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It’s been a week of questions, answers and more questions when it comes to TNA wrestling, with more releases, explanations and a house show fiasco.
The week started when, just before the 7/18 tapings in Louisville, Bruce Prichard, who was both head of creative and head of talent relations, officially quit TNA. This came on the heels of D-Lo Brown, a road agent who handled most of the house shows, being let go.
While those were the big names, perhaps, from a public standpoint, the most alarming move, only because it came right after the company had assured talent that there were no financial problems, was releasing Jesse Sorensen on 7/23.
Sorensen, 24, was nearly left a quadriplegic in a February 12, 2012, match at the Against All Odds PPV. Sorensen was wrestling Zema Ion in an X Division top contenders match, when Ion did a flip dive off the top rope to the floor, and landed badly on Sorensen’s head. Sorensen suffered a C-1 vertebrae fracture and spinal cord edema.
Sorensen eventually recovered fully the use of all his limbs and has been able to live a normal life. He was given a job behind the scenes, working in both marketing and as a television production assistant.
The company had set up an angle for a triumphant return to the ring for Sorensen, with him scheduled to beat Ion for the title at Bound for Glory. However, Sorensen was not able to return to the ring by that time, which led to Rob Van Dam winning the title.
Sorensen was no longer even talked about as returning to the ring this year. Instead, he had talked of training to compete in bodybuilding contests, which didn’t have the kind of physical demands of pro wrestling.
While Sorensen was not a major player in the company, from a public confidence standpoint, this only made the perception worse. Sorensen was not a highly paid employee so the savings to the company was minimal when it comes to savings, and the feeling was that he had suffered a broken neck and life changing experience performing for them. The story is he was earning more than someone else they could hire for the same position.
“After a long recovery process and being promised by the President of TNA Wrestling, Dixie Carter, I would always have a job with her company, I recently was released from my current contract and shown that these promises were false,” wrote Sorensen this week. “During my time away from the ring, I decided to pursue bodybuilding and have been prepping for the Hurricane Bay bodybuilding show in Tampa, FL., on October 5, 2013, but now due to my recent release, I will have to drop out of my show.”
Sorensen was attempting to raise money through donations to allow him to continue to prepare and compete in the show. The amount he was hoping to raise was $600.
The Sorensen cut came shortly after the company didn’t renew the contract of Ashley Cabot, 27, who wrestled as Madison Rayne, who was on maternity leave, and was expecting her first child in August.
While appearing heartless from the outside, this is not unusual with pro wrestling. The worst in-ring injury of the last 15 years, short of deaths, in a major U.S. promotion was to Darren Drozdov, who ended up in a wheelchair for life after suffering a broken neck in an October 5, 1999, match at the Nassau Coliseum at a television taping for Smackdown against D-Lo Brown.
Drozdov was a quadriplegic, but eventually regained movement in his arms. WWE employed him, but eventually dropped him from regular employment when his contract expired. He sued the company. But he ended up settling, and having an affiliation with them where he did work for them for many years on the web site. Drozdov has never said anything negative about WWE or their treatment of him.
TNA had asked Prichard to restructure his contract and work for less money and he decided against it.
TNA tried to spin the story that they want all the major executives and the key decision makers to live in Nashville where the corporate offices are, and Prichard wasn’t going to move. Let me know when Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff move to Nashville. It’s just a way to publicly cover that they’re going through major cost cutting.
Brown was told that he would be taken off regular salary and that they needed to change him to a pay per show deal, which he agreed to. A few days later, on 7/15, he was told that things had changed and they had to let him go. Pat Kenney was the road agent at the shows this weekend, and they had a disaster right off the bat.
Before the TV tapings on 7/18, there was a meeting with all the talent and the entire office staff was there, most of whom don’t ever come to television tapings or shows. It was the first almost any of the talent had seen Jeff Jarrett in a long time.
Dixie Carter ran the meeting and tried to put a positive spin on everything, saying the cuts were decisions that had to be made for the improvement of the company and product. She tried to explain the late pay by talking about certain things that had happened that wouldn’t happen again, and that it’s all been taken care of. She denied there were any significant financial issues, claiming they fell behind on pay because they taped so many One Night Only PPV shows in a short period of time in Orlando a few months back. Others in the company have said it is the expense of taping on the road every two weeks and that more cuts could be coming. The former story comes across better because it’s something that was done and was temporary. However, the entire idea of doing all those tapings over a few days was with the idea it was greatly saving money by not doing live PPVs, and with so many working multiple shows in a short period of time, it would save on transportation for those outside of Orlando.
The mood among talent was really bad the night before, because they knew of the cuts and many had been paid late and a lot of people saw that as a bad warning signs. A lot of the talent sent feelers through intermediaries to WWE pretty much when Tara got cut. It was one thing when a prelim guy or guys in training were cut, or when someone asks to leave, but Tara was a veteran with a current TV role and they had already cut way back on the women’s roster. The 7/20 show in Cape Girardeau, MO, was a complete embarrassment.
First, the show drew about 250 fans. Apparently, somebody in TNA management dropped the ball big-time. In theory, it would be Bruce Prichard’s department, but a number of wrestlers booked on the show didn’t get licensed.
TNA has been in Missouri before, has been aware of the regulations, and has never had issues in the past. The performers on those previous shows were all licensed ahead of time.
Performers in Missouri need to be licensed. They also need blood work done, and they are tested for Hepatitis and HIV, within 30 days of the first show they work in the state. The test is good for six months. Women’s blood tests are also used for pregnancy tests.
In the St. Louis area, a lot of the indie groups will run their shows across the state lines in Illinois to avoid the commission, because indie guys have to pay for the tests themselves, and for those without health insurance, the tests are going to cost a lot more than they can make wrestling.
The company sent no paperwork to the commission in advance and brougt no paperwork with them, so the commissioner felt he had no choice. It was also noted how they ran the same night as Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling in East Carondelet, IL, the Herb Simmons promotion that runs monthly, and the attendances were pretty much the same.
Kenney came out to start the show and announced that a number of the advertised wrestlers would not be allowed to perform by the commission due to licensing issues.
He said they would be doing an extended autograph signing session at the show with the wrestlers who couldn’t perform, and that everyone who stayed until the end of the show would be able to meet all of the wrestlers. He also offered refunds, which he probably had to do given so much of the advertised talent wasn’t appearing.
Those who were not allowed to appear were Chris Sabin, Garett Bischoff, Wes Brisco, Jay Bradley and the women’s match with Gail Kim and Miss Tessmacher, none of whom had valid licenses. Gunner was issued a license two weeks earlier.
The show opened with James Storm coming out and he challenged anyone backstage to a fight. Bully Ray came out to accept. Shouldn’t that have been done the other way where Ray challenged and then you got Storm coming out? Devon distracted Storm and Ray got the pin after hitting Storm with a chain.
Devon vs. Gunner was next. They weren’t serious at all. Lots of stalling. Ray interfered and Devon got the pin. Storm made the save. Storm then issued them a challenge for a Cape Girardeau street fight and agreed to put up the titles.
Next, Samoa Joe beat Bobby Roode with a choke.
In the tag title match, Storm & Gunner beat Team 3-D when Storm pinned Devon after a superkick. A lot of comedy with Team 3-D doing the Kane & Bryan act of yelling at each other and hugging it out.
The main event saw Jeff Hardy pin Kurt Angle clean with the twist of fate. Angle had working shoes on. The entire show only went 90 minutes.
At the post-show meet and greet, Sabin wasn’t there, but everyone else was.
Those in WWE have been noting that John Gaburick, who already bought a house in Nashville to move, must be having second thoughts, given that as soon as he arrives, all the cuts start happening. This would go for anyone in WWE who was thinking of making a move to TNA for whatever reason.
Gaburick at least at this point is taking over Prichard’s role as head of talent relations as well as taking over for Kevin Sullivan heading the television production. With Gaburick in the role, Al Snow’s role in talent relations has been dropped (he was Prichard’s assistant and worked closely with developmental) but Snow will remain a road agent. Sullivan was released recently when Gaburick was hired for his position. There is no word on how Gut Check will be handled without Prichard.
As far as head of talent direction, nothing is official, but it appears Eric Bischoff as the Executive Producer of television will be in charge, with David Lagana and Matt Conway as the writers.
Regarding Lisa Varon (Tara), who was cut last week, the story on her is that they had to make cuts, she was the highest paid of the women wrestlers and was also the oldest and so that’s what happened. She’s been working mainly on the restaurant she and her husband Lee run in Chicago called “The Squared Circle,” which has a pro wrestling theme and they promote coming there to watch Raw, PPVs, Impact and other shows.
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The Impact “Destination X” show on 7/18 headlined by Bully Ray vs. Chris Sabin, did a 1.18 rating and 1.48 million viewers, a rise of 25% from the previous week. It was the biggest audience to watch Impact since 1/31.
Part of the reason may be the promotion of the show like it’s a PPV on free television and the several week build to the title match. What is also likely a key reason is that Spike aired multiple episodes of COPS as a lead-in, and from 8-9 p.m., both episodes did 1.4 million viewers, so the increase may be as simple as a lot more people were watching the station beforehand. TNA never gets that kind of a lead-in usually. It was a little of both as the show started at 1.16, meaning it was helped greatly at first by the lead-in. It followed a normal pattern of growth until the main event, which gained 166,000 viewers and finished at 1.31. Since Impact often loses viewers at the end, that kind of growth says that there was way, way above normal interest for the Bully Ray vs. Chris Sabin title match than for a normal Impact main event. Given that Sabin had not shown any special signs of being over, that tells me that it’s a credit to building a match up as something big for weeks at a time instead of making a main event early in the show. Now, you can’t do that all the time because then the concept won’t mean as much, but it worked great here.
Regarding the Sabin win, they’ve been building toward it for months and it was planned a long time ago. The downside is that Sabin didn’t get over big on his return even though they told the story. He did have a great match where he regained the X title from Austin Aries in the three-way with Manik in Las Vegas on 6/29 in Las Vegas. Under any kind of normal circumstances, the idea of Sabin, who had been used as a prelim guy and wasn’t even over special for his spot, winning the title would be preposterous. But this is TNA, and with the exception of a slight increase when Jeff Hardy was champion, it really doesn’t matter who holds the title and the title means almost nothing to begin with. One thing about that match is there’s been some criticism at times of Sabin’s work in the past from people brainwashed that only one style is right, even though in the Machine Gun days, he and Alex Shelley’s matches almost always got over big based on their in-ring. But he worked a completely different kind of match with Bully Ray, all based on selling his knee and doing comebacks, and was great at it. The rematch will be a cage match like on what will be billed as the Hardcore Justice television show, the show that will air almost live (two hour tape delay) on 8/15 in Norfolk.
Estimates for Slammiversary are looking at 13,500 or so buys, down about 7% from last year’s show. At this point it’s clear that cutting back on shows doesn’t make a major difference in getting more people to buy them. Lockdown was up a little from last year and Slammiversary was down a little, but ultimately they’re remaining in the same ballpark.
Scott D’Amore, who headed booking years back and was the manager of Team Canada, was at the tapings in Louisville largely to see Sabin, who he first trained and who he helped get his job in TNA, win the title.
Tom Prichard, who is Bruce’s older brother, said several months ago he was called by TNA about what it would take for him to move to Louisville and work at OVW as a trainer. He said after the discussion, they told him they’d call him “Monday” to work out the deal. What they failed to tell him is that in TNA, they work six day weeks and the only Monday that is on their calendar is during a leap year.
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
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