David Sahadi recently recalled how WWE released his father from a Legends deal in retaliation for his own with on TNA’s “Cookies” vignette. David worked as a producer for WWE during the Attitude Era and began working with TNA in 2004. In 2005, TNA produced the “Cookies” vignette which saw several TNA stars Road Dogg, Abyss, Konnan, Traci Brooks and Shane Douglas showing up at the WWE production set at Universal Studios in Orlando where the ad for that year’s Royal Rumble was being filmed.
David recalled on the AdFreeShows Insider podcast how WWE released his father Lou Sahadi from his Legends contract to get back at David for working on the segment. You can see the highlights below (per Fightful):
On his dad getting released from WWE: “This is what really hurts, Conrad. This is me getting negative right now because it’s personal. My dad was given a Legends contract by Vince McMahon Jr because he worked with Vince Sr. He did a lot of stuff with Mike Tyson during the Attitude Era. [He also worked] with Lawrence Taylor, so he was getting a $3,000 check every single month. My dad is poor. He was living in Boca Raton but not making much money. He was on Social Security, and when I told him what happened in December, at this point, I’m done with TNA, he said, ‘Well, I hope they don’t stop giving me my check.’ I said, ‘Dad, I’m sure they’re not going to do that.’ The next day, his check came, and I saw him go into the living room, and he took that check, and he got on his knees. He’s very religious, very Catholic, and he kissed it. He prayed, and he kissed it because that money meant everything to him. Then Kevin Dunn, three days later, calls and says, ‘Lou, I got some bad news for you, and I had to give bad news to good people, but we’re making cutbacks, so you’re no longer going to get that legends check.'”
On finding out the move was retaliation: “I found out, Conrad, that there was a meeting in Kevin’s office with some people who I won’t mention, and they said, ‘How do we get back at Sahadi for him trying to screw us? Again, I wasn’t going to screw them; I was trying to get PR for TNA. They said, ‘We know he loves his father more than anything in life. Let’s get Vince to stop sending him that monthly check,’ and that’s what they did. They hurt my father to hurt me, and that’s why I never worked for them again, because they f**ked with my father, they’re f**king with me. That’s when I called Jeff [Jarett] and said, ‘Hey, guess what? Now, I’m ready to come back full-time. I want to kick some ass,’ and I helped build TNA up, which is great, but my God, they took it out on my poor 70-something-year-old father at the time. Shame on them.”