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MORE ON TNA'S STATUS ON DESTINATION AMERICA

By Mike Johnson on 2015-05-22 12:24:31
TNA will broadcast the Slammiversary 2014 PPV tonight at 8 PM on Destination America followed by an 11 PM replay. For those of you internationally, you will get an episode of Impact Wrestling exclusive for international markets. If anyone can send along a report, we'd greatly appreciate it.

Obviously, the big story surrounding TNA are the reports that Destination America will be dropping Impact Wrestling this September. The word "cancellation" has been thrown around, which technically would be incorrect. When a series is canceled, it is DONE and production is shut down. As you can imagine, inside TNA, people were pretty furious and denying the Network has told them anything. There was especially anger over the reports because Destination America had two representatives in Nashville all week working on creative plans with Billy Corgan, John Gaburick and the rest of the creative team that went well into the end of the year and early 2016.

At one point yesterday, the plan was to film an interview where Josh Mathews would sit down with Dixie Carter to respond to the reports, but that was scrapped in favor of the statement that was issued. I personally feel that any statement that was made should have come from Destination America, because wrestling fans assume wrestling promotions are going to try and work them. Had the Network issued a statement (and for all we know, they still might), there would have been more of a stamp on the denial in my opinion.

Billy Corgan took to Twitter pretty much knocking the report from Dave Meltzer, claiming Meltzer had previously written things about him without reaching out. I can't speak on whether that was the case. Meltzer then tried to compare the situation to Vince Russo's attack on me last year. Unless Corgan was trying to out and out lie and claim he worked Meltzer, I don't see the correlation.

As if that isn't enough, we have been asked about a rumor making the rounds regarding stories that Dixie Carter accidentally cc'd a top Destination America executive in on an email complaining about the Network. I cannot verify the story, although I can say it's one I've heard passed around by wrestlers for well over a week and no one in TNA, when I've asked them about it, has outright denied this happened. They also won't confirm it happened. One person did note that at some point, relations between the two sides became obviously strained. Whether this was the tipping point that lead into the entire "cancellation" story remains to be seen.

Destination America representatives did not return a request for comment on the status of TNA on the Network. I do know that I've heard of plans for Discovery to really push the move to Wednesdays across all of their Networks over the next several weeks. We will see if they do.

TNA has changed their taping schedule due to the Wednesday night move. They will run a live broadcast on 6/24 and then tape 6/25-6/27. They will then have Slammiversary live on PPV on 6/28. As if the production of the shows aren't hard enough given the sheer amount of content they have to tape and keep in order somehow, now they need to tape TV for after a live PPV before the PPV even takes place. That's not going to be easy for anyone.

Tickets for the 9/17 live event in York, PA go on sale this Saturday.

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