Over the course his wrestling career,
Shane Douglas has done it all. He's won countless championships, both on his own
and with others. He's been worshipped as the Franchise and swam in the cheers;
and he's been humiliated as the Dean and drowned in the boos. He's spoken up and
been pushed down, and he's climbed his way back up. He's learned a lot during
his 20-plus years in the business. And now, as one of NWA-TNA's backstage
agents, he's passing on those lessons to the future
generation.

"The nice part about my career right now,"
he told SLAM! Wrestling recently, "is that I can select when I want to get in
the ring and when I don't. Right now, I don't gauge my success by my in-ring
performance. I gauge my success by how well I perform my role wherever it may
be, whether as a backstage announcer or as an agent. For the next two, five, ten
years, I would be proud to continue doing what I'm doing: teaching kids how to
be better performers."

Many would agree that Douglas has the
right credentials to impart that kind of lesson, given that he's been learning
from, and with, some of the sport's biggest names. In the mid-'80s, for example,
he trained under Dominic DeNucci with fellow future superstar Mick Foley. In his
book Have a Nice Day, Foley credited Douglas as being a major help in his
graduating from DeNucci's school.

Years later, while he was in WCW, Douglas
benefited further from the teachings of two of the sport's all-time greats.

"Ricky Steamboat and [Arn] Anderson were two of
the only guys who were gracious enough to teach a young punk like me. I was
capable of doing the moves physically. But I didn't know when to do them and
when not to do them, and piece them together in a way that makes sense. Being
paired with Steamboat was a tremendous opportunity for me, because he took the
time to teach me (how to do that so as) to give maximum entertainment value for
the fans."

Eventually, Douglas took his mastery of
fan psychology, and used it to help Paul Heyman convert a small regional
company, Eastern Championship Wrestling into Extreme Championship wrestling, the
mecca of hardcore wrestling. Douglas looks back fondly on those years, and one
gets the sense that he couldn't be more proud of what he and the others
accomplished back then.

"ECW was truly special, and the success we
had back then, it would be hard to duplicate. Its success wasn't built just on
Paul Heyman's booking, or the matches he put together, or the style in which
they were booked. It was the chemistry, the synergistic relationship between the
fans and the wrestlers."

Though Douglas was known as the
"Franchise" of ECW, he is quick to share the honour with everyone else on the
roster, noting that all of them were essential ingredients in the company's
winning formula.

"As champion, I was the central focus of
the storylines. But the company was built on the foundation of (people like)
Sabu, and Tazz, and The Sandman, and Tommy Dreamer, and Terry Funk, and a litany
of others. I honestly believe that if you took any one of those names out of the
equation, the company probably wouldn't have had the success that it had."

Years after the company's demise, Douglas
is still proud of what he and the others were able to do. And doesn't seem
optimistic that efforts to revitalize the company, even for a single
pay-per-view event as is rumoured to be in the works, would do the company
justice.

"When you have something like ECW was ... it
was like capturing lightning in a bottle. Today, it couldn't be done. (Back
then), there was a place in ECW for the Franchise to be running his mouth and
saying controversial things. There was a place for Sabu hitting the triple-jump
moonsault. There was a place for Sandman swinging his cane, or Tazz dumping guys
on their heads. Without those elements, it just wouldn't be the same."

"Besides," he added, "I've been able to
fulfill a lot of what's missing in my life from ECW (by being involved in)
NWA-TNA."

As a road agent for the company, Douglas
plays an instrumental role in helping instruct the wrestlers on many aspects of
life in the sport, not the least of which is the in-ring psychology.

"I don't think that psychology is
prevalent in the business at all today. And there's definitely room in any
locker room for a guy like me, someone who has spent his career learning that
psychology. A lot of times people will tell you that you have to tell a story in
your match ... that it's the holy grail of this business. But then nobody tells
you how to do it. So when I give some advice to the kids in the TNA locker room,
and I see them really put that advice to use in the ring, those are my proudest
moments right now."

Douglas is very proud of what TNA has
accomplished as a company so far, but believes that the best is still yet to
come.

"TNA is at a launching point right now.
It's been going for two years now. But this is the real start for the company.
If you take a look at the product a year ago compared to today, people will tell
you that it's exponentially much better than it was then."

Fans will get another chance to see this
for themselves this weekend when Final Resolution, the company's third major
event since moving to monthly pay-per-views, hits the airwaves.

Douglas is confident that fans won't be
disappointed with the show, as they may have been, say, with the WWE's latest
offering. And he suggests that this Sunday might be a good opportunity for fans
to consider watching TNA to compare both alternatives.

"I feel like I'm always talking bad about
Vince," Douglas said, almost apologetically. "I don't mean to. Or to talk bad
about his product. I'm just calling a spade a spade the way I see it. And I
think the numbers bear out what I'm saying. About ten million fans have tuned
out in the past five years. Where'd they go? They didn't drop dead or fall off
the face of the planet. They stopped watching that product because they don't
like that product. That's where TNA comes in."

Viewers who do tune in to Final
Resolution, Douglas says, can rest assured that everyone on the card, from top
to bottom, will do every thing they can to deliver the viewers their money's
worth. He's helped instill that sort of work ethic into the company's younger
stars, and he beams like a proud parent when talking about how much of that
lesson they've taken to heart.

"A year ago, they would go out and execute
move after move after move. And the matches were like fireworks -- people would
'ooh' and 'aah', but there was nothing that made them want to come back the next
time; they had seen it all. But now, they're going out and executing moves at
the right time, and they make the crowd stand up on their seats, and then sit
back, and then stand up again. That's the psychology coming in. That's more than
just fireworks. That's getting the crowd into the show so much that they'll be
happy to come back and buy a ticket or order the show the next
time."

"I've never been a drug addict, but I
imagine that the high that somebody gets from heroin or cocaine or alcohol can't
compare to the high that you get when you're performing in front of that crowd,
and the crowd is on their feet chanting 'ECW' or 'TNA' or 'Best match ever' or
what have you. For me, at this stage of my career, I get that high when I give a
young kid some advice about their match, and see that the next time they've
incorporated that advice, and the performance is better than the last time."

As a teacher, it's all that Douglas can
hope for. And though his legacy will be remembered for much more than his
mentorship to the new generation, one gets the sense that Douglas wouldn't be
entirely disappointed.

"Having been around the world, and wearing
Rolex watches, and driving expensive vehicles -- that's the nice side of our
business. But being recognized in the business as being someone who was a good
performer and entertained the fans or being the character who the company was
built around, that's the real important stuff. The watches and cars are a great
perk of the job. But the real present is when you can go out and people
recognize you as being someone who can entertain the hell out of them. That's
where I get my reward."