Steve Maclin has opened up about the frustrations that ultimately contributed to his departure from TNA after a five-year run with the company.
Speaking with TSN, Maclin explained that he reached a point where he felt like he was “spinning the wheels” creatively. According to Maclin, he regularly pitched ideas to TNA’s creative team, but many of them never materialized.
“I kind of felt towards the end of my fifth year I was just spinning the wheels where I was throwing ideas to creative and they were taking them and then nothing would come of it. Even when I became International Champion (in April of 2025), it was like, ‘All right, cool, where are we going to? Am I going to Mexico, Japan? How are we going to make this title mean something?’”
Maclin said he continued pitching ideas for the championship, but those plans never came together the way he envisioned.
“And every pitch that I threw just never came to fruition like I imagined. It just felt like I was always fighting an uphill battle where I just folded every time, like, ‘Okay, cool, whatever you guys want, then.’”
Maclin added that the situation was particularly frustrating because of how much he invested in trying to improve his programs and the overall product.
“For me, that’s not something I like to do, especially when I try to put every bit of me into a story to better the product, to better the company and to better the person I’m in the ring with.”
Toward the end of his TNA run, Maclin attempted to incorporate some of those real-life frustrations into his storyline with then-TNA World Champion Mike Santana.
“I was trying to really dive into that story, like here I was as a guy trying to be so selfless for so long for the company and (management is) just clamouring for people getting ready to leave right away. The writing was on the wall with certain talent just leaving as to how the story was going to end.”
Maclin said his goal was to find a way for those departures to benefit TNA creatively rather than allowing ongoing storylines to suddenly reach a dead end.
“All right, cool, so how do we make the most of this story to make the product, for when they do leave, continue to move on instead of just coming to a dead stop? None of it made sense sometimes.”
While Maclin stressed that he wasn’t part of TNA’s creative team, he appreciated having the opportunity to offer ideas and wanted to use his legitimate feelings as material for his on-screen character.
“Obviously, I’m not part of the creative process. I can add my two cents, which I’m really appreciative of, where I can throw my opinion into the hat, but it just doesn’t come out of it.”
Maclin continued, “It was just one of those things where I was trying to take real-life situations and feelings and add that into the storyline.”
Maclin’s final TNA match came against Santana for the TNA World Championship on an episode of iMPACT in May.
Since leaving the promotion, Maclin has remained active on the independent scene, competing for PWE, Fight Factory, NCG and MLP, among others. His post-TNA run will include a notable first-time-ever match on October 3, when Maclin steps into the ring against Adam Copeland.
