2016 TNA General Thread

[DTTW]

9 hours ago, RIPPA said:

BTW - American Express is also suing TNA for unpaid travel expenses (basically TNA had travel accounts with AMEX and then never paid their bill)

https://g.co/kgs/x27k5J

[RIPPA]

The Corgan/TNA hearing has been moved to next Wed

Meanwhile Anthem (parent company of Fight Network) has offered to fund TNA to help pay off Billy Corgan's loans

That is from LAW radio and considering they too are affiliated with Fight Network - I would say they are fairly credible on this one

[BrianS81177]

Why do people keep helping Dixie Carter?!?!?!

[RIPPA]

Well in this case I believe the money would go directly back to Corgan.

One would have to assume all other money would be going to the creditors.

Meltzer has promised a huge update on everything that has happened in the WON that comes out tonight

 

[evilwaldo]

 

[Wyld Samurai]

I really want a Briscoe vs Broken Brothers feud... just for the homemade promo spots.

[evilwaldo]

TNA just won't die.  No matter how many times they try, TNA just won't die.

[Jerome Miller]

How long will there be "autograph money" for guys like Galloway, EC3, Cody, etc.?  The longer these guys aren't in the WWE, the lower their value goes.

 

Two years from now, the below video will be the sad reality for most of these guys:

 

 

Also, this:

[BrianS81177]

Thats a better crowd than TNA was drawing when they ran house shows

[RIPPA]

Oh my sweet God - per Dave on the radio show.

The stuff in the Corgan lawsuit is apparently "really embarrassing" so that is why Fight Network is trying to buy him off so he will take his money and go away and then TNA will be run by Fight Network, The Nazis and Dixie

[RIPPA]

The mother of all updates (the WON cover story - spoiler for size)

Spoiler

What has been the long-time inevitable but several times delayed financial implosion of TNA can really be traced back to one afternoon.

Largely based on a contract with Spike TV, TNA was taking in more revenue than any pro wrestling company in the world aside from WWE through 2014. If a company like ECW would have gotten that type of a deal, they would probably still be flourishing today. With the exception of WCW at the end, almost no wrestling company in history wouldn’t have been able to be profitable, and most would have been able to put out a killer product, with a two-hour prime time slot and that level of television revenue. Just five years ago, TNA’s total revenue, largely due to Spike, was multiples of New Japan Pro Wrestling. Since then, each company went in opposite directions, one based on creating stars and putting on great shows even with a major television handicap of a horrible time slot. The other squandered talent and did angles that nobody bought thinking it was the only way, and made no stars. New Japan is now multiple times ahead of TNA, and what can argue, even in the United States, where New Japan’s audience when you factor in the homes available is roughly identical to that of TNA even on a far worse television night and airing matches ten months old.

In fact, TNA was even able to be profitable for a time, although it overextended itself in 2010 when trying to directly challenge WWE, signing Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash, Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam and moving to Monday nights. The second Monday Night War was hardly like the first one. Instead of a legendary conflict, it was pro wrestling’s equivalent to the 1967 Six Day War, a quick and painful one-sided massacre. A mistake was made right off the bat, as instead of starting one hour earlier, giving TNA the edge, Bischoff made the call to go head-to-head. That may have ended up making no difference in the long run, as they did switch time slots weeks later, and that didn’t work out either, and they were quickly off Mondays.

The other killer financially, a move that seemingly had to be made, except they couldn’t make it work fiscally, was moving out of Orlando and touring arenas for television tapings.

While TNA is still alive today, although it is in intensive care and the pulse is weakening, the health issues may date back to that period, but the critical condition dates back to July 15, 2014.

At press time, Anthem Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of The Fight Network, is willing to fund the company and pay back the loans owed to Billy Corgan, which would result in his lawsuit being dismissed and the content of his suit, believed to be very embarrassing to the company, not getting out.

The company released a statement saying:

“Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp. (“Anthem”), the parent company of Fight Network, today confirmed that it recently made a working capital loan to fund the operations of TNA Impact Wrestling. Fight Network is a licensee of TNA programming for broadcast in the U.S., Canad and other international markets, and is also the exclusive licensee of TNA for streaming Internet-delivered TV.

Fight Network has also offered to provide TNA Impact Wrestling with funding to repay the loans made by Mr. Billy Corgan and is positioned to provide additional transactional assistance to the company.

“‘TNA is a strong property for Fight Network and as a licensee and global distribution partner we have a keen interest in seeing the company not only survive but continue to grow and thrive, alongside our own growth,’ said Leonard Aspter, CEO of Anthem. `We are hopeful that the company can soon get back to doing what it does best, which is to produce great wrestling content.’”

TNA content makes up a substantial percentage of Fight Network programming and they are evidently willing to fund it. Whether this deal includes full rights to the TNA library, which logically one would think it would, keeping that away from WWE, was not stated.

Fight Network didn’t say it was paying off other TNA debt, but the Corgan debt was crucial because he had filed a lawsuit against the company that was believed to be damaging and settling it before the contents came out was imperative. It categorized this as a loan as opposed to buying a percentage of the company, and if that’s the case, it once again would only prolong the inevitable, because it would increase the company debt to where the debt was worth more than the value of the company. As far as a temporary fix, this would appear to get Corgan’s financial issues out of the picture and keep Dixie Carter in charge. But every problem would remain.

Some months earlier, with Hogan and Bischoff, who didn’t want Vince Russo around, Dixie Carter secretly rehired Vince Russo. It had been a running joke in the company that Russo had been exposed and Carter never saw it, and that there were people right under her very nose far more knowledgeable and she had no clue of it. It didn’t matter that TNA had done good numbers on PPV under Scott D’Amore and was presenting a good product, she was always of the opinion Russo was some sort of a creative genius who was misunderstood and understood how to drive the ratings, even though he’d shown no indication of that at any point since 1999.

In hiring him, she told him to deny it, and the company also denied it. Only a few people, basically a few office members, the announcers and the creative team, were aware of his being hired. There were Russo fingerprints in different places and it was generally believed he was involved, but it couldn’t be proven and he was never actually physically at the tapings.

The key was that Spike TV hated Russo, for whatever reason, perhaps simply seeing how his ideas worked out for WCW and TNA over the previous 15 years, and in his periods in between working for TNA, he was critical of Spike.

When the death of TNA book is written, if the company doesn’t manage to survive, it will be attributed to one mistake after another by Carter. She continually hired the biggest con men in wrestling and gave them power. She hired ex-WWE people for jobs they never had any experience in doing in WWE, and people who were let go for reasons. She allowed people to give the product a direction of copying the industry leader and thus not building a distinct audience with a different product.

At one point, they were ahead of the curve on women’s wrestling and on smaller wrestlers. But they were never really the ones focused on, and never pushed as the real stars. And in time, they squandered and lost much of the key talent they were ahead of the curve on, and had the chance to grab a lot of talent before WWE changed its stance on smaller guys, but didn’t recognize their talent potential.

The people they put on top were often WWE discards or guys WWE wouldn’t put on top any longer, making them always appear to be the minor league brand as opposed to being a rival with different strengths. In its 14 year legacy, TNA never made a real superstar. They had real superstars, but they were Hogan, Sting, Flair and Kurt Angle. A.J. Styles was a star, but even so, WWE had virtually on interest in him when he decided to leave TNA after a dozen years. After two years in New Japan, the same A.J. Styles, having been given the chance to be a star with a competent promotion and put in the position to have some of the best main events in the world, was viewed by many as the best wrestlers in the industry, and today he’s WWE champion. The template for Samoa Joe was made in ROH, and in hindsight, it’s almost like his long TNA tenure was a career sabbatical because he picked right up from his ROH character as soon as he went to NXT.

A lot of people denied and lied about what happened on that day. Russo would e-mail notes to announcers Mike Tenay and Taz, on how to address different points on the show. Both announcers were in Nashville to do voiceovers for shows that had been taped in New York. Taz came into the studio with his notes from Russo. Tenay had no notes. Tenay thought that was weird that he wouldn’t get the e-mail, given he was the lead announcer. In looking at the e-mail sent to Taz, and whether his name was cc’d, he saw that the notes were sent to Taz and Mike Johnson, a reporter for Pro Wrestling Insider.

Taz and Tenay immediately contacted John Gaburick, who was in charge of that aspect of the company, who freaked out. Gaburick was aware, obviously, that Russo was involved and the reasons it had to be kept secret, and that Mike Johnson had evidence to where the company could no longer deny it. Gaburick’s next move was to call Russo. For whatever reason, Russo wasn’t there or at least wasn’t answering his phone. Gaburick didn’t, at least right away, call Johnson. I’ve always wondered that if Gaburick had instead called Johnson and explained the situation, the actual truth and severity of the situation, whether Johnson would have held off on what was a huge story. It’s a question only Johnson can answer, and I don’t even know if he even to this day fully realizes what was going on in the TNA offices at that moment. But it never happened.

Johnson quickly went with the story, as he should have. Russo, apparently still not having talked to Gaburick, quickly responded on Twitter saying, “Wow–just amazing to see that anybody will print anything as TRUTH without checking int it. Nice to see the SWERVE still works!!!” He followed by writing, “Since an unreliable website has brought me so much free promotion–feel free to check out my web site.” Then he wrote to Johnson, “Would you thank Dave (Scherer, who owns the site Johnson works for) for me for all the free promotion. If I knew it was going to be this easy, would have done (it a) long time ago.”

Several hours later, Gaburick finally got in touch with Russo, but by this time it was too late.

After that conversation, Russo apologized to Johnson and wrote, “Recently, I accidentally sent an e-mail to a third party that was not meant for their eyes. The e-mail concerned my current involvement in TNA Wrestling. TNA rendered my services as a consultant to work with their announcing team of Mike Tenay and Taz. The condition from their side was that I kept it confidential between the two parties. As their employee, it was up to me to honor their wishes, so that’s what I intended to do. My integrity means everything to me, so I just hope you can understand and forgive.”

In reality, Russo had been involved with creative long before he was working with the announcing team. Months earlier, their Japanese partners were upset with TNA when the hints of Russo’s involvement had been reported by us. They asked Gaburick at first, and he wouldn’t give them a straight answer. Gaburick did later admit to Keiji Muto of Wrestle-One that Russo was working for the company but assured him that Russo was working underneath him, had no final say, and he was the one who would be in full control of how Muto’s wrestlers (Seiya Sanada in particular) would be portrayed, and promised what happened in TNA with Tetsuya Naito, Yujiro Takahashi and Kazuchika Okada would not happen with Wrestle-1 Talent. TNA had also lied to talent when the stories originally came out but some of the talent knew because his fingerprints were there with certain storyline directions, certain types of matches and certain verbiage in interviews. The statement that he was only working as a consultant to the announcers was not coming clean, but he had to admit to that much, because that was the one thing Johnson had proof of.

On July 18, 2014, we got word that Spike was looking to cancel Impact, not that the decision had been made. Declining ratings were part of the reason. The Russo situation was the straw that broke the camel’s back, although both sides denied it. Dixie Carter got word a few days later, because in a private company meeting where she buried Spike for not promoting them hard enough, she let a few key people know that they were finishing on Spike at the end of the year. The story ended up breaking on July 27, 2014, and everyone in TNA was mum on if it was true. They had a meeting with wrestlers, or portrayed it as if negotiations were ongoing. There were reports for months that negotiations were ongoing, but they really weren’t. They were done prior to July 25, 2014. Spike privately admitted it was true but noted that publicly they wouldn’t say anything until the end of the year, so as to not make it lame duck programming.

TNA inked a deal with Destination America, but the money terms were considerably lower and the exposure difference was a killer. The difference in money left the company financially strapped and for the next nearly two years it was a shell game of not paying bills and coming up with excuses.

Destination America almost immediately got buyer’s remorse, as the idea of building around Impact with tons of replays and shoulder programming saw more and more shows get cut. Eventually a decision was made to cancel as soon as they could legally get out of the contract. When we reported that, it was met with denials, claims of lawsuits being threatened (for all the bluster in company releases and to the wrestlers, nobody was ever threatened with anything) and Billy Corgan even took the Vince Russo route of claiming they had worked me with a storyline.

Shortly before the decision was made to cancel the show, Carter sent an internal memo complaining about how a certain executive was a dummy and complained of them not releasing ratings that including +3 DVR numbers. Carter accidentally sent it also to Marc Graboff, the President of Global Business and Legal Affairs at Discovery Communications, the parent company of Destination America, as well as Destination America President Harvey Schlieff.

This year, the company went from Destination America to Pop TV, with no guaranteed money for television coming in, but an ad revenue sharing deal which resulted in the company making virtually no revenue off domestic television. They were already skipping out on bills with the Destination America deal that was worth millions more.

This past week, one story after another broke regarding TNA, including multiple lawsuits and a tax lien from the state of Tennessee based on non-payment of bills.

Corgan, who had just been named President, filed a lawsuit on 10/13 against Impact Ventures, TNA Entertainment, Dixie Carter Salinas (her married name) and TNA’s CFO Dean Broadhead. The contents were kept sealed pending a hearing on 10/26 where he hoped to get an injunction against TNA. The details of the lawsuit were thought to be devastating for the company.

Corgan had believed he was going to buy control of the company, and had financed the prior two sets of television tapings in exchange for points in the company. That fell through, leaving him furious. Much of what is in the suit is confidential, but sources have noted that while TNA said Corgan was in control of the last set of tapings, he actually was not, nor was he running the company as TNA said he was, and he wasn’t happy about that. Sources also say that Corgan was greatly misled about the company’s financial situation, and that creative decisions he made for the last set of tapings were not implemented.

Over the past week it has come out in stories by David Bixenspan on SE Scoops as well as our own work, that on 9/30, just before the most recent set of tapings, MCC Acquisitions Corporation lent TNA money. The address of the company is the same Toronto address of Anthem Sports and Entertainment, which TNA also owed money to, which is the parent company of The Fight Network. It also came out that the company owed $3.4 million to Anthem Entertainment and Aroluxe Media (we’re told the breakdown was $2.3 million to Aroluxe and $1.1 million to Fight Network).

It also came out that Anthem has the rights to at least a portion of the TNA video library.

There was no debt from either TNA Entertainment, or its new company, Impact Ventures, to Billy Corgan, but there is a secured debt to William Patrick Corgan from Dixie Carter Salinas.

The money, apparently from The Fight Network, was enough to pay for production and expenses of this set of tapings. Whether it was enough to continue running a company where virtually no money is coming in was a different question. The next question was the talent. Those who were under guaranteed contracts were due checks on 10/15 and 10/30. We don’t know if some people got paid on time, as TNA often picks and chooses based on need at the moment on where they spend whatever money they have, but we are aware of talent that didn’t get paid, and they were told that they would be paid at the beginning of next week. It’s sounds like the Fight Network funding will allow them to be paid.

Of course when it comes to money and the check is coming or in the mail is often TNA protocol of just stalling.

The state of Tennessee filed a lien against TNA Entertainment LLC on 9/8, for back taxes, although the amount is not known. The state now has the right to seize TNA property if the taxes aren’t paid. Even though TNA is no longer running using the name TNA Entertainment LLC, as they’ve switched to Impact Ventures LLC, the state tax law covers succeeding businesses.

On 9/27, Audience of One Productions, LLC filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond, VA, against Impact Ventures, LLC, TNA Entertainment LLC, Dean Broadhead of Sparta, TN, Ronald Harris (former wrestler Ron Harris) of Franklin, TN, and Aroluxe, LLC of Brentwood, TN.

In this case, Audience of One took over production of television and handled both the June and July sets of tapings in Orlando in 2015, as well as the October 4, 2015, Bound for Glory event in Concord, NC. According to the lawsuit, they were contacted by TNA and told that Ron & Don Harris, who had been handling the production, were not providing sufficiently high quality production work and Broadhead told them they were looking to them for a long-term relationship because of dissatisfaction with the work done by the Harris Brothers.

According to the suit, on October 23, 2015, Audience of One sent TNA an invoice for $288,930.04 for the production work done up to that point in time. On November 9, 2015, Broadhead e-mailed Audience of One to tell them that TNA was working furiously on closing a new TV deal that would put the company in more than 80 million homes. He asked them to hang in there with us and they would come out of this in a much better position. Audience f One sent them a bill again on November 17, 2015, this time for $293,263.99, including 1.5 percent late payment interest.

Both Ron Harris and Broadhead represented to Audience of One, according to the suit, that they should hold off collecting because TNA was getting its business affairs in order and that would allow the two sides to work together for many more events going forward. On December 11, 2015, Ron Harris contacted Audience of One and asked for an itemized invoice because they needed everything itemized before TNA could pay them. Audience of One claimed that TNA was already in negotiations with others about doing production for upcoming tapings but represented to them that TNA would be still working with them in the future so as not to be pressured about coming up with the money.

On January 29, 2016, after some production people refused to work a taping unless they were paid, TNA paid the production people individually $29,001.57 for prior work done at 2015 tapings. The people paid were independent contractors who were part of the crew Audience of One used, so Audience of One deducted that amount from the money owed.

Broadhead told Jeff Wade, the owner and CEO of Audience of One that he was working on a repayment plan, and after being prompted, on February 12, 2016, Broadhead came up with a payment plan. The sides came to an agreement on February 19, 2016 where TNA would start on March 18 with monthly payments of $35,875 from March through June and $57,249.22 in July and August, which would cover the existing debt. TNA promised an additional $150 for every ten days they were late on a payment.

On March 14, 2016, the belief is that Aroluxe started lending TNA money to allow them to continue the company, which included a lien on almost all of TNA’s assets, both money due as well as inventory and equipment.

Audience of One did receive their first payment on March 23, or five days late. They claim they have not been paid any of the monthly payments since. In the lawsuit, they are asking for $222,123.43 in money owed along with at least $900 in late fees, plus 14.99 percent annual interest on that money owed as well as their attorney’s fees.

On 7/20, American Express Travel Related Services, Inc. filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of New York against TNA Entertainment claiming they owed $269,049.50 on their credit card bill. It had been known in recent months that TNA was no longer able to use their corporate credit card to book travel. Since that time travel had been paid for in other ways, believed to be a personal credit card from one of the employees.

Another part of this story is that when the company was evicted for nonpayment of rent for its offices in Cummins Station and had to move earlier this year, it never filled out a forwarding address form to the post office. It appears that was so any bills and mail would be returned as undeliverable.

The Impact show on 10/13 on Pop TV was in jeopardy of not airing for a short period of time that afternoon on a musical rights issue. Dale Oliver, who worked with Serg Salinas (Dixie’s husband) in writing most of the company music for years, evidently had a financial falling out and had never signed release forms for the music of Mike Bennett and DJZ. TNA was able to edit the music out at the last minute and the shows aired. However, Oliver’s music did air on previously sent tapes in both Canada and the U.K.

What appears to be the next steps would be for TNA to declare bankruptcy in an attempt to get out of the size of the debt. The problem with a sale right now is that whoever buys it would be on the hook for the debt, which is several million dollars, much of which hasn’t been discovered because no legal actions have been filed or yet discovered. Those close to the situation say that Carter at this point is looking at trying to publicly save face, although it’s way too late for that. Her attempts to publicly save face and put a positive spin on things have just deepened the problems, and increased the debt and legal problems for any prospective new owners.

The only value the company really has right now is the TV contracts and wrestlers contracts. As Jeff Jarrett, Bruce Tharpe and others have shown in recent years, getting a television deal for a wrestling product that is worth anything is virtually impossible in the current climate. Really, the Pop TV deal isn’t worth much, but it is still exposure in 76 million homes. It’s at least a starting point.

The company also has no significant source of income other than TV deals with Challenge in the U.K. and Sony Six in India. The India deal has its own issues because TNA is required to tour India once per year on the current deal, and have not done so, so Sony Six could now legally cancel its contract, which is the bulk of company revenue. Some in the company have claimed the issue is TNA having signed a terrible U.S. deal with Pop TV, which is why they have so little coming in, but there may have been no other option. And while Pop is publicly backing TNA, they were also talking about doing 1.3 million viewers per week given their national clearance when the deal was inked at the end of 2015, and the numbers have hovered of late between 284,000 to just over 400,000, and usually somewhere between 300,000 and 380,000.

With Anthem as the creditors, if there is a bankruptcy, they or Aroluxe would likely have the best shot at getting the tape library, the company’s key asset.

The company has booked another round of tapings for 1/4 to 1/10 at Universal in Orlando. The last set of tapings was for television through 12/8, and there are shows scheduled to be taped in Cameron, NC, for the 12/15 show, and possibly a two-hour Hardy Family Christmas special for 12/22. That would leave a year-in-review type show for 12/29 and the first show of the New Year would have an air date of 1/5

 

[NikoBaltimore]

Seeing all the developments in one article, holy crap Dixie is a real piece of work.  I hope Billy stays the courts and goes through with the suit.  I think the other suits would do them in anyway, but I'd love to see just how embarrassing his is.

[Raziel]

What's sadder is that there's a real possibility that TNA yet again survives.

 

I imagine that since we haven't heard about half the rosters becoming Free Agents that Fight Network paid the contracts this round too.

[Reed]

I can't stop thinking about Billy Corgan in this TNA story without thinking about that '90s feud he had with Kurt Cobain.

Granted, Kurt was a crazy, drug-addled, suicidal fool who fucked up every step of the way.

But it's, like, you know even Kurt wouldn't have been stupid enough to fall for Dixie Carter's shit. He'd had seen through her. In seconds. 

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself betrayed by the world's worst wrestling company. 

[RIPPA]

That is buried in the update in that apparently the checks did go out late but Fight Network paid enough to cover the checks

Quote

The money, apparently from The Fight Network, was enough to pay for production and expenses of this set of tapings. Whether it was enough to continue running a company where virtually no money is coming in was a different question. The next question was the talent. Those who were under guaranteed contracts were due checks on 10/15 and 10/30. We don’t know if some people got paid on time, as TNA often picks and chooses based on need at the moment on where they spend whatever money they have, but we are aware of talent that didn’t get paid, and they were told that they would be paid at the beginning of next week. It’s sounds like the Fight Network funding will allow them to be paid.

Again - current guys are boned until their deals come up. Anyone who signs with TNA now, though, deserves their fate

[JohnnyJ]

I just don't understand how they are running a company without a major source of revenue. It's not like they are a startup that is taking on losses early on but has a solid business model that will eventually come to fruition. There is no business model. TNA just exists as this zombie company that will not die. 

[nofuture]

Aren't the UK and India tv contracts their main source of revenue?  That's what keeping them afloat.

[JohnnyJ]

35 minutes ago, nofuture said:

Aren't the UK and India tv contracts their main source of revenue?  That's what keeping them afloat.

Right, but even with those tv contracts they are operating in the red with debts they cant pay and no reason to think their financial situation is going to improve. 

[Michael Sweetser]

Plus the India one is fucked if they don't tour there before the year's up.

[RIPPA]

AND the UK ratings went in the tank so they aren't getting nearly the money they used to get from it

[Nice Guy Eddie]

1 hour ago, Reed said:

I can't stop thinking about Billy Corgan in this TNA story without thinking about that '90s feud he had with Kurt Cobain.

Granted, Kurt was a crazy, drug-addled, suicidal fool who fucked up every step of the way.

But it's, like, you know even Kurt wouldn't have been stupid enough to fall for Dixie Carter's shit. He'd had seen through her. In seconds. 

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself betrayed by the world's worst wrestling company. 

I'm not so sure how fast Kurt would have seen through Dixie. I guess one would have a shorter leash with someone in a strictly business relationship. I think Kurt saw through Courtney's shit, but it was too late. I'm a firm believer in the theory that Kurt was going to divorce her and quit Nirvana, so she had him murdered.

[Wyld Samurai]

The funny thing is when I tried to access The Fight Network app on my roku this morning it popped up with a message it was no longer available

[Michael Sweetser]

Vanguard I just followed me on Twitter.  This isn't really relevant to anything, but I got a kick out of it.

[caley]

BTW, can anyone/has anyone explained the Team X Gold concept going on right now?  Are they just a series of 6-man X-Division matches? Is this leading to a title or something?  Matthews said before the commercial break on the first episode to feature it that they would have more on it later, but actually had less on it later unless I fastforwarded something?  Anyone?

[Michael Sweetser]

2 minutes ago, caley said:

BTW, can anyone/has anyone explained the Team X Gold concept going on right now?  Are they just a series of 6-man X-Division matches? Is this leading to a title or something?  Matthews said before the commercial break on the first episode to feature it that they would have more on it later, but actually had less on it later unless I fastforwarded something?  Anyone?

I assume a turkey is involved somehow.