TNA News: Tara says she wants a raise, but TNA won't give it to her

By Jason Powell

TNA Knockout Tara (a/k/a Lisa Marie Varon) followed up her Twitter post regarding her contract expiring on May 21 with a blog in which she revealed the reason she has not re-signed. "I came to TNA last year because I still had a lot of wrestling left in me," Tara wrote. "I was paid a fraction of what I thought I deserved. But I wanted to show I was still at the top of my game. Now my contract is up in May. I want a modest pay increase. They don't want to pay me what I think is fair. I have no problem going my own way...

"But about 12 hours after the conversation where we didn't agree on pay, unnamed sources claim that I am hard to work with and that I don't give my best effort. My only response is that TNA made an aggressive effort to re-sign me, among other things saying that they want to build the women's division around me. And I think wrestling fans see, both on TV and at live events, that I always give 100%. I take pride in that. Smearing me on the way out the door is an act of second rate character...

"In closing I will say this. In the few weeks that I have left in TNA, I will be the same wrestler that you have seen for the past ten years. After that, I haven't decided if I will stay in wrestling, or finally make the jump to MMA. I do have a lot of irons in the fire. We'll see where life takes me. But wherever that is, there's gonna be competition, and I'm gonna give it my all." You can read the full blog at Myspace.com. [Thanks again to Dot Net reader Agahzi]

Powell's POV: For what it's worth, I did not run any reports regarding her contractual situation until today, but I was getting emails about the situation from TNA insiders. Tara is believed to be one of the higher paid Knockouts because of her history in WWE. She's been a great addition to the division, but TNA dropped the ball with her short title reigns and never really built up to any major title match programs. I've said many times that the easy formula when Tara debuted would have been to put the belt on Awesome Kong and build to an eventual showdown match between the two. Instead, TNA put the belt on Tara early in her run.