Source: Scripps Howard News Service

Jeremy Borash will never forget the first night of TNA Wrestling.

Only minutes before the company was set to make its pay-per-view debut in June 2002, a 450-pound Rikishi knockoff named Cheex accidentally snapped a ring rope during a non-televised match. Chaos ensued as TNA officials scrambled to repair the ring while also rearranging the show’s script so viewers wouldn’t know anything was amiss.

“I remember running frantically backstage saying, ‘What do I do? What do I do?’ ” said Borash, who was serving as ring announcer. “Somebody yelled, ‘Just pray!’ That’s exactly what I did. I went into the locker room and prayed for five minutes. At that point, we were literally in God’s hands.”

Fortunately for Borash and TNA, their prayers were answered.

Fixing the ring just in the nick of time, TNA made it through that first show and has since emerged as the second-largest U.S. promotion behind World Wrestling Entertainment. Borash’s fortunes have improved as well. After working primarily as a jack-of-all-trades behind the scenes, Borash has blossomed conducting backstage interviews on “TNA Impact” (9 p.m. EDT Thursdays, Spike TV) and hosting a popular Internet wrestling webcast called “Spin Cycle” at www.tnawrestling.com.

During a telephone interview Tuesday, Borash reflected on how far TNA has come entering its aptly named “Slammiversary” pay-per-view show June 21 from Detroit.

“We were such a small staff when we started,” said Borash, one of the few TNA employees remaining since the promotion’s inception. “At one point, I was doing all the video packages for the show and coordinating media interviews. I had so many different responsibilities. Now, we have a department that handles PR and six guys that do nothing but edit video. The growth has taken a lot of the load off my shoulders. Now I can zero in on what I want to do as opposed to what I have to do.”

Borash, 34, has relished being on-air since working at a Christian radio station in his hometown of Minneapolis at the age of 15. His work on a pro-wrestling radio show led to a job with the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling in the late 1990s. Borash parlayed the friendship he struck there with TNA founder Jeff Jarrett into a spot with the fledgling promotion.

Borash admits he had concerns about TNA’s long-term viability until 2007, when the television deal with Spike began paying dividends and provided financial stability. While still not a strong pay-per-view draw, TNA draws a weekly audience of roughly 2 million viewers on Spike and now runs a regular touring schedule of live shows (Borash serves as ring announcer for those cards). TNA’s talent roster also has drastically improved with WWE/WCW castoffs like Kurt Angle, Mick Foley and Sting being meshed with homegrown products like A.J. Styles and Samoa Joe.

“I reflect every time I go out there because I know how rough it was in the beginning,” Borash said. “It makes me appreciate not having to worry about my paycheck for the next week.”

Borash said he drew inspiration as a quirky TNA pitchman from three sources. Two of them — “Mean” Gene Okerlund and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan — are announcing icons. The third is the late comedian Don Knotts from his role as Ralph Furley on the 1970s sitcom “Three’s Company.”

“I watched that show every day as a kid,” Borash said. “I noticed the weird looks he would get on his face when he would walk in on Jack Tripper (the late John Ritter) and hear a conversation in the next room about people having sex and things like that. But a lot of the time, the things I say come from what (the wrestlers) say backstage when we’re hanging around. We have some very funny, sharp guys.”

Much like Jarrett — who still runs the company’s creative team after his return as an active performer — Borash is cognizant of trying to integrate new technology into TNA’s modus operandi. Borash said he is close to signing a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio for a wrestling show. He also is using his Twitter account (https://twitter.com/JeremyBorash) to promote TNA and the Willy Wonka-style placement of a backstage pass for fans who attend live events.

“I take a picture of where I hide the pass in the arena,” Borash said. “When the doors are opened, I post the photo on Twitter and there’s a mad rush to get it. If I put it in the nosebleed seats of the upper deck, you see people running up to get it. That’s a lot of fun.”

Especially because Borash no longer has to worry whether each TNA show will be his last.

“It’s weird because I never thought we weren’t going to make it,” he said. “That’s probably me being a little naive and just hopeful and faithful. There are times where we probably shouldn’t have made it. But now I’ve got more confidence in our product than ever before.”

(Alex Marvez writes a syndicated pro-wrestling column for Scripps-Howard News Service. Contact him at alex1marv(at)aol.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)

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