According to a report by Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Anthem Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of Global Force Wrestling, is “hemorrhaging funds” on the wrestling promotion and is looking to cut bait.
“GFW is hemorrhaging funds, and sources close to the situation have confirmed that Anthem is ready to withdraw itself from the wrestling industry and sell GFW. Anthem even needed to gut the Fight Network in order to finance GFW.” (SI.com)
When Anthem swooped in (like an owl) late last year and purchased a majority stake in Impact Wrestling from Panda Energy and the Carter family, the purchased an asset deeply in debt and facing lawsuits on several fronts (Billy Corgan, the Hardy family, the Audience of One production company).
In an effort to alleviate the financial burden they acquired, Anthem has been aggressively cutting talent and scaling back on television tapings.
The news comes on the heels of Tuesday’s announcement that Jeff Jarrett is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the company due to ‘personal issues.’
Another dynamic at play is the fact that Jeff Jarrett reportedly still owns the “Global Force Wrestling” trademark. Anthem’s decision to rebrand the company without owning the rights to “Global Force Wrestling” is ‘questionable’ at best. As such, Anthem would technically be selling “Impact Wrestling.”
At this point, the biggest asset under the Impact Wrestling umbrella is the TNA Wrestling tape library. WWE seems like the most logical buyer of this tape library, which includes years of matches from the likes of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode, Kurt Angle, Sting, Eric Young, Drew McIntyre and more.
Discussion:Â Which GFW stars would you want to see in WWE?
