Monday Night Mayhem radio with Matt Morgan
Hosts: Big Mosh, Blade, Bill Brown
Available at MondayNightMayhem.com.

Matt was welcomed back to "Your Home Of Wrestling Radio" by Mosh, Blade, and "Wild" Bill Brown, as he is currently currently engaged in a "Best Of 3 Series" with "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles...with the winner going onto the upcoming Hard Justice PPV to compete for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship (against Kurt Angle and Sting). Going into this Thursday night's iMPACT, Morgan is already down 1-0. Leading into his second match, Matt remained optimistic, optimistic, and focused: "You know what it is when I said things could be better...That's what I meant because I am down 0-1. Since I lost to AJ in our 'Best Of Three' series, I've done nothing but go back, study the game tape, and I've done nothing but watch the match with AJ and see what I can improve on."

Either Matt or AJ will receive the opportunity of a lifetime to compete in the main event of Hard Justice: a Triple-Threat Match for the TNA World Title. As many fans of "The Blueprint" know, he has indeed scraped and clawed his way to get to this point in his career, and he gave his exclusive thoughts to The Mayhem Crew about possibly competing in that match.

"When I beat AJ Styles, I think I've been groomed to be a headliner for a TNA Pay-Per-View. I've been groomed from the ground, even back in my WWE days. I wasn't there just to be a mid-card guy, they were grooming me, even then in OVW, to be a main-event attraction. TNA same exact thing: When they started building me as a bodyguard for Jim Cornette, and the slow build through the mid-card, up through the upper card, and now here we are in the main event level. This is exactly what the plan was. I just to step up the challenge and show them I'm worthy of being a main-event headliner one day. And if I could get myself into that match, I'll prove to the entire world that not only do I belong there, I'm going to stay there."

With the arrivals of Taz, Bobby Lashley, and the possible addition of Mr. Kennedy (Anderson), TNA's roster has been growing exponentially, with some of the top names in this business coming in over the past several weeks and months. But with additions comes subtractions, and some in TNA may think they could indeed be on their way out with all these additions. Matt's honest and candid takes on that issue are very profound: "I haven't noticed anything, but then again I'm also not going around asking guys 'Hey you guys worried about your job?' I can just speak from my perspective, I know from what my plans are, and the plans are for me at TNA are to continue to keep doing what they've been doing with me...to slowly keep grooming me and to help them make money one day."

While Matt's fellow "Tough Enough" alum, John Morrison, is starting to become a breakout main-event star on WWE SmackDown and with Matt now doing his own thing in TNA, there are still some "armchair quarterbacks" that still say that the WWE/MTV "Tough Enough" idea as a whole was terrible and that those "superstars" should not be in the business at all. Matt went on the record with The Mayhem with quite a forthright response to those critics:

"Most people don't even remember I did that second installment of that show. Also, John Morrison tried out for my season of the show, and he didn't make. He came back for the season and made that one. I just talked to John last week actually, and I couldn't be happier for the guy. He's one of the few guys I keep up with try to see his stuff, because I knew he would be really, really good. His athleticism is second-to-none."

During his time in Japan, Matt developed many different moves which he has incorporated now in TNA, moves he thinks he could have never pulled off during his time in World Wrestling Entertainment. "The top-rope leg lariat, where I flip over the top rope and land on my feet, that's something I started doing in Japan. I would have never had the courage to try that in the WWE, because you're always worried about getting screamed at or fired for trying to do something different.

"I don't think the WWE is into having their bigger guys do anything different. They make them the same stoic monster. Kane and The Undertaker are the only big guys I can look at that has different characters, and they're so deep seeded from 10-15 years, that's why they're different still."

He went onto add that big guys in the WWE do not have a long shelf-life there. "For the newer guys, there's no one there that has been there longer than three years anymore. Let's say if I'm 6'7" and above. Anybody 6'7" or 6'8" or above, you them sticking in the WWE anymore for three years and above. They recycle them in and out, feed them to the top guys they need to feed them to, and then they're gone. That's not a comfortable environment for a newer, younger big guy to work in."

More is contained in this exclusive 30+ minute interview with "The Blueprint," including his main reasons for positioning himself to join The Main Event Mafia in TNA, his fond memories of working overseas in Japan, what he feels are the chances of a future bout between Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley in the UFC (as well as Brock vs. Fedor), and so much more.

Be sure to catch TNA iMPACT this Thursday night (beginning @ 9PM ET/8PM CT on Spike TV) featuring the second match in the "Best Of 3 Series" between "The Blueprint" Matt Morgan and "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles, in addition to an all-out backstage "prison yard" brawl between the stars of TNA Wrestling. For more information, log onto www.TNAWrestling.com. Don't forget to call your local or satellite provider to order TNA Hard Justice, live and exclusively on Pay-Per-View, Sunday night August 16th.

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