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As Dave Scherer noted last night, Anthem Media officially announced that they have purchased the majority ownership of Impact Wrestling. It was obvious the announcement was made the day before the first TNA taping of 2017 for a reason. It is expected that Anthem's Ed Nordholm, who now is in complete control of the company, will address the talent roster tomorrow before the Impact taping in Orlando, Florida.
It is interesting to note they specifically mention Impact Wrestling, but NOT it's former parent company Impact Ventures, LLC, which was the subject of a number of lawsuits and was alleged to have been insolvent when Billy Corgan sued the company while President. It remains to be seen what becomes of that corporate entity, if anything.
It was noted in yesterday's press release that Dixie Carter still holds a minority share in the company. The announcement pretty much removes her from TNA decision-making and we are told that she will not be at this week's TV tapings, either on camera or behind the scenes. Internally, this is being seen as Dixie is "done" in terms of being the point person in company deals, creative decisions, etc. It appears her final appearance for the company will have been the Gail Kim TNA Hall of Fame induction in October 2016. The last official communication she had with the talent roster was a November 2016 conference call following the then-recent exits of Billy Corgan and Dave Lagana from TNA. I would not be the least bit surprised if it is later announced that she is resigning from the company and moving on to greener pastures.
For those who have asked about John "Big" Gaburick, we are told that he will be heading production at this week's TV tapings.
Aroluxe representatives are in Orlando, Florida working on the production end, so they are still involved in the process as well. Whether Aroluxe has ended up with a minority stake in the company (as was the plan, as revealed during Billy Corgan's lawsuit against TNA last year) has not been confirmed. That plan had included Aroluxe's Jason Brown becoming CEO of Impact Ventures for a term of three years, but obviously with today's acquisition announcement, that can not happen.
As is the norm with such things, when one company takes over another, there are bound to be changes. I don't believe many of them will be seen until after this round of tapings are completed.
As I noted in my PWInsider Elite audio update on Tuesday, there are not expected to be any major talents debuts or changes in direction at the tapings. There will be some returns to the roster, including Davey Richards and Angelina Love. This week is very much being seen as an undertaking the company has to get through as they have a lot of content to produce (as they are taping 12 episodes of Impact) and once that content is in the can, Anthem can begin to strategize going forward. It should be also be interesting to see if Anthem opts to move the company's HQ to Toronto, where Anthem is headquartered.
As previously noted in the Elite section of PWInsider.com, Jeff Jarrett has been spotted in Florida over the past few days but we are told that he was there for a family vacation. Obviously, with Impact taping in Orlando, there's always a possibility that Jarrett will pop up at TV over the course of the next week. There have been rumblings of Jarrett and Dutch Mantel potentially coming in of late (and obviously, Jarrett has met with Anthem a number of times since last month) but nothing concrete. If that turns out to be the case, what a full circle that would be for TNA.
Drew Galloway will be missing some of the tapings this week as he had already locked in European dates before TNA confirmed their taping dates with him.
We are also told that TNA has already secured 3/2-3/9 for additional taping dates at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. Those replace the originally planned dates for Wrestlemania week.
A plan is in place to run house shows later this year as well, but the official trigger on that has not, to the best of my knowledge, been pulled.
TNA's Allie has launched an official Youtube channel at this link.
Oh yeah, not that TNA has promoted this at all, but they have a live One Night Only PPV on Friday as well!
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