SEScoops

Author: David Bixenspan

  • TNA Loses Destination America TV Deal Effective January

    After months of denials, it’s official, albeit with a twist: TNA Impact Wrestling has been cancelled by Destination America effective the end of the year. While the original report from Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter said that Destination America’s opt-out clause allowed them to cancel Impact after the end of this month, TNA President Dixie Carter told Sports Illustrated that they’re done at the end of the year.

    In the Sports Illustrated article, Justin Barrasso wrote that “[Spike TV] cut ties with TNA last December, leaving TNA without a television network in the United States. History repeated itself a year later, as TNA’s current home for TV–Destination America–will no longer air Impact in 2016.”  Dixie Carter added that “The biggest challenge for us is building a brand in the U.S. That’s where we need to grow. We’re contracted to Destination America through the end of the year, and we are in discussions going on for 2016.”

    Per Meltzer, the original memo issued within Discovery (Destination America’s parent company) read as follows:

    Destination America is not renewing TNA Wrestling next year. While the ratings were strong, the audience was not large enough to justify the program investment. We plan to honor the current contract and continue to air original episodes of TNA Wrestling on Friday nights through the end of the third quarter 2015. When the up-front rate card is released, the Friday night anthology title will now be called ‘American Tales,’ which will be a combination of Paranormal and Americana programming. I hope this is good news given all of the advertisers that included TNA on their DNA list.

    The DNA in “DNA list” means “do not advertise.” It refers to shows that a sponsor opts out of buying time on when they buy ads across a whole network. In this case, due to pro wrestling being perceived as downmarket or having low income viewers, advertisers who bought ads to air on most or all Destination America shows didn’t want to put their ads on Impact.

  • Triple H Talks NXT In This Week’s WWE Sit-Down Interview

    Triple H returned to his old home, the WWE.com sit-down interview, in the 100th episode of Michael Cole’s weekly segment on WWE.com and WWE’s official YouTube Channel. This time out, Triple H (mostly out of character as Paul Levesque but still called Triple H)shared some of his thoughts on his baby, NXT.

    When asked if he thought it was possible in advance that NXT could sell out the Barclay’s Center, he said:

    I think you want to shoot for the stars with that stuff. And, yeah, I wanted to create sort of a counter brand, another brand for the WWE that we could build the future in and try to make it as big as possible. A lot of people even asked me just going into Brooklyn when Brooklyn was suggested, I originally balked at the idea. I felt like we could sell it out, I felt like the interest in the brand was there, and I felt like the desire to see it would be there, especially in the New York area being Brooklyn, but I was hesitant to do it. What I didn’t want to do is disappoint people and have them think it would sell out and then sell 10,000 tickets and have that be seen as a disappointment. So I played up [that] I didn’t believe in it a little bit but was excited that it did as well as it did.

    In the interview, Triple H also talks about the presence of NXT alumni on the main roster, Sting’s impact on WWE, and more. There’s also a reference having lost 65 pounds in the last 11 months, which is pretty impressive of his part.

     

  • Sting On Controversial Promo: “Triple H Is Triple H, And He’s Worth The Put-Over”

    Sting, who’s doing his late media for this Sunday’s Night of Champions pay-per-view event, granted an interview to Rolling Stone’s Kenny Herzog that went up today. Among other topics, he talks about the promo he cut on Seth Rollins a week or two back where it seemed to some fans like he was randomly putting over Triple H at Seth Rollins’ expense. “I don’t pay attention a lot of times to what’s out there, so this is the first time I’m hearing any news of that. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s going to carry all that to Night of Champions and think about that, because the bottom line is, my focus is Seth Rollins. Triple H is Triple H, and he’s worth the put-over.”

    When it comes to Sting’s promos right now, he said that “I’m working collaboratively, but there’s no one looking over my shoulder making sure this or that is being said. I am definitely allowed to ad-lib and be Sting.” Later, when asked about how he’s shown different sides of his character on his promos as of late (like tha “Joker Sting” from TNA), he answered by saying that “This is one of the things I always try to tell the younger guys when they ask for advice. I try to tell them to step outside of their comfort zones, try something different.”

    Noting that some fans are always asking him to go back to the blonde spiked hair, different fans ask for the stoic, non-verbal “Crow” Sting, others ask for “Joker Sting,” and so on, he told Herzog that “You can’t please everybody all the time, that’s for sure, and I can’t say that I have blown it or failed over the years by trying different things and trying to evolve and show different sides of my character. Hopefully, it’s working.”

    In the full interview, Sting discusses other topics like wrestling at 56 years old, whether he’ll ever engage fans on social media, and more.