Scott D’Amore was willing to pay big money to purchase TNA Wrestling and save his role with the promotion in the process. 

D’Amore was fired as TNA President by Anthem Entertainment, TNA’s parent company, earlier this month. The Team Canada alum has been replaced by Anthony Cicione, Anthem’s President, in an effort to strengthen ties between the two parties. The decision to cut D’Amore has been met with backlash. TNA’s roster has issued a letter to Anthem, expressing their views on the matter. 

Purchasing TNA Wrestling

Shortly before his exit from TNA Wrestling, D’Amore attempted to purchase the company from Anthem. While the figure was not disclosed at the time of his departure, it was said to be a serious offer with the backing of a major financial institution. 

D’Amore offered $10 million to acquire TNA Wrestling, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported this week. In addition to this, Scott offered to take on all existing debts. Anthem turned down the offer out-right without a counter offer being made. The D’Amore group believed the company value was between $7 million and $12 million.

What’s Next?

A meeting will take place at this week’s tapings of TNA Wrestling and it is believed the D’Amore situation will be addressed. Some in TNA believe that Len Asper, the head of Anthem, will be at the meeting. 

With or without D’Amore, TNA will move on ahead with its weekly entertainment. On March 8, the promotion will host its Sacrifice pay-per-view from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The show will be TNA’s second PPV since relaunching at last month’s Hard to Kill show.

Jeff Jarrett’s lawsuit against Anthem Sports and Entertainment continues to drag through the Tennessee court system. The suit is related to the failed merger of Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling and Impact. He first filed the lawsuit in the summer of 2018.

The case was originally declared a mistrial this August. This was due to “cumulative errors by both the Court and counsel resulted in neither party receiving a fair trial”. The two parties have also been ordered into remediation but do not believe a settlement can be agreed upon.

Hearings for the case hit another snag this summer. The Tennessee courts closed to pay respect to the passing of Judge Pamela Reeves causing further delays.

According to an update from PW Insider, Jarrett’s team has recently filed a motion for another trial.

“Plaintiffs Global Force Entertainment, Inc. and Jeffrey Jarrett respectfully request the Court set a date for re-trial,” reads Jarrett’s legal team’s filings. “Although the parties have a private mediation scheduled for November 3, 2020, Plaintiffs do not believe there is any realistic chance of settlement in this case without a settlement conference before a judicial officer given the parties’ positions on the likely outcomes (and causes of such outcomes) at re-trial.”

• Jeff Jarrett Praises Elias: “He’s Got An Aura About Him, A Charisma”

The parties behind the All Elite Wrestling upstart promotion have reportedly turned down an offer to purchase Impact Wrestling, according to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter. “It is not a secret that there were forces attempting to sell Impact to AEW a few months ago,” wrote Dave Meltzer. “But that proposal was turned down.”

We’ve reached out to Impact Wrestling for their comment on the matter.

Impact Moving to Pursuit Channel

Impact Wrestling recently announced they will be moving to the Pursuit channel in 2019. Anthem owns a minority stake in the channel as well. The promotion will debut on their new channel on Friday, January 11th, 2019 at 10 PM. Once WWE Smackdown moves to Fox Sports in October, Impact’s new timeslot would air right after it.

One possible outcome of the switch to the Pursuit channel is the potential for edgier content. This was addressed in a recent company press release.

“With IMPACT Wrestling coming off a tremendous year of audience growth globally and positive fan engagement,” an Impact press release reads. “We look forward to leveraging our respective resources to bring fans more of the wrestling content they want to see: tougher, edgier action.”

While he has not given all of the details yet, Billy Corgan just announced on Friday shortly after noon eastern time that he and TNA have settled his lawsuit against them:

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/797123858843238409

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/797124900410556417

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/797125931949326336

While not outright said, the first tweet strongly implies that whatever the arrangement ended up being, it does not include a confidentiality agreement. It will be very interesting to see what he says next week about how this came about, as the big impasse had been that TNA financiers at Anthem Sports and Entertainment wanted Corgan to drop the lawsuit to get his loan paid back. They also didn’t want to pay him the $900,000 fee he was supposed to get get if TNA was sold. TNA has not yet been sold. Once the settlement is official, they will be free to sell the company to Anthem.

As we reported exclusively earlier in the week, Anthem is finalizing a new round of funding that allowed them to provide a credit facility to TNA and presumably will help them purchase the company soon. Corgan show particular interest in that story when we broke it:

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/796431158728917001

Yesterday, we broke the news that on Monday, as part of a “town hall” meeting among staff at TNA investor/financier Anthem Sports and Entertainment, CEO Leonard Asper had some advice for employees. That advice was to be careful what they tell some co-workers about business matters, because those who work for the company’s news arm might be obligated to report it. Today, we can confirm another item from the meeting: Asper said that Anthem was receiving a new investment imminently, and it was a factor in their current expansion, which includes funding TNA.

In his speech to staff, Asper explained that he was fine with the news of the investor going public, but couldn’t share their identity as of yet. It will take “about…probably 20 to 30 days” before there’s an official announcement, because they need to “finalize the paperwork and all of that.” Putting money into TNA was named as one of their “expansionary moves,” as was Anthem’s acquisition of of GameTV. That deal was announced in August, the same month that Anthem started putting money into TNA.

Asper also explained the reasoning behind the TNA deal in very broad strokes. “I wanna sort of talk about TNA a little bit, because it really comes back to content,” he began. “And what we’re finding with the distribution as some of you know, is it’s harder and harder to get distribution, it’s harder to get a DirecTV, or even on the web, to get people to view you if you’re just licensing somebody else’s content or doing your own. And just pure talking heads.” The last reference presumably refers to The Fight Network’s original programming being heavy on news and analysis shows shot on their news desk set.

“So what we’re trying to do more of is acquire content, or at least get closer to it, develop relationships with the people who do own the content,” Asper said, “because if we don’t, they’re gonna go direct to the consumer around us.” He also told the staff that “you’ll probably see more of” TNA-esque deals to get content for their platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXDHtaBVnuw

We have been able confirm that yesterday (Monday, November 7th), Anthem Sports and Entertainment CEO Leonard Asper held a “town hall” meeting in the company offices where a couple items related to TNA came up. One of them relates to a warning he gave employees to close the meeting: That they need to remember that there are journalists who work for the company and cover beats that would include the company, so be careful talking to them about internal business matters. Anthem is, as previously noted here, the parent company of The Fight Network, which covers professional wrestling.

“We’ve got a lot of journalists in this organization, we’ve got and a lot of stuff going on that we don’t want public,” Asper explained. He said that the issue of who can tell who what has “come up over the TNA issue” because “there’s a lot of stuff we’re not saying, and some of you might know stuff.” He then made it clear that anyone with knowledge of information that shouldn’t go public, “you’ve got to remember that you’re talking to someone who is a journalist. They’ve got a responsibility. They’ve got an independence, and we want to protect that.”

In other words, he told staff to be “a little careful” when talking to co-workers who are journalists. “If you’re talking to somebody who’s in that role, don’t compromise them. Either say it’s off the record, and ask if they’re OK with receiving information off the record, or just don’t burden them with secrets that, from a moral perspective, from an ethics perspective, that they have to reveal.” Asper also added that “people are starting to watch us more” because of the new deals like TNA, making the advice more important.

Analysis: This was basically a crash course for employees not familiar with dealing with the media. Being a relatively under the radar company means that there probably would be a lot of employees who fit that bill until the wrestling media started scrutinizing their employers a few weeks ago. Still, Fight Network’s news operation primarily covers MMA, so it’s interesting to see Asper single out TNA as the catalyst for his lesson.

Early Friday afternoon, in response to a New York Post article claiming that he’s been “ousted” as TNA President, Billy Corgan started tweeting about TNA again. A lot.

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794568002553413632

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794569232289853440

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794569782184071168

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794570172610859009

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794570457466990593

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794570729979346945

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794571368494956544

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794572818654629888

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794573291029692416

If Corgan files new court papers as part of the loan repayment demand, we’ll update you on the latest in the case.

Earlier today, around the same time that Impact Ventures (TNA parent company) and Anthem Sports and Entertainment (Fight Network parent company) issued their joint press release about changes to TNA, Dixie Carter sent out an internal email to staff and talent. SEScoops has obtained a copy of the email, and these are the key details that were not mentioned in the press release:

• A lot of the language is identical to the press release, including the line about how “the company will be managed by the Board, with Mr. [Edwin] Nordholm representing the Board on all major operating and restructuring decisions.” In Carter’s letter, however, it’s directly preceded by a note about how “[i]n general, the organizational structure will otherwise remain the same.” There’s also a note about TNA “worked with him over the last several months during numerous negotiations, and he has been instrumental in concluding the documents signed today.”
• The takeaway appears to be that Edwin Nordholm is running the company. There’s no reference to Aroluxe’s Jason Brown, who had been running day to day operations unofficially and was expected to take over as CEO as part of the restructuring. However…
• There’s also this: “Aroluxe Media, who is also an equity stakeholder, will continue to produce our shows in 2017. The next set of full tapings is scheduled for early January. Aroluxe will become more actively involved in the creative process to ensure that our taping productions arc as efficient and cost-effective as possible.” Aroluxe was not mentioned in the press release, and a representative for Anthem refused to comment on if they were still involved.
• Carter notes that “Anthem’s sales team will be supporting the company in the TV and digital ad market.” Since TNA’s American TV revenue is entirely dependent on splitting advertising money with PopTV and it’s nearly nonexistent now, you can see why they would make that change.
• The letter ends with this: “The Board of Managers will continue to develop a longer-term business plan for the Company and I am excited to have Anthem’s experience available to us as we plan for the future. With financial stability, we can focus on executing our near term objectives while planning a measured and thoughtful approach for the future.”
• Note Carter’s choice of words: While TNA claimed in court records that the recent “cash flow deficits” were part of a larger plan to build up the PopTV ad inventory, she implies here that the company lacked “financial stability” until the Anthem deal was made this week.

Analysis: None of this is really unexpected other than the ostensible disappearance of Jason Brown, which is a big question mark. A few weeks ago, Brown and the Harris twins were removed from the “team” listing on Aroluxe’s website, and as of this writing, there is no more “team” listing. Something is up, but nobody has said what as of yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU7zfalwe1M

Billy Corgan’s very public argument Thursday with Anthem Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of The Fight Network, keeps going late Friday afternoon in the form of Corgan replying to The Fight Network’s tweets about the situation:

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794275341325864960

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794276142849003520

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794276469836902400

To break this down, it looks like the tweet about Anthem “lying through counsel” relates to their promise to pay back the money he loaned to TNA by the November 1st deadline set in Corgan and TNA’s agreement. An attorney for Anthem appeared in court during the Corgan/TNA hearing in Nashville last week for that reason.

Analysis: Whatever you think of Corgan, he comes off much better than Anthem here. He’s right that Anthem really has no business saying that there’s “public discourse” about the situation “is inappropriate” when they issued multiple press releases about the situation, one of which dropped the bomb that he was out of TNA without any explanation. And he’s also right to clarify that he hasn’t been paid back if that’s the situation, since the press release was incredibly vague about that matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXDHtaBVnuw

On Thursday afternoon, Impact Ventures (the parent company of TNA) and Anthem Sports and Entertainment (the parent company of The Fight Network) issued the following joint statement:

Anthem Sports & Entertainment and Impact Ventures Announce Credit Relationship

Toronto, Canada (November 3, 2016) – Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp. and Impact Ventures, parent company of TNA Impact Wrestling, today announced that Anthem has provided a credit facility to TNA to fund operations.

Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp. is a global sports media company that operates Fight Network, Impact Wrestling’s exclusive broadcaster in Canada, as well as the exclusive worldwide digital streaming partner for all TNA programming. It is also an equity stakeholder of Impact Ventures.

The agreement includes the appointment of Anthem Executive Vice President Ed Nordholm to the Impact Ventures Board of Managers. The company will be managed by the Board with Mr. Nordholm representing the Board on all major operating and restructuring decisions. Dixie Carter will continue as Chair of the Company, as well as her position on the Board of Managers. Billy Corgan is no longer with the company.

“We have had a successful, long-term partnership with Fight Network as our Canadian broadcaster, and more recently as our global digital partner,” said Dixie Carter. “Anthem’s team has extensive media experience, and I am excited to have that available to us as we plan for the future.”

“We have consistently maintained that investing in content as we grow our distribution is important as a strategic necessity, and working more closely with a strong brand like TNA is in line with that. This financing is an extension of the support we have been providing since the beginning of the year,” said Leonard Asper, CEO of Anthem. “There are tremendous opportunities to support the company’s growth on all platforms and in all media along side Dixie and the incredible talent and staff at TNA.”

The key takeaways there are:

• Billy Corgan is gone from TNA.  From the statement, it’s not clear if his loan has been repaid, although the deadline on the actual loan paperwork was Tuesday (November 1st). On Twitter, Corgan is claiming that he hasn’t been repaid yet:

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794232124522004482

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794232633207226368

https://twitter.com/Billy/status/794233412034891776

• In addition to being a TNA shareholder, which we already knew, Anthem is providing a credit facility
• to the company. Investopedia defines a credit facility as “a type of loan made in a business or corporate finance context, including revolving credit, term loans, committed facilities, letters of credit and most retail credit accounts.” The key, however, is that they’re usually “in conjunction with closing a round of equity financing or raising money by selling shares of its stock.”
• We don’t know yet if Anthem is now the majority owner, but if they aren’t yet, this suggests that they’re in the process of making that deal happen. As of Monday, Anthem owned 2.5%, with Aroluxe Media owning 5% and Dixie Carter owning 92.5%.
• There is no mention of Aroluxe Media in the press release even though the plan disclosed in court filings had them heavily involved, with Aroluxe’s Jason Brown as Impact Ventures’ new CEO. Brown had already been running the company day to day in an unofficial capacity.
• Edwin “Ed” Nordholm of Anthem is joining Dixie Carter, Serg Salinas, and Dean Broadhead on Impact’s board of managers.

Update 2:10 p.m. ET: When asked for clarification on some of the above, Anthem sent us this statement:

Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp. is a private company and we are not releasing any further comment at this time.