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When Anthem Entertainment announced about six months ago that they were buying Impact Wrestling there was universal positivity among fans and journalists alike. After all, the company had gone about as far as it could under Dixie Carter, and had certainly experienced more than its share of negativity behind the scenes as 2016 came to an end. It had become pretty clear that much like Ring Of Honor went as far as it could under Cary Silkin, TNA was in the same position under Carter. In order for the company to continue on, a new owner was needed. They got that owner in Anthem.
The first set of tapings were a bit of a uneven but it was easy to give them a pass since they had just taken over the company and things were still in transition. Growing pains were to be expected. However, as we have found out over time, the mistakes made in the beginning were actually harbingers of things to come.
When we look at a list of the missteps that the company has made under Anthem, it is really mind numbing that they could screw up so many different things in such a short period of time. Here is a sampling of some of the questionable things that Anthem has done since taking over the company (and this is just a sampling, to be sure).
*They let top talent walk away from the company. Due to the bungled nature of how they negotiated with both the Hardys and Drew Galloway, both acts decided to turn down a deal with Anthem rather than stay in a place where they had been pushed well and were comfortable. What they saw during those negations made venturing into the unknown the better option. Then look at Maria and Mike Bennett. Their deals expired last year and without signing new contracts, they were a focal point of television before finishing up and moving on. Do you think WWE would ever make anyone that wasn’t under a long term contract the focal point of TV? Me either. Those are five of the most over people that they had on the brand, and all were allowed to walk away.
*They set out to destroy the goodwill in the brand that they had just purchased. Now, as I said above, TNA wasn’t exactly a hot brand when Anthem bought them, but they did have a 15 year history. They had a lineage and a lot of very talented people had worked there and had some amazing matches over their tenure. So what did Anthem do? They told us on TV that TNA was nothing. It used to be great, but it sucks now. We are going to change all of that and make it great again. So if you were one of those loyal fans that supported TNA through the end of the Carter era? Well, you are a moron. Which leads me to…
*In TNA’s place, they have pushed Global Force Wrestling, a brand with very little public goodwill (and unless they have purchased it and not told us, a brand that Anthem doesn't even own) and less national exposure. Now, I don’t sit in on the Anthem board meetings so maybe they know something that I don’t, but I don’t see the logic in paying millions for an asset, only to tell the consumers of that asset that said asset sucks. I also don’t see the logic in pushing a lesser known non-asset, which we don’t even own, at the expense of the one we just paid millions for. Even if it comes out that they bought GFW from Jeff Jarrett (and man would that make him brilliant or what if he pulled that off!), they still have pushed it at the expense of the thing that they spent millions for. In what universe does that make sense?
*Ed Nordholm tweeted out a picture of the debuting Alberto El Patron, thus spoiling his own surprise. I really don’t need to say much about that one, do I?
*Not only did they book the insipid Josh Mathews angle, but then they brought it back after they had seemingly blown it off. This is among the worst long term angles of all time in my opinion. Luckily, Josh lost his spot and had to leave (with the added bonus of taking his commentary with him.) So at least it was over right? WRONG! Instead, he comes back, with no explanation as to how it happened, and is once again involved in a top storyline that maybe only his family has any interest in.
*And of course the big one, the ongoing war with the Hardy family over the usage of the "Broken" gimmick.
Oh yes, the war between Anthem and the Hardys, one of the top storylines of 2017. Anthem has famously failed in how they have handled this situation. For a company that had a less than glowing reputation with the hardcore fans under the Carter administration they had the opportunity for a fresh start. And almost immediately, they lost any goodwill that they had garnered when they bought, and saved, the company. Of course, by going to war with the Hardys, just the opposite has happened.
Let's work under the assumption that Impact owns the trademark as they say they do. This was a case where they could have gained a lot of street cred with the fans by simply giving the asset away. After all, the Hardys did spend a lot of their own money on the production. And the interest that they drew for TNA was one of the reasons that there was an asset for Anthem to buy in the first place. That alone could have been reason enough to let the Hardys walk away with their gimmick in tact, but that isn’t why Anthem should have done it.
Maybe you are thinking, "Why should they let the Hardys have the gimmick if they owned it?" Well, let's look at what it was worth to TNA. Basically, that would be nothing. It's not like Impact can put other wrestlers in that gimmick. It would fail miserably (think Fake Razor Ramon and Diesel). But had they let the Hardys walk with the gimmick, think of the great publicity that the company would have received. The hardcore fans that bailed on the product under Carter may have said, "These new guys are OK!" They could have had sites like this one report their benevolence and gained positive publicity that would have been worth far more to the brand than keeping an unusable gimmick ever would have been.
Instead, they held on to it and it started a war between the Hardys and Anthem. Whether you think the Hardys are out of line or not doesn’t matter. Matt is still making money with WWE. So is Jeff. Anthem, on the other hand, has been a laughingstock to many of the hardcore fans that they had a chance to win over. And to make matters worse, some in TNA, like Dutch Mantell, have gone on the attack, even writing that the pregnant Reby Hardy should not get agitated because she had her baby to think about. Matt Hardy tweeted that Dutch was put up to by an angry Jeff Jarrett. Just writing that makes it all seem so tawdry and the ones that are hurt the most, by far, are those at Impact.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, this week Nordholm took the controversial step of releasing contract details and copies of communications with the Hardys to the wrestling media. I was shocked when the email showed up on my phone, for a few reasons.
For one, he included copies of emails he had with WWE over the issue. If I worked for them, I would think twice about dealing with Anthem again if they were so cavalier about confidentiality. Sharing someone’s email is a dicey situation. For sure.
But the bigger issue is that by releasing the documents Nordholm ensured that there would be retaliation from the Hardys, thus keeping a story that was dying off, very much alive. I have always said that the best way to deal with negative publicity is to just ignore it. In Impact’s case, ever time they see the fire dying out, they throw more gas on it. I am sure Nordholm released those documents to “show we are in the right”. I don’t think that worked out for the masses the way that he hoped it will.
So, just five months into their tenure, Anthem has showed that the new boss is the same as the old boss, and in fact, may be worse. Admit it, you never thought you would appreciate Dixie Carter, did you? Miss Dixie made a lot of mistakes, for sure, but at this point it seems like she just might have been wiser than an owl.
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