? TNA Evansville backpage female escort debuted its newest logo yesterday, which includes the bird from the Anthem Sports & Entertainment logo as well as Anthem’s name. The word Wrestling is written in smaller font underneath and Anthem’s name appears at the bottom in white. This will now replace the silver and blue shaded logo with a silver and blue outlined hexagon in the background representing the six sided ring that Dixie Carter unveiled in .
I was sad and scared for them
? With a new regime comes a new name…well, sort of! Starting from next week’s Impact, TNA will no longer be TNA as the initials and the Total Nonstop Action name will be dead and buried. Going forward, the company will solely go by the name of Impact Wrestling and the new folks running the show made sure everybody knows that during the tapings yesterday, blasting the previous management for their screw-ups and letting big names like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode, and others leave. Dropping the TNA name has been in the pipeline for quite a while with parent company Anthem thinking that the name is “damaged goods” to wrestling fans. The TNA name has been around since the first show which aired on .
Carter holds all the power in the sale as a majority shareholder, with Billy Corgan and production company Aroluxe serving as minority owners
? Last night, The Fight Network MMA reporter and color commentator Robin Black announced on his Facebook that Anthem Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of Impact Wrestling and The Fight Network, has started laying off employees and cutting back on original programming on the Fight Network. “And just like that, life changes. I got a few calls yesterday about big cuts at Fight Network, about friends being let go. Then the call came in to me. Heavy scaling back of originally-produced content. Down-sizing. After 8 years, my job is being eliminated,” Black wrote. While it’s not clear how much Anthem paid to take over Impact Wrestling, the timing of the layoffs will certainly raise some eyebrows in the industry.
? In a post first revealed by PWInsider, TNA Chief Financial Officer Dean Broadhead wrote on his personal Facebook page that TNA nearly went dark this weekend as the company had zero money to pay for the production trucks for Slammiversary or the tapings this week. Broadhead wrote that in a 12 hour window he had to make over 80 phone calls to lawyers, bankers, employees, and everyone in between to try and secure some money to go ahead with the show. The company which does the production for TNA, Aroluxe, is owed several thousands of dollars from previous unpaid television tapings and were not ready to go ahead with the show unless they were paid. Several weeks ago Aroluxe was revealed as the company in pole position for a TNA takeover. Two of its employees are Ron and Don Harris, former WWE and TNA tag team. It seems that Billy Corgan was the one who bailed them out this time, purchasing a minority stake in the company and allowing the life support machine to keep going. Meanwhile a promoter from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, wrote on TNA’s Facebook page that he has yet to be paid for the January shows and media vendors were running after him to get paid. ”I don’t know who else to contact or reach out to. Dean (Broadhead) will not communicate with me and I am being held responsible for this mess,” Rick Schoenen? wrote. He updated the post today saying that finally someone got in touch with him after posting his complaint publicly on Facebook.
? A potential TNA sale to WWE would send shockwaves again, , but regardless, it would be major news for the industry. TNA’s biggest asset is certainly their video library, with over 10 years worth of footage. With the WWE Network running at full speed, adding a few thousand of more hours to the platform would be a big win for WWE, and eventually the fans. Unfortunately, if WWE does indeed buy TNA, TNA would be shut down pretty much immediately. What would happen to its big stars would be interesting. Those such as Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Drew Galloway, EC3, Lashley, Aron Rex, and others all left WWE to work for their rivals. Cody Rhodes and his wife Brandi have signed last week as well. When WWE purchased WCW, they carried over some of the deals of certain wrestlers as well. They did not include any of their top stars as the preferred to wait out till the deal expires, getting paid to stay at home doing nothing. Perhaps the biggest winner of them all would be NXT which would no doubt see an influx of talent arriving. And with Raw and Smackdown now separate, adding more talent to the roster would not hurt either. WWE bought WCW for around $4 million and their pay-per-view and television library was far more vast and deep than that of TNA. WCW also had some worthy intellectual property which WWE benefited from, something that TNA severely lacks. By no means WWE is certainly buying TNA. Billy Corgan could eventually pull a rabbit out of the hat and manages to convince Dixie Carter to sell him everything in return of financing Bound For Glory and the subsequent television tapings. There are pros and cons to both scenarios but a WWE sale would mean a lot of people would be losing their jobs and no alternative for those who want to escape WWE land. A Billy Corgan sale would mean that TNA survives another day, but in the long term, without some serious financing, they will find themselves in the same position down the road.
? TNA Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer Dixie Carter refused to comment online regarding all the rumors of an imminent sale of TNA, saying on Twitter that she doesn’t make it a habit to reply to speculations. Carter has been dealing with both WWE and Corgan for the sale according to several industry insiders and there are two different outcomes with both parties should she choose to sell. If Billy Corgan gets TNA, then business resumes as normal although he already said that he would be changing the name. Corgan made several cash injections in TNA and clearly stated he won’t put in more money unless he’s given total control. If WWE gets it, the tape library will be the most important, along with a few contracts of TNA talent. The company would immediately cease to exist once WWE takes over, similar to what happened to WCW. Carter also told fans that if they’re close to the Orlando area, they shouldn’t miss these upcoming television tapings that will run from Sunday’s PPV to the following Saturday.