Destination America Reportedly Regrets Signing a Multi-Year, Multi-Million Dollar Deal with TNA Wrestling

Dave Meltzer of the Wreslting Observer Newsletter claims that the cable network Destination America reportedly regrets signing a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with TNA Wrestling to produce and broadcast their programming. While Destination America initially reported that they were pleased with TNA’s viewership numbers when their partnership began, Meltzer claims that behind-the-scenes, many working for the network wish they had never signed on the dotted line.

The company has already scrapped Mike Tenay’s show, which he had been contractual obligated for a year to TNA for, and it seems like they aren’t trying to make “IMPACT WRESTLING” a success on their channel. Meltzer writes,

“The latest move by Destination America is to completely cancel the Unlocked show, which is the show with the Mike Tenay text messages and interviews. They had been giving it a new time slot every other week, which is usually something that leads to death. To say the honeymoon between regarding Destination America and TNA is over is an understatement.

It’s is not a secret within the Destination America company that they are regretting making the deal, which is why all the shoulder programs that were supposed to be part of the deal are now gone. I’m not sure the reasons, as the ratings are way above the network average, but when you watch the show, the ads don’t look impressive and it was a multi-million dollar commitment. .

It will be interesting what happens next to Tenay. He signed a one-year contract at the start of the year with the idea of building the Unlocked show around him, with the text messages throughout the show with trivia notes, and the long form interview, which brought out parts of personalities and backgrounds never touched upon.

Now the show is gone. When Taz left, the decision to go with Al Snow instead of Tenay as the co-announcer, which was not a surprise since Snow was the one in studio working with Matthews on the tryout, makes one wonder what’s going on with Tenay.

Since taking Tenay off Impact was one of John Gaburick’s first moves in the move to Destination America, I guess they felt they couldn’t put him back and instead are going with Snow as a project. If it wasn’t Tenay, Jeremy Borash would have been a better bet as when he did do the show in the past, he was very good. It’s too early to get a read on Snow.

Samoa Joe leaving had to do with a lot of factors, one of which was that he would suggest ideas and they weren’t listened to and there was just a feeling it was becoming a dead end street, and there were also issues with Gaburick.”

Meltzer also claims that some TNA superstars are unhappy working for the company, even going as far as saying that TNA is “all but dead.” Many have started putting feelers out to other wrestling promotions, such as Global Force Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and WWE to see if they’d be interested in hiring them.

Editor’s Note:

TNA = sinking ship…or so it seems.