“IMPACT WRESTLING” is Still Reportedly Set to Be Canceled in September

According to a new in-depth and strikingly personal report from Dave Meltzer of F4Wonline.com and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “IMPACT WRESTLING” is still reportedly set to be canceled in September, regardless of what TNA President Dixie Carter wants to try and say to her locker room.

As previously reported, Carter held a conference call with TNA talent on May 27 to discuss the situation, but she was found to be evasive and would not say out-right whether or not Destination America’s parent company, Discovery, had actually sent out a memo claiming the network would be canceling all TNA programming as of the third quarter of 2015.

Instead, Carter told talent that TNA and Destination America were all good, and that Ring of Honor joining the “new night for wrestling” opening up the three-hour slot on Wednesdays before “IMPACT WRESTLING” would be beneficial to all parties involved. Not many bought this farce.

Meltzer would go on to discuss the memo sent out by Discovery to Destination America and TNA executives, as well as defend himself against the backlash Carter and other TNA and IWC voices used to rage out against him for reporting the story. He writes,

“Dixie Carter tried to claim the stories reported were false, and that they expected to be on Destination America in 2016, but then deflected questions about whether or not they contractually could be canceled at the end of September.

The wrestlers at the meeting were not happy because they felt overall Carter was being evasive, and also it was hard to buy the idea that she was presenting that adding ROH to Destination America was to their benefit. The keys to the talent question and answer period is that talent complained that they wanted better lines of communications.

TNA does have a multi-year deal with the Destination America, but the station has an out clause at the end of the current television season.

She also stated that all announced dates are still on the schedule and there are no changes in plans.

Two weeks ago, the Discovery Network sent out a memo stating: “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 list is for when advertisers buy time on the station as a whole instead of just a specific show, the DNA, or Do Not Advertise list, is something sponsors list for shows they specifically don’t want their ads on.

We had contacted Carter as soon as we received the information that the show was being canceled for a comment or if she knew anything different. A week later, Destination America announced, with no warning and after a month of television had been taped with references to Friday’s, that the show would be moved to Wednesdays. We had also contacted Carter at that point asking if the move to Wednesdays meant a change at the Discovery Network. At the time, the people who had received the original memo had not heard of any changes in plans for TNA.

So Carter was well aware for more than one week of the issue and that a story was likely to be written and did not comment. She did not make an attempt to clarify it, or give her slant on it. But then company officials Bob Ryder and Billy Corgan played attack the messenger. At no point did the company actually address anything specific in last week’s issue, but seemed trying to confuse the issue and make it like this horrible guy was spreading lies about the company.

Ryder wrote: “For almost 13 years some people have predicted we were about to go out of business. It’s no more true today than it was then.”

Of course, nowhere in the story did I write TNA was going out of business. I even made it clear the story was still ongoing, only that the Discovery Network was planning on canceling TNA programming.

Corgan, a rock star as the key man in the “Smashing Pumpkins” band and a long time wrestling fan, wrote, “It wouldn’t be so bad if the whole truth was being reported and the person reporting wasn’t being worked himself by a sloppy angle.”

In other words, he was claiming there was an angle going on, which can only be presumed that TNA creative is doing a storyline where they are about to lose television, and channel the spirit of Brian Pillman. The only way this could be an angle would be to tell the Discovery Network to release a memo, tell their key management officials, and alert their advertising department, for an angle.

Well, if that’s the case, they should be proud that they managed to get the angle out. The response was identical to last year, when Vince Russo accidentally sent a memo that was meant for Mike Tenay, with bullet points on how to announce the show, and pushed the wrong button on his computer and it went to wrestling reporter Mike Johnson of PW Insider.

Johnson then revealed that it was proof that Russo was working for TNA, which TNA had attempted to keep a secret because Spike TV, its broadcast partner, had made it clear they didn’t want to have anything to do with Russo. It was right after that came out that Spike informed Carter they were not renewing at the end of their contract, but also made it clear they would keep that information quiet to allow her to have better leverage to make a new deal, and also because it doesn’t serve the station well to announce so far in advance that they have a lame duck show.

Corgan claimed to have read the story, saying, “For your info, I did read your highly irresponsible piece. And as much as I love Vinny Ru, this is a different situation.” The Vinny Ru comment had to do with me saying to Corgan his excuse was identical to the one Russo used when Johnson broke his story, and that Johnson was a dummy who had been easily worked by an angle.

Corgan clearly didn’t read the Observer last week, most notably the part about himself, because when it was then brought up, he clammed up.

While Carter avoided mentioning my name, Corgan went off on me in specific at the conference call. 

Similarly, Discovery was not planning on announcing TNA’s not being renewed publicly, although the station, a week after the story broke, had still not commented on the future or publicly given TNA a vote of confidence.”

Editor’s Note:

I’d call that a verbal smackdown…laid calmly and quietly by Dave Meltzer on Dixie Carter. #DigitalTableBump