pwinsider:
Stevie Richards has had the distinction of wrestling in every major wrestling company. WWE, WCW, TNA, and ECW have all been home to Richards and he's created memories wherever he's worked. His most recent run with TNA as Dr. Stevie just came to an end recently. Richards, who left with no hard feelings but rather decided to depart for business reasons, tells James Guttman on ClubWWI.com about that decision. Initially, he was excited about working as a new character and the opportunities it presented.
"Here's Dr. Stevie with the promise of, 'If you work hard, get over, you establish yourself, and mesh into the locker room, then you'll be rewarded. We'll renegotiate your deal and all this stuff will happen.' Then (TNA) turned around and says, 'Oh. You're lucky to be getting what you're getting.' Then (they have me) never come to work, never get booked, sat at home, and it's all these things. Like I said, it comes right down to it being a business decision."
When the final day of his TNA run came about, Richards made sure to leave respectfully. He showed up in person to inform the office about his departure.
"I walked in on January 11th and a lot of people don't do this. They wait for that call in wrestling - whether it's to wait for that call to get a job or to wait for that call to lose a job. What I did was, I prayed about it, I thought about it, and I said to myself, 'You know what? Today I'm going to make something happen. I'm going to control my destiny rather than waiting for something to happen.' So I went in that day and I told (the office). Terry Taylor wasn't shocked because I talk to him all the time. But everybody else seemed shocked. And I said, 'Well, you guys booked me and then you sent me home for five months.' We don't get paid if we don’t work, at the level I was at. So what am I supposed to do? In reality, with a business or a job, you don't go into Best Buy and they say, 'We don't have anything for you' every single day for five months. What are you gonna do? You find another job, right?"
