PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

 
 

TONS OF BACKSTAGE TNA NEWS AND NOTES

By Mike Johnson on 2013-07-23 16:15:48
I just returned from vacation and I had a great time in New Hampshire camping in the White Mountains area. If you ever get the chance to visit there, you will really enjoy yourself. If you live there, you truly are blessed. I will be catching up on a lot over the next few days, but here are some TNA news and notes:

TNA President Dixie Carter held a meeting with the roster prior to the Destination X Impact taping in Louisville, Kentucky last Thursday. Jeff Jarrett and Dean Broadhead, the company's CFO/COO were also present. It was the first time Jarrett had been at TV in some time. Carter acknowledged the recent financial issues (something that had been denied to some) but placed the blame on the company putting out so much money in a short period of time bankrolling and filming the One Night Only PPVs. Carter noted that there were some cuts and there could be others coming, but gave a speech asking the crew to pull together and work harder so they can reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Carter made it clear that there have been some hard decisions made but they are for the long-term good of the company.  There were some wrestlers who understood where she was coming from, but others who were rolling their eyes at her and mocking her after the meeting. 

There's a disconnect currently as there is a feeling among some wrestlers that they are working hard and doing what's asked of them, yet they are watching wrestlers get cut left and right and the issues that TNA has are nothing that the wrestlers themselves can control because it's all based on decisions made at the executive level. There's also a complaint among some that communication is not as strong between management and wrestler as it used to be.

With the departure of Bruce Prichard, the Louisville taping was said to be a lot more chaotic backstage than Impacts have been of late.

We've been asked who's now in charge of Talent Relations and Creative.  On the creative end, the same team is in place and I've been told that with Prichard gone, we don't see any real noticeable changes.  In regard to Talent Relations, the early word is that with Prichard's departure, John "Big" Gaburick will be handling many of Prichard's responsibilities, as well as Kevin Sullivan's former responsibilities. He's got a lot on his plate right off the bat. The feeling among the wrestlers was that he came off well in his initial dealings with them. One described him as "positive where Bruce was more negative" in his tone speaking to talents. The hope among wrestlers I spoke to today is that since Gaburick has been hired for such a high position in the executive end of things that he will be able to effect some positive change and get those who don't "get" the wrestling business to at least consider different ideas and understand things from that perspective. Obviously, he has the WWE pedigree but whether he can pull that off, only time will tell.  There were a few that were worried he's already been given too much to humanely pull off in terms of responsibilities, but given the workload WWE has put on execs, my guess is that won't be an issue.

A number of top Spike executives were at the taping last week. By all accounts, Spike is very happy about the TNA ratings currently as the numbers the company draws helps Spike's overall primetime average and it allows them to sell their primetime advertising stock at a stronger rate. There has been absolutely no talk of Spike being unhappy with the TNA ratings - we've had some readers ask, so I wanted to address that.

With all the changes mentioned last week, one that was not brought up is that Al Snow is no longer working on the talent relations side of things and will only be working as an agent going forward. That led to rumors among some of the wrestlers that Snow had been let go along with D'Lo Brown and Bruce Prichard, but that was never the case.

Former TNA talent and agent Scott D'Amore was visiting at the Destination X taping as he originally trained Chris Sabin and was there to see him win the TNA title. There was at least some talk of using him on camera that night, but it didn't happen. There's no word whether he's coming back to the company. A lot of people assumed that D'Amore being there meant he was back in, but he reportedly claimed that was not the case. D'Amore left several years ago to help his father, who was ill at the time, and run several businesses in Canada. He reportedly spent a lot of time with Jeff Jarrett and his former Team Canada members while he was there.

On the Jesse Sorensen front, the word among those I've spoken to is that he was being paid well above the salary that anyone else working as a production assistant would have gotten as a way for the company to help him as he recovered. It was simply a financial cutback decision as the company is really cutting corners of late. That's actually been going on for months, but now they are really trying to cut back. There may be more talent cuts coming as well and a lot of people are worried about that. To me, cutting Sorensen just comes off as a bad PR move on the surface and reinforces that anyone can get cut at anytime, no matter what they have done or have sacrificed for the good of the company.  WWE did release Andrew Martin when he was recovering from a neck fusion surgery and also got shredded for it, so it's not like TNA is the first to do this, or the first to be criticized for it. The sad reality is that if the company had the extra capital, Sorensen would probably still be employed, but even releasing someone who nearly ended up a quadriplegic or worse on live TV performing for you, comes off as so callous, whether TNA realized it would or not.

One thing the company was happy with were the last few quarter hours of the Destination X Impact featuring Bully Ray vs. Chris Sabin, feeling that it meant Ray as a heel was drawing strong numbers and that the Sabin story had connected with viewers.

 

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!