2016 TNA General Thread

[Overly Critical Man]

30 minutes ago, BEN! said:

Billy Corgan's lawyer is super casual in the court documents.  Everybody addressed by first name only.

Corgan's goal is getting TNA for what he's already paid without having to inherit any of the debt.  He knew what kind of financial situation the company was in.  Anybody with any knowledge of TNA knows that their cash flow has basically been around $0 for the past 3-4 years.  Also, acting like being TNA President meant he could do actual business stuff is like if Jack Tunney marched into Titan Tower and started firing people.  I have no idea why he wants a jury trial.  He should really just take Anthem's payoff and maybe the Grand Championship belt and go hit the podcast circuit.

It's hilarious how some people act like Dixie Carter's some evil mastermind.  She's way less hands on than people think.  She just sticks her fingers in her ears when she gets bad news and tells her incompetent executives to handle it.  That's how you get a CFO juggling debts and playing shell games and bikers strong-arming production workers.

I want to say the period when TNA was overpaying Bruce Prichard was when Panda management was in the process of transitioning from Dixie's father to Dixie's brother and any TNA business Panda was handling including payroll was being transitioned over to TNA to handle in-house.  So at that time, the payroll issues were Panda's fault.  After that though, it's all TNA.

Russo didn't have anything to do with Spike dropping Impact.  Dixie Carter gave him a consulting job because he cried poverty and she took pity on him but Spike wouldn't have given two shits if he was back with TNA or not.  Hogan/Bischoff raising production costs through the roof while dropping ratings through the floor already had Impact as good as done when their deal came up.  I think what really sealed their fate was Scott Coker coming into the picture with Bellator.  After Spike cancelled Impact, Bellator got Impact's old production equipment.

All this said though, I thought TNA was like $20 million in the hole so they're doing way better than I ever would've thought.  Morale up, everybody!

All this post from Ben does is make me wonder if Col. Robert Parker could turn the ship around.

[ka-to]

20 hours ago, mattdangerously said:

This is how I hope I die.  You have to admit, it sounds like he was probably happy as fuck when he kicked it.

His death made the NY Daily News with the headline of Wrestling Big Dies in Nude Spree. I told my wife to use that for me if at all possible.

 

[Spritenaut 32]

4 hours ago, Raziel403 said:

So TNA's Defense is "Corgan can't take over the company, because we defrauded him on the deal"?

AKA the "we're so stupid we're brilliant" defense.

I'm of two minds about this.  One the one hand, I don't think TNA should prevail here.  At the heart of the matter, illegal contracts are unenforceable in order to prevent one party from taking advantage of the other.  Yet, that's exactly what seems to have happened here.  It certainly looks like Corgan was making a good faith effort to buy the company, and TNA was stringing him along to keep cash coming in, while stalling the sale (which was the reason Corgan was willing to make loans to the company).   That's not to say that's definitely what the situation was, but it certainly looks that way.

On the other hand, courts are often willing to look the other way while you are conned if you actively contribute to your conning.  Corgan seems to have done very little due diligence here.  As pointed out, the Aroluxe issue should be a matter of public record.  And if he ran this contract by an attorney and the attorney didn't suggest bringing in a forensic accountant to verify the financials..... I dunno know what to say to that.  Corgan's side of things gives the impression that he took TNA at their word without trying to independently confirm the financials. 

 

[Brian Fowler]

I knew I should've gone to law school.

[BEN!]

1 hour ago, Overly Critical Man said:

All this post from Ben does is make me wonder if Col. Robert Parker could turn the ship around.

Ron Fuller would've sold this company to Billy Corgan twice and turned a profit each time.

[JonnyLaw]

46 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

I knew I should've gone to law school.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

Billy Madison is Adam Sandler's finest work.

[mattdangerously]

4 hours ago, BEN! said:

Russo didn't have anything to do with Spike dropping Impact.  Dixie Carter gave him a consulting job because he cried poverty and she took pity on him but Spike wouldn't have given two shits if he was back with TNA or not.  Hogan/Bischoff raising production costs through the roof while dropping ratings through the floor already had Impact as good as done when their deal came up.  

That's an awful lot of unsubstantiated speculation.  Out of curiosity, how did you come to that conclusion?  The general consensus seems to be that Russo was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  

[John from Cincinnati]

4 hours ago, BEN! said:

I have no idea why he wants a jury trial.

Probably wants to put an exclamation mark on this whole sordid business with a Mitch Grinder jury-box hop.

[DTTW]

31 minutes ago, mattdangerously said:

That's an awful lot of unsubstantiated speculation.  Out of curiosity, how did you come to that conclusion?  The general consensus seems to be that Russo was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  

Just looked into this the other day and I believe a Spike guy said, Russo played no part....of course I don't believe anyone, tv executive or otherwise, wants to admit they got outsmarted and conned.

[Subculture]

Have TNA employed Jack Kelly as their lawyer? They're going to win this when they defer to Charlie's knowledge of bird law.

[RIPPA]

Hey! Two straight weeks of TNA being the lead WON story

Spoiler

The battle for power, and to survive, by TNA, continued this past week after Anthem Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the Toronto-based Fight Network, agreed to fund the promotion.

The questions regarding the funding and why Anthem was loaning TNA money instead of buying into the company, as they did with earlier funding, was because another partial owner, Billy Corgan, had gotten a temporary restraining order, which banned TNA from selling any stock in the company or selling any company assets, the key being both company stock and the tape library.

The key in documentation is that the loan from Anthem was slated to be turned into a controlling investment in the company, which is why Corgan filed for his restraining order and attempt at an injunction.

A hearing was held on 10/26 at Nashville Chancery Court under Judge Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle. After both sides pleaded their case, Hobbs Lyle said she would make a ruling on 10/31.

Corgan’s legal team stated that the agreement in the latest “loan” from Anthem, believed to be for $1.8 million, is that Anthem would end up with 85 percent of the company, Aroluxe would become 10 percent owners, and that Jason Brown of Aroluxe would take over as CEO and run the day-to-day operations and receive a three-year contract. It was not clear who would own the other five percent of the company, but Carter would make the most sense, and that they entered into an agreement without his knowledge even though his loan allowed him to get a 38 percent ownership in the company should he request it.

In documentation, it has become clear that even though TNA outright told Corgan they were not selling to WWE, and Carter told the wrestlers that they were not selling either the company or tape library to WWE, that they were in the middle of negotiations to sell the company to WWE at the time.

Corgan said that nobody in Impact Venture informed him with any information regarding the talks with WWE, or any information regarding the deals with Anthem until after the Anthem deal was closed.

He also claimed that on 9/26, he was told that the reports that TNA was in talks with WWE were “absolutely not true,” but since found out that on 9/25, the day before, that Broadhead had sent a WWE representative certain due diligence material that the company had requested.

Material also showed that WWE questioned Carter about Corgan’s loan to the company. Carter responded in writing to them, saying that , “I intend to pay the loan back in full, plus interest, prior to selling the company.”

Another key is that to get the temporary restraining order, which he was attempting to turn into an injunction, Hobbs Lyle had to believe and rule that there was a strong likelihood that Corgan would eventually prevail in his lawsuit against TNA. While the suit can be long and expensive, one judge’s opinion already is that most likely Corgan would win in the end.

Anthem was not only willing to fund the company for now, in the context of a loan as opposed to a buy in, but was also willing, according to their press release, to front the money that would repay Corgan for all the money he spent funding the company for two sets of tapings this year. Clearly, Dixie Carter wanted the lawsuit by Corgan to go away, since the judge already indicated there’s a strong likelihood of her losing, plus wanted to keep the content of the suit quiet.

In recent weeks, all of the various people, Carter, Corgan, Aroluxe and Anthem have been in talks and negotiations in attempts to take over the company or retain power. Corgan claimed Carter at one point asked him to completely buy her out. Carter also sent an e-mail to WWE saying that she won’t (or perhaps can’t) sell until Corgan is out.

Impact Ventures response to the Corgan lawsuit was sealed, but based on Corgan’s side response, which wasn’t sealed, that Impact and Carter claimed Corgan’s attempt to get an injunction was “nothing more than a back-handed grab for power.”

The Impact Ventures response also categorized Corgan as a “predatory lender” with “strong-arm loans.”

They also stated that their agreement with Corgan was that they would repay the loans to him by 11/1, and thus, since that date hadn’t come, he shouldn’t be able to use the fact they haven’t paid him as anything legally in regard to the case. They claimed the lawsuit was filed was because Corgan only had 20 days left before being paid back, and at that point the company would move on without him with Anthem Sports and Entertainment as the majority owner and Jason Brown of Aroluxe in charge.

It should be noted that Corgan never claimed he had to be repaid, just that he was misled when investing and that in exchange for investing later, was given the title of President and told he was in charge, while the company very clearly wasn’t allowing him to be in charge.

They claimed he’s trying to use this injunction as a way to force Carter to sell the company to him, because if he gets the injunction, she couldn’t sell to anyone else. They said Corgan hasn’t been harmed, he just lent money and they are about to pay him back.

They claimed that Corgan was given the Chief Creative Officer title because he insisted on it when he put money in the first time. Later, when he put money in again, he insisted on being President of the company.

Corgan’s claim was that he had great passion for TNA wrestling and its fans and filing suit was the last thing he wanted to do, but he exhausted every channel to avoid litigation and was forced to sue because of the defendants “repeated willful disregard of their contractual obligations to him.”

Carter’s side claimed that Corgan represented to her that he’d take care of the financing for Bound for Glory and the October tapings, that he claimed Aroluxe and he would strike a deal. She said that he didn’t get any financing. At this point another company (this was WWE) and Carter began talk of a sale. Carter went to Aroluxe and Corgan to see if they would loan TNA the money to do the October tapings, but she couldn’t come to terms with either one. But at the last minute, she did come to terms with Anthem Sports. The claim is that on 9/27, the other company (WWE) offered a purchase price similar to the price Corgan had valued the company a being worth. She said Corgan and Aroluxe never reached a deal and on 9/27, Corgan said he wasn’t going to fund the next set of tapings. They claim that even though Corgan was president, his pulling out left the company in jeopardy because they could lose their TV deals if they didn’t film new shows, and that he made no effort to arrange alternate sources of funding. They claimed at “at near midnight on the eve of the deadline to keep production on schedule,” Carter was able to make the deal with Anthem Sports to save the tapings.

They claim that Corgan realized that his plan to take control of the company was going to file by late September, and that Impact now had other options and suitors, so he started with legal letters saying Carter was in default, with the idea of stopping any sales and by doing so, keeping the company from getting money so they’d be forced to give it to him. On 10/12, Corgan’s lawyer sent a letter saying he was going to exercise his rights to take over Carter’s voting shares and to remove all the managers of the company and put himself solely in charge. The next day he filed his lawsuit and got his temporary restraining order. They also claimed that during the period he was acting as President, he only twice came to Nashville (8/29 and 8/30, and again on 9/26 and 9/27), and on those visits spent most of his time with the creative team at the production studios and only briefly once came to the business office, an did so when nobody in TNA management knew he was coming. TNA claims he made no attempt to meet with the board to discuss business strategy and that he declined to attend the meeting with talent that Carter had on 10/3 before the second night of tapings.

Carter claimed she asked Corgan why he wasn’t involving anyone else in his meetings and he said, “You are damaged goods. I don’t intend to involve you.”

They also said that Corgan’s attempts to block himself being paid back shows his only motive is to get control of the company.

TNA said Carter e-mailed Corgan on 10/17 asking him to consent to Anthem paying him back and that Corgan’s lawyers were in talks about making that deal, but three days late, Corgan asked for more money. They claimed Corgan’s game would be to constantly ask for a higher number to keep from an agreement taking place, and in doing so, with Carter being unable to sell, the company wouldn’t be able to pay bills and continue. They claim that Corgan not agreeing to settle, a provision of the Anthem loan, has strangled business.

It should be noted that Anthem Sports is not a large company. Its gross revenues of $4,550,000 Canadian in 2015 are significantly less than TNA’s television contracts in India and the U.K. alone are worth. However, Leonard Asper, who runs Anthem, is a member of the Asper family of Winnipeg, who are extremely wealthy. At the peak of the family’s wealth, they were roughly twice as rich as the McMahon family is today, although that may not be the case for the Asper family today.

As part of the agreement for the latest Anthem loan, since they were banned from investing money in exchange for stock, the deal was for them to repay Corgan his money and that Aroluxe would produce Bound for Glory, the October tapings and the January tapings at a reduced price.

Hell hath no fury like a rock star scorned.

Impact Ventures also argued against the injunction by saying they have the financing to pay Corgan back the full amount of which he is entitled.

Corgan responded by saying that the defendants have merely obtained a proposal for financing a portion of the amount Corgan is due, and the financing is based upon conditions that can’t be fulfilled, including obtaining a release from Corgan. The specificity of the release he didn’t state, but it is believed that for Corgan to get his money he’d have to sign a release that he’d take no further legal action against either the company or Carter personally.

Corgan obviously did not accept the offer to be bought off, and filed a new and slightly amended lawsuit on 10/25. He is looking for control of the company based on his agreement with Carter where he was to get the company if it was financially insolvent. He claims it is. Carter claims it isn’t, although TNA has cut back on spending to almost an embarrassing degree if you know the details of it. TNA is also the subject of multiple lawsuits based on defaulting on payments to various creditors.

“I will not agree to provide Impact Ventures with a full release as a condition to the repayment of my loan proceeds,” Corgan wrote to the court in seeking a full injunction that would continue to not allow TNA to make any business moves or sell any assets or stake in the company. “”I am not required under any of the loan documents to provide such a release in return for full payment. I also believe that have claims against Impact Ventures and the other defendants that are separate and apart from the claims that I have currently asserted herein, and I am not willing to waive or release those claims.”

Debt that we are aware of would be in excess of $4.7 million, which would be debt to Aroluxe, Anthem, and the three entities that have recently filed lawsuits against the company for failing to pay them as agreed to, BankDirect Capital Finance LLC, American Express and Audience of One Productions, LLC.

That number doesn’t include Corgan and there are likely other debtors who have not filed suit, one of which ended up being named in court papers, so the actual number is significantly higher.

While the debt isn’t known, Scott Smith, Corgan’s attorney, said that TNA’s financial liabilities have increased 52 percent since June and the debt is even more than that.

At the 10/26 hearing regarding the injunction, Smith said that TNA hasn’t been paying its talent, and while it claims it is due to Corgan’s lawsuit, it’s really because of cash flow problems. He said TNA’s projections show one year of more cash flow problems, and that TNA was in ICU five times this year before people each time bailed them out.

He also said that the figure WWE offered to buy the company was less than its current liabilities, which would seem to indicate the WWE offer being $6 million or less.

At one point during the hearing, Sims mentioned that one of the notes owed to Corgan was for $1.8 million.

Corgan is suing Impact Ventures LLC as the new company that used to be TNA Entertainment LLC, along with majority owner Dixie Carter Salinas, her husband Serg Salinas, and Chief Financial Officer Dean Broadhead.

A few interesting notes regarding the suit. The first is that when Corgan put money into the company, it was actually a loan to Carter herself personally and not to the company. While TNA itself pushed the story that Corgan had bought into the company, the lawsuit stated that the company was owned 92.5 percent by Carter, five percent by Aroluxe, which was based on money they had put in, and 2.5 percent by MCC Acquisitions, a company set up by Anthem Sports & Entertainment, for the purposes of The Fight Network owning points.

Corgan stated in the lawsuit that starting in June, when the company was in “significant financial distress,” that he invested into the company. He categorized this investment as putting in money that the company needed to continue operations as well as avoid what would have been an immediate foreclosure by Aroluxe, which would have gotten controlling interest based on terms of their earlier loans which had been defaulted on multiple times, and was also going to refuse to do production if they weren’t paid past due money.

Corgan also funded the July tapings, putting in money that allowed the company to continue taping on 7/18, once again to keep TNA once again from being foreclosed on by Aroluxe.

On 8/11, once again TNA owed money to Aroluxe and was in danger of being foreclosed on. At that point Corgan invested more money into the company and gave him a promissory note. All actual money figures that Corgan put in were redacted from public view in the lawsuit release.

As part of his agreement to put more money in, Corgan demanded that he replace Carter as the President of the company, and that he would be in charge of day-to-day operations. The other agreement was that if Carter defaulted on paying back Corgan, that he would get all of her interest in the company and the voting power that goes with it as collateral, meaning he would both own the company and have the power to run it. She agreed to those terms.

Corgan claimed the money owed by TNA exceeded the value of the company assets, meaning it was insolvent. Also redacted from public view is how much of a cash flow deficit there would be from September through June of 2017 and said the company balance sheets on 6/30 showed liabilities greater than assets, but the figures were not listed and said the company’s financial situation has worsened since the end of June.

The company’s argument for solvency seems to hinge on an asset purchase proposal, either coming from Corgan or WWE, and he noted that neither were firm offers.

It also showed that talks with WWE started likely before June, since there was a 6/4 letter from WWE stating a proposal made by them to TNA to be a “non-binding indication of interest for discussion purposes.”

While all numbers have been redacted from the documentation, it was noted in filings that the WWE reduced numbers of what they were willing to pay in later offers.

Corgan also questioned whether WWE was aware of all the outstanding debts, stating, “If defendants falsely represented to WWE that the company’s liabilities were only (number deleted) as stated in the June 30, 2016 balance sheet, the evidentiary value of any offer WWE may have made would be even more dubious.”

Corgan claimed that both Carter and Broadhead denied to him any discussions were taking place with WWE regarding sale of some assets (the tape library in this situation) but Corgan claimed those discussions had taken place, are continuing to take place, and that Carter admitted it to the wrestlers in a meeting on 10/2.

Corgan said that in his role of President, based on the agreement Carter signed, that he would have full access to all company records and could investigate all the records, the assets and the liabilities and the right to review the business plan with the top officers of the company.

“This recent conduct is consistent with the way that Mrs. Salinas and the other managers have dealt with plaintiff (Corgan) since the inception of his involvement with Impact Ventures. They have failed to keep plaintiff apprised of matters of great significance to the company; they have routinely misled plaintiff as to the company’s finances, operations and future prospects; they have failed to provide plaintiff with information necessary to discharge his duties as President to manage the day-to-day operations of the business; and they have regularly interfered with, subverted or ignored plaintiff’s authority to manage the affairs of the company.”

This coincides with what we had learned since the last television tapings, that while publicly, it was said that Corgan was the President and in control of both creative and day-to-day operations, that his decisions were not adhered to, creative ideas were changed, and he was not given access to the books nor allowed to make the changes that he believed he was given the power to do.

He confirmed in writing that he had not been provided with access to the information he would need to make an informed decision about converting his loan into stock in the company.

He also stated that had he not been appointed President, he would not have agreed to make the last loan because he believed Carter and the others in charge had “driven the company into the ground.”

Corgan’s side also discovered an e-mail from Carter to Anthem which showed that they never had any intention of giving him the power promised, and may be a smoking gun it the case, with the line written, “Mr. Corgan may have an agreement providing him with a title, but in the absence of a document delegating authority to him, it is a vacuous appointment.”

In fact, Corgan noted, he never even received a draft of an employment agreement for his new position of President.

It was also confirmed that Corgan had the right to convert the money he lent to TNA into 36 percent ownership of the company. So while it was portrayed that he had invested in and become a stakeholder, which wasn’t true, it wasn’t completely untrue either.

Corgan also claimed that when the decision was made to cut back on tapings in early October, that they were going to return to Orlando from 11/1 to 11/3 to tape the remainder of 2016, instead of doing what is essentially filler programming with the two Hardy shows and a year-in-review show on 12/15, 12/22 and 12/29. He said TNA made the decision on 10/25 not to tape of those days due to lack of funds.

However, TNA had already announced last week that the next set of tapings would be 1/4 to 1/10 in Orlando, so that doesn’t add up.

Corgan’s suit claimed that Jason Brown, the CEO of Aroluxe LLC, is now managing the day-to-day activities of Impact Venturers and that Corgan has been excluded from that process even though he is listed as the company President and has an agreement stating as such, and claimed that Brown has been both planning events for 2017 and also negotiating contracts with talent.

He claimed that was another breach of their agreement.

On 10/12, Corgan told Carter and the other defendants that as the holder of Carter’s voting rights, he was going to remove all the managers of Impact wrestling and hire new ones. Carter refused to acknowledge that Corgan had the right to do that even though the company operating agreement was that employees could be removed at any time by the person holding the controlling voting interest.

He claimed the company was on the brink of financial collapse under the leadership of Carter and that either Anthem or Aroluxe could foreclose on their loans and take control of company assets at any time.

He was able to produce a document from Broadhead which stated, “Without the Corgan funding, all would have been lost.”

Had TNA missed a television taping, and several were on the brink of being missed until last minute funding, they would breach all of their television contracts.

Travis Parham, the attorney representing Impact Ventures in opposing the injunction being issued, said the lawsuit was nothing but a scheme by Corgan to take over the company and force Carter out. He blamed the lawsuit for creating a creditor crisis and hurting TNA’s financial standing, however the creditor crisis and lawsuits filed predated Corgan’s lawsuit threat and filing.

He called TNA a valuable international brand and categorized Corgan as almost like a loan shark, saying his terms would make a loan shark blush. He said that the July loan allowed Corgan to own 12.5 percent of the company. He said after the August loan, Corgan asked that his total loans could be converted into 22.5 percent of the company, and later asked for terms of his later loan being all money loaned be returned, plus six percent annual interest, and in exchange he would get 50 percent of the company, and that now Corgan is resisting TNA’s attempts to pay back his loan. He claimed that Corgan had offered to buy 52 percent of the company the company the day his loan agreement ended last month and pay off Aroluxe. He said when Carter didn’t agree to sell, then he started litigation, and how Corgan, as company President, did nothing to help set up financing for the most recent set of tapings, saying he was forcing TNA to default on its loan to him. He also denied strongly that TNA had hidden any financial information from him.

Parham also argued that the transferring of control that Corgan was arguing for if the company was insolvent was illegal under Tennessee law even if Carter agreed to it.

He claimed that cash flow doesn’t prove TNA is insolvent because people are willing to pay money to buy the company. He also called the tax lien an accounting error and a non-issue.

Still, just the fact all of this has gotten out regarding how the company has operated and how close they’ve come to breaching, has to sour every television station doing business with them. It may not be as bad overseas, but for Pop TV, this is a story that has been covered by the New York media.

Corgan filed more papers on 10/26 and claimed that the balance sheets of Impact Ventures “shows the company’s debts are close to ten times the company’s assets.” The legal definition of insolvency in Tennessee is that debts are greater than assets, or at least that the company has an inability to pay debts as they come due because they don’t have the money. TNA claimed to the court that they were not insolvent and thus Corgan didn’t have the right to Carter’s voting shares and to take over.

Corgan’s lawyers argued that the company is insolvent “under any of the applicable tests.”

Corgan claimed when he first put money in, on 6/10, he was given a senior secured promissory note. He was not aware when he did so that Carter had already given both Aroluxe and Anthem similar promissory notes regarding the debt they were owed. Corgan believed when he put money in that he would be first in line to collect when revenue was received, but found out he was third in line.

He also claimed that the amount Carter and Broadhead told him the company was in debt when he put money in was significantly lower than what the actual number was. He also claimed he wasn’t told that information before his second round of financing and never learned what the real debt was until September, when Broadhead sent him the company’s balance sheets as of 6/30.

Corgan claimed in the suit that, “I never would have agreed to invest additional capital (so this would appear to be his claim regarding the second tapings he finances in July) in Impact Ventures had I known the company’s debts were that high.”

He said his third and final loan to the company for the August tapings was because he was misled by Carter that acquisition negotiations were underway with a third party (which wasn’t listed) was imminent as was more investment money coming from Aroluxe.

He also said he didn’t know that the company had a tax lien against it until he read about it in a recent article in the Tennessean, the local Nashville newspaper.

Another lawsuit against the company surfaced this past week as Bankdirect Capital Finance LLC filed suit against TNA Entertainment LLC on 9/29 in Circuit Court of Cook Country IL.

The lawsuit was asking for $207,612.29 owed, along with late charges, interest, attorney’s fees and other costs of the plaintiffs in filing.

BankDirect provides financing for companies to secure loans to pay insurance premiums.

Their lawsuit claims that on November 30, 2015, they reached an agreement to lend TNA Entertainment $400,146 to pay its insurance premiums. TNA promised to make ten monthly payments of $41,032.45, with the first payment coming on November 13, 2015. They claim the loan agreement spelled out late charges of five percent if the payment isn’t received within ten days of its due date. TNA did pay back $192,533.71 as of 9/26.

In addition, Bruce Prichard, who was the company’s Vice President of Talent Relations from 2010 to 2013, claimed that while working there, TNA took withholding from his check that was supposed to go to the government but then claimed TNA never paid the government the withholding and the IRS came after him for about $10,000 owed, which he was able to prove he had taken out and he said the government was satisfied.

The office staff and talent, who didn’t get their paychecks on 10/15 and were told they would get them on 10/24, seems a mixed bag. The office staff, which is small, did get paid. As far as the talent, all we know is that as of 10/25, some if not all had not been paid. A lot of people under contract are openly either looking at what happens if TNA doesn’t run again, or worried because they don’t seem to have other options.

Corgan’s papers filed this week indicated that talent had not been paid for the October tapings.

“Impact Ventures also continues to not pay its talent, except now defendants are blaming me and the temporary restraining order in this case for lack of payment,” Corgan wrote.

He also claimed that management was unable to be paid as of 8/31, noting even Carter herself and Serg Salinas are now owed back pay.

There was also a document on 9/1, written by Broadhead which noted that checks to talent bounced and, “We owe talent money. We owe employees money, we (owe) many vendors money.” Documentation showed that they were unable to pay taxes on 9/8, which led to the current tax lien.

On 10/3, the company was threatened with legal action by another vendor, Seismic Sound, which they owed money to. There was also documentation of the company owing money to SRX Consultancy.

The company claimed it was not insolvent due to the money provided by MCC Acquisitions (Anthem) but that money wasn’t enough to avoid all the collection lawsuits and other people coming after them, nor pay the tax lien. He argued that simply getting more people to lend them money does not make them solvent

“Simply put, it defies logic to assert that Impact Venturers can somehow make itself solvent by becoming more and more insolvent.”

The Twitter account of Nate Rau of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper was used for notes on the 10/26 hearing.

 

[Michael Sweetser]

I'd put the Colbert popcorn GIF right about here, but we are so utterly beyond that at this point.  We're basically the mob of cityfolk watching a public execution.

When this actually goes to trial, I hope Corgan's legal team just submits the LOLTNA History in its entirety as its primary exhibit, just to see everyone's heads asplode.

[RIPPA]

As basically Dave explained it on the radio show

IF Billy gets the injunction - TNA either dies or they have to let Billy take over

IF Billy doesn't get the injunction - Fight Network will own and Billy will have to be bought out

[hammerva]

18 hours ago, Raziel403 said:

That's OK, a week ago Bob Ryder was only addressing them as "Rumors".

 

And now we found that that Ryder used his own credit cards to help pay for stuff in TNA.  And never got paid back.   So you have to be a huge fucking mark to spend thousands of dollars on your own credit card for a company, not get paid, and still be a huge shill for the company

Unless he considers having TNA wrestlers jerk off in from him (ALLEGEDLY)  worth all the debt in the world 

[Michael Sweetser]

Considering the verbal (and perhaps more than verbal) fellatio he engaged in on a weekly basis back in the WCW Live days, I think Ryder made his sticky bed a long time ago.

[BEN!]

Corgan should've asked for a mediation.  To a jury he really is going to come off like a predatory lender cause he's been offered to be repaid but he wants the company that he's arguing is essentially worthless.

19 hours ago, mattdangerously said:

That's an awful lot of unsubstantiated speculation.  Out of curiosity, how did you come to that conclusion?  The general consensus seems to be that Russo was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  

Spike just cared about the numbers.  TNA wasn't delivering the consistent 1.0 rating anymore.  The news of Spike not renewing Impact and Russo stupidly exposing himself came out around the same time so people drew their own correlation between the two.  I don't understand why anyone thinks Spike would care that Russo was back.  He was part of TNA for most of the Spike run when the ratings were good and he left on his own volition because his ego couldn't handle working under Bischoff/Hogan.  Really the only unsubstantiated speculation is me thinking Coker played a role in shutting the door on the Spike/TNA relationship.

I don't remember the exact timeline but I think it went like:

Late 2013: Bischoff sent home to sit out his contract, Jeff Jarrett leaves, Russo starts begging Dixie for a job

Early 2014: Gaburick somehow becomes TNA's head of creative, even Dixie realizes he doesn't know what the hell he's doing and gives Russo a consulting job providing notes to Gaburick as well as the announcers, asks all involved to keep it under wraps for reasons unknown but probably just cause Russo's such an anathema to everybody from the wrestlers to the fans, the boys start speculating that Russo's back cause shit's got his fingerprints on it.  Right before he departed, Jarrett brokered a working agreement between TNA and Wrestle-1, Muto wanted nothing to do with Russo so Gaburick had to let him in on the secret and assure him that Russo would have nothing to do with his guys.

Like JUN-JUL '14: Scott Coker takes over Bellator from Bjork, news comes out that Spike isn't planning on renewing Impact in September, Vince Russo sends an e-mail to Mike Johnson instead of Mike Tenay and then admits that he's secretly working for TNA, Russo gets fired from TNA for not being able to keep a secret.  Seiya Sanada becomes a fake Great Muta.*

*That doesn't have anything to do with anything but I remembered it and it made me laugh.  He wasn't even the first fake Great Muta in TNA.

[DTTW]

10 minutes ago, BEN! said:

 I don't understand why anyone thinks Spike would care that Russo was back. 

 

Because they told them not to hire Russo. Because his track record screams - DON'T LET THIS MOTHERFUCKER BOOK YOUR WRESTLING SHOWS!

[Nice Guy Eddie]

At the rate we're going, the Life and Death of TNA will be about as long as War and Peace.

[JohnnyJ]

1 hour ago, BEN! said:

Corgan should've asked for a mediation.  To a jury he really is going to come off like a predatory lender cause he's been offered to be repaid but he wants the company that he's arguing is essentially worthless.

You're thinking like a sane person. The whole purpose of this exercise is Corgan has been jerked around and wants to air out and expose all of TNAs dirty laundry and embarrass the company.

[twiztor]

i am addicted to the dying breaths of TNA. i have been here before, frantically waiting for the end to finally be announced. i've been fooled by this, more than once. and yet, here i sit, anxiously refreshing and rechecking. i'm snatching these idiotic tidbits like they are morsels of life. when will this shell of a once-good wrestling company ultimately be put down?

at this point, the only thing i keep thinking is, "why are there so many people fighting so hard to gain control of a miserably failing company with virtually no revenue streams?"

[Nice Guy Eddie]

TNA has a very decent roster. If Dixie is gone, a new name, get some experienced wrestling minds in there, and don't try to be WWE lite; there could be something. Basically, tear down the condemned building and rebuild on the same spot.

[AxB]

13 hours ago, RIPPA said:

As basically Dave explained it on the radio show

IF Billy gets the injunction - TNA either dies or they have to let Billy take over

IF Billy doesn't get the injunction - Fight Network will own and Billy will have to be bought out

So if Billy doesn't get the injunction, and Fight Network gets the promotion, Dixie gets to stay in charge?

I vote injunction.

39 minutes ago, twiztor said:

 at this point, the only thing i keep thinking is, "why are there so many people fighting so hard to gain control of a miserably failing company with virtually no revenue streams?"

Have you ever worked at a place with terrible management, that was losing money? Because people who have worked for failing, mismanaged companies generally have a bit of a thought that if they weren't being mismanaged so badly, they might actually be able to break even. Or maybe even, if the stars aligned perfectly, be profitable. If you got rid of the top level lazy idiots, and motivated the lower level lazy idiots to start being hardworking and clever instead, a dying business could thrive.

Often this involves having a TV crew move in, so a celebrity (preferably one who pretends to be a shoot successful businessman) can shout at people and find bad things the production team have planted for him to find. Then the TV company pays for a bunch of refurbishments and the celebrity starts being nice to people, and they act like all is right with the world, everyone's best friends and the business is just perfect now. Then the cameras leave and they go out of business anyway.

[RIPPA]

7 hours ago, AxB said:

So if Billy doesn't get the injunction, and Fight Network gets the promotion, Dixie gets to stay in charge?

I vote injunction.

I forget the exact breakdown but Dave said Dixie would only have 5% in TNA

Fight Network has put someone in charge now who would be the person running the day to day. It is the same person Billy is bitching about making decisions regarding the company right now while this mess is going on

My favorite is that they said they were negotiating contracts with people. It will be good to see who the dumbest wrestlers around are.

[AxB]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

It will be good to see who the dumbest wrestlers around are.

?