Rope Bulldog as it was requested that Rhyno kicks out of the hold by then-producer, Taz.
“But I had a bit of a falling out. Taz was brought in as a producer, first time, and I’m wrestling Rhyno that night. Taz is my producer,” he recalls. “We were talking about the match and Taz goes, ‘What’s your finisher?’ I was like, ‘I do this top rope bulldog.’ ‘Oh, that’s awesome. Can you go ahead and hit that on Rhyno and then one, two, he kicks out. Duck, spear.’ I go, ‘All of that sounds great, but can we switch it? I do a beautiful high crossbody. But I would really would like to save the bulldog, man. I don’t have a deal here. I’ve always been taught if you’re gonna protect anything, protect your finisher. You carry it everywhere.’
"Well, I didn’t know it, but that didn’t sit well,” Trevor continued. "Taz, ‘Okay, no problem.’ About an hour later I get called into Terry Taylor’s office. Me, Terry Taylor, Taz, and ‘Road Dogg’ Jesse James, which I was kind of friendly with Road Dogg. He was a producer and I think he was trying to be a middle man to help mediate all of this. Terry Taylor proceeds to start chewing my ass saying that I was being difficult because I didn’t want to do my finisher and I should do what I’m told, basically. I respectively told him, ‘You know where I come from, Terry. I don’t have a deal here. I just want to protect one thing. What’s the big fucking deal? You guys have no plans for me. You have no direction for me. That’s the only thing that I’ve been able to go places with and people go, ‘Oh, that’s Trevor.’ That’s the one thing!’ He proceeded to tell me why he disagreed with me. I’m being tactful about it. He wasn’t very happy with me and my decision and I never got booked after that. I just got dropped. Things work out for a reason. I truly feel I made the right decision. I stood up for the right reason. It was different. You’re not paying my bills. So, obviously, at the time they saw no value in me to put me under a deal. It was the right decision.”
These days, Trevor Murdoch is doing just fine at the top of the national wrestling Alliance and is getting ready to defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Tyrus at NWA 74.
