TJP hasn't fully closed the door on going to Bellator MMA.
It was reported several weeks ago that TJP was offered a chance to have an MMA fight for Bellator, but talks never progressed far. In an interview with Gary Cassidy of Sportskeeda, TJP discussed the offer given to him and was asked whether or not fighting for the MMA promotion is still a possibility. Although TJP didn't say the door is closed on an MMA run, what he was offered wasn't optimal for his schedule.
"I mean, I don't think that it's closed. We're still bouncing ideas back and forth but the offer I got was very specific. I don't want to go into exactly who the other camp was, just because if it doesn't come about and we don't do business, I don't want to have used them for press or anything like that, but I think once we kind of realized that the two sides were vastly different weight classes, not vastly but at least one or two weight classes separate, it made it kind of tough, and then money was kind of tough just because of the timing, for me the amount of time I would have to block off from my schedule," TJP said.
TJP said the training camp for an MMA fight would have meant taking a break from pro wrestling for several months and given his free agency status, he would like to take advantage of being able to compete on Impact Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. TJP finally admitted that going to MMA would be very tough to do at this present time.
"Fighters fight once or twice a year. You miss a quarter of a year, a third, maybe even half of your year to take on a fight and, especially for me, I haven't been training in like camp for a long time so I would have to put in some time. Obviously timing's an issue for me. This is the first time I've been a free agent for wrestling in like 10 years. Ring of Honor, TNA, WWE, almost back to back to back, having the opportunity now to go back to Japan, back to Mexico, and doing what I'm doing with Impact Wrestling, stuff like that, that definitely is going to drive my boat so timing is an issue because it's like trying to figure out where I can fit it in between these things and so that's kind of specific and obviously he's got a rhythm of what he wants the schedule to be like on the other end. So I think because of the amount of hurdles, maybe it's kind of a no go but I don't know that I would say I closed the book on it. It just seems like this one might be kind of tough to do," TJP said.
The full interview between Sportskeeda and TJP can be read at this link.
