Saturday night former TNA/Impact Wrestling World Champion “Cowboy” James Storm and Impact Wrestling & MLW star Ace Austin appeared at World Wrestling Alliance event in Evansville, In.
Storm had also competed briefly for WWE NXT.
Also W.W.A. had their version of a War Games match and young independent star Corey Storm (who turns 18 years old on Friday) was in action and more.
Below are photos and videos from the event.
Back in January at Impact Homecoming, Blanchard lost the Knockouts Championship to Taya Valkyrie with former Impact Knockouts Champion Gail Kim as the guest referee. Towards the end of that match, Blanchard attacked Kim out of frustration and would get hit with Kim’s finisher, eat defeat, allowing Valkyrie to win the title.
The long rivalry between Tessa Blanchard and Gail Kim reached a boiling point on last night’s Impact after Blanchard demanded an apology from Kim. In the video above, Kim apologized for what happened with them and would resign from her position in Impact management. Blanchard continued to taunt the Impact Hall of Famer until she was informed Kim has come out of retirement for a match.
The two will now meet at Impact Rebellion on April 28 at the Rebel Complex in Toronto. Below is the updated PPV card:
https://twitter.com/IMPACTWRESTLING/status/1111842989171707906
Impact World Championship
Johnny Impact (c) vs. Brian Cage
Tessa Blanchard vs. Gail Kim
Tonight Impact presents “Against All Odds” at 10/9c airing on Pursuit, Twitch and FightNet.
* Killer Kross vs. Brian Cage
* Gail Kim to apologize to Tessa Blanchard
* Scarlett Bordeaux vs. Glen Gilbertti
* Rosemary head to The Undead Realm
* Impact Knockouts Championship: (C) Taya Valkyrie vs. Jordynne Grace
Former Impact Wrestling World Champion, Eli Drake, recently sat down with The Wrestling Perspective podcast to talk about his status with the company. After revealing that his contract has nearly expired, Drake mulled over some potential options on where he may be performing next.
Drake looks back at his past year in Impact Wrestling as one of his more lackluster ones. He believes that one of the sole reasons he’s been kept on TV and relevant is because of his ability to talk on the mic.
“There is a way to keep a talent elevated even while you’re elevating others… I’ll be honest, the exception over the last few months, I’ve been written kind of in to oblivion in the last year,” Drake said. “Fortunately, the fact that I can speak has kept me over – has kept me relevant to some degree. But otherwise, a lot of it stemmed from the fact that it was believed that I was leaving. I even thought that I was going to be leaving. At the last minute, I did an inventory of everything and I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to stay here.'”
Despite challenging for the Impact World Title throughout the Spring of 2018, Eli remembers his place on the card being lowered after signing this most recent contract with the company. In the more recent months with Impact, he’s been more engaged by the stars he’s worked with, like Abyss and Eddie Edwards.
“I was thinking, there’s probably going to be a level of happiness and appreciation and, ‘Oh great, well now we can use him in this great way!’ And then it was like, no, we’ll feed him to Joe Hendry. And I’m like, why?” Drake asked. “And in the last couple months, I’ve enjoyed myself very, very much – the stuff with Abyss, the stuff with Eddie, everything’s been good…[But] if you watched this show between last April and this past December, you’d have no idea I was the World Champion the year before. And that’s where I think there is a giant disconnect, for my character in particular.”
Drake saw recent rumors about WWE’s interest in his talents, and although he’s flattered, he’s confused where the rumors originated from. Eli does indeed have friends within the company, even some of the coaches, but there hasn’t been any formal offers from WWE.
“I looked at [the rumor that WWE was interested in Eli Drake], and I’m like, ‘Well, nobody’s contacted me! So, what’s the source?'” Drake joked. “I mean, I’ve talked to people there that I’m friendly with, or, whatever, certain coaches that I’m friendly with and stuff like that. Definitely people have been like, ‘I think you would do well here’, but nobody has overtly made me an offer. There was nothing like that.”
Even if he was potentially offered a contract by WWE, Drake explained that he wants to weigh all of his options before making a final decision on where to go when his contract with Impact expires. He even mentioned how AEW is an option that he may look in to.
“I know AEW is out there, all of that stuff, so, the fact is, there’s a lot of options at this point,” Drake explained. “This is a time where, truth be told, I run up on May 31 at Impact, so, if that’s the case, it’s time to start thinking about what options I have, things like that.”
You can listen to the full interview at link below.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ehjeq-abda29
Sources: The Wrestling Perspective and Wrestling Inc.
Lucha Underground and indie wrestling star, Ivelisse, has been using Twitter as of late to express her frustration with her contracted employer. The former two-time Trios Champion previously said that she has asked for her release from the company but continues to be denied, even claiming that she’s being “held hostage” by LU.
In Ivelisse’s most recent tweet of the situation, she questions why she is unable to work for Impact Wrestling if the two companies have been producing joint projects together. Casey Michael, owner of Squared Circle Sirens responded to Ivelisse’s tweet, calling her out for a previous statement she made about Tessa Blanchard.
Blanchard would actually add herself to the mix of messages, explaining to readers that Ivelisse once implied that a part of Blanchard’s success is her father’s doing.
Ivelisse began by writing, “Since the collaboration between brands, not once included in any of these joint projects, and when they did contact me out of the blue for a program, they canceled the night before I flew out for no reason whatsoever. Soooo uummmm, again, let me GO.”
Casey would then respond with: “Maybe it’s cause you s–t talked Tessa big time on an IG comment. I fail to see how everyone else on LU can work anywhere but they are “holding” Ivelisse.”
Lastly, Tessa would add: “Her exact words to me were “I never had a family name, I had to work for everything I have from the streets.”
I have dealt with people like that since I started and I am much stronger than those people.”
You can read the full tweets below:
https://twitter.com/Tess_Blanchard/status/1109871514948636672
Another Lucha Underground star, King Cuerno (aka El Hijo del Fantasma), previously took the time to file documents in Los Angeles against the El Rey Network and Lucha Underground’s production Baba-G Productions. In it, Cuerno’s lawyers claimed that LU’s contracts “illegally restricting” wrestlers from finding work in wrestling is in violation of California law.
Documents sent to Pro Wrestling Sheet detailed how wrestlers under contract make money based on the shows they appear on, and it doesn’t add up to much. You can see that statement below:
By contrast, Lucha Underground broadcasts between 22 and 40 television episodes per year, with no live events like the other described wrestling promotions. If a wrestler appears on a show, it is usually just a couple. The payment per episode is usually less than $1,000.
The current contract that wrestlers signed with Lucha Underground require that wrestlers not perform services for other wrestling companies anywhere in the world without Defendants permission, but does not require Defendants to use Plaintiffs in their wrestling-theme television show.While Plaintiffs are obligated to restrict their trade under the contract (which is illegal), Defendants are not required to use or pay Plaintiffs. Defendants have the option to use Plaintiffs, and IF Defendants use Plaintiffs, Defendants will pay Plaintiffs. IF Defendants chose not to use Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs are prohibited for working for years, are not paid, but still under the restrictive contract until it expires.Most wrestlers under a Lucha Underground contract make less than $4,000 a year. Wrestlers working for other wrestling promotions make a living wage, usually starting around $50,000 a year and entering either 6 or 7 figures.
Source: Wrestling Inc.
PWInsider reports that Jeff Jarrett and his legal team have filed a motion asking for an extension that will give them until April 12 to submit an update on where things stand with the lawsuit Jarrett and Global Wrestling Entertainment have filed against Impact Wrestling’s parent company Anthem. Anthem’s attorneys have agreed to the request, which is due to Jarrett’s travel schedule, responsibilities his legal team has unrelated to the suit and international travel required from Anthem’s attorneys. All of the issues prevent all of the parties from meeting for a conference. They are currently figuring out a time to meet.
Jarrett and GWE are suing Anthem and Impact for Anthem allegedly violating state and federal trademark infringements in relation to GWE and violating Jarrett’s exclusive property rights to his own name, photograph, and other likeness. Jarrett says that Anthem prevented him from filing copyrights for the Amped footage, so he had to provide footage in order to do so and Impact/Anthem deleted all of the master recordings. Anthem admitted that they had had the footage in their possession and deleted all of it in the “normal course of business” so that they could “free up storage space.”
Source: 411Mania
Scheduled for this weeks Impact airing on Pursuit, Twitch and FightNet.
* Eddie Edwards & Eli Drake vs. Fallah Bahh & KM
* Johnny Impact to explain why
* Moose vs. Trey
* X-Division Championship: (C) Rich Swann vs. Sami Callihan
* Willie Mack vs. Ethan Page
* Ace Austin in action
* Allie’s last appearance on Impact
Impact Wrestling has re-established its partnership with Ohio Valley Wrestling and will look to the company for their stars of the future.
The press release states:
IMPACT Wrestling announced today that it has re-entered into an agreement with Louisville-based Ohio Valley Wrestling to serve as an official development and training territory for IMPACT Wrestling.
The announcement of the renewed partnership follows the success of the co-promoted One Night Only: Clash in the Bluegrass event, a sold-out show from Davis Arena in Louisville, Kentucky, which featured stars from both organizations.
Executive VP Scott D’Amore was quoted in the release saying, “It is great to work with Al Snow and the team at OVW, which has a long history of developing great talent.”
OVW is the former developmental territory for WWE. Alumni include John Cena, Brock Lesnar and reigning IMPACT World Champion Johnny Impact. The company previously was the home for Impact’s developmental talent from 2012-2014.
Snow acquired Ohio Valley Wrestling in June 2018.
According to the announcement, IMPACT Wrestling management will look to OVW when scouting new talent and “those on the development roster will see future opportunities to appear on the flagship weekly show IMPACT!”
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
Despite how it may have sounded to some … Santino Marella says his comments about transgender women in wrestling were about AMATEUR, not professional wrestling.
As we previously reported, Santino recently spoke on an Impact Twitch stream about how he dislikes intergender wrestling. He then shifted the conversation to transgender women and said “There’s cases now in MMA and wrestling where there’s trans girls that were born boys that are beating the sh*t out of females and that’s wrong.”
Marella reached out to Pro Wrestling Sheet to clarify that he was NOT talking about pro wrestling in this moment. “In legitimate combative sports, I don’t want to see women get hurt unnecessarily,” he tells us. “Professional wrestling welcomes everybody”
Adding, “I consider myself an ambassador to professional wrestling and my view has always been that it is welcome to all, I have gay students. I have trans students. I have students from every race and creed, we are all one big happy family.”
The video of his original comments can be found at link below.
https://player.twitch.tv/?autoplay=false&video=v395009798
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
We are working on getting Jerry Jarrett for an upcoming episode of the Wrestling News Blog Podcast. For those unfamiliar with Jarrett, below is some information on his background history in professional wrestling.
Jerry Jarrett is the father of WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett and former co-owner of what was known as the Memphis Wrestling territory. Jarrett is a key figure in the history of professional wrestling in the Mid-Southern United States. Described as a “wrestling genius”, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Alliance Hall of Fame in 2009.
Jarrett founded the Memphis, Tennessee-based Continental Wrestling Association in 1977. In 1989, Jarrett merged his promotion with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling, creating the United States Wrestling Association, which Jarrett sold to Lawler in 1997. He made another foray into promoting in 2002 when he co-founded NWA:TNA with his son Jeff Jarrett, selling his controlling interest to Panda Energy International later that year.
Jerry Jarrett was exposed to the wrestling business at a very early age. His mother worked as a ticket vendor, and Jarrett began selling programs for a promotion owned by Roy Welch and Nick Gulas at the age of seven. After receiving his driving license at fourteen, he became a wrestling promoter, renting buildings, advertising shows, constructing the ring, selling tickets, and stocking refreshments. He worked as a promoter until he left Nashville to attend college. Upon graduating, Jarrett worked for Welch and Gulas as an office assistant and became a referee by default after a referee no-showed. He soon returned to promoting, working his way up from local promotions to regional, then national promotions.
While working as a referee, Jarrett decided to become a wrestler and was trained by his friend and future tag team partner Tojo Yamamoto and veteran wrestler Sailor Moran. He wrestled his first match in Haiti in 1965.
Jarrett became a successful wrestler in the South, particularly in his home state of Tennessee, forming tag teams with Jackie Fargo and Tojo Yamamoto.
After a dispute with Gulas in 1977, Jarrett opted to break away and found his own promotion, the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA). With the support of Buddy Fuller, Jerry Lawler and his mother, Jarrett built the CWA into a successful promotion, staging events each Monday that regularly sold-out the Mid-South Coliseum and airing television shows each Saturday morning on WMC-TV. In 1981, NWA Mid-America folded due to competition from the CWA with Gulas selling his territory to Jarrett.
In 1979, The Freebirds wanted Jarrett to allow them to play Freebird on their entrances. They first tried it in the Mid-South Coliseum along with twirling the house spotlights. So Jerry Jarrett became one of the first promoters to use music and videos to promote his roster of wrestlers.
In 1984, Jarrett entered into a talent exchange with Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling promotion. Jarrett and Lawler advised Watts to bring more young performers into his territory to attract a younger generation of fans; especially females since they bring their boyfriends to the shows.
In 1988, Jarrett entered talks with Verne Gagne, owner of the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based American Wrestling Association, about a potential merger. After the talks were abandoned in 1989, Jarrett instead entered into a merger with the Dallas, Texas-based promotion World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) to create the United States Wrestling Association.
The United States Wrestling Association began promoting shows in Tennessee and Texas in 1989, with Jarrett aspiring to take the promotion national. In 1990, WCCW withdrew from the USWA after a revenue dispute, folding shortly thereafter.
In 1992, the USWA began a talent exchange program with the World Wrestling Federation. By the mid-1990s, attendances at the Mid-South Coliseum had fallen sharply, and in 1995 Jarrett sold his stake in the promotion to Jerry Lawler and Larry Burton.
After stepping back from promoting, Jarrett worked as a consultant for both World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the WWF.
In 2001, Jarrett put together proposals for acquisition of WCW, calculating that he could return the company to profitability by aggressively cutting costs. The company’s assets were, however, acquired by the WWF after its programming n TBS and TNT was canceled.
After the sale of World Championship Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation and the bankruptcy of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the North American professional wrestling industry lacked a viable competitor to the WWF which Jerry and Jeff Jarrett attempted to fill with the formation of NWA:TNA. On May 9, 2002, the Jarretts announced the formation of J Sports and Entertainment (JSE), the parent company of NWA:TNA, a new professional wrestling promotion that began airing weekly pay-per-views on In Demand on June 19, 2002.
In October 2002, JSE sold a 72% controlling interest in NWA:TNA to Panda Energy. Jarrett remained part of the NWA:TNA management team until departing in late-2005 over a dispute about the direction of the company.
Jerry Jarrett now hosts the podcast Booking Memphis along with Sean Reedy.
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