Impact tonight on Pursuit Channel and on Twitch – 10/9c
* Impact World Championship: (C) Johnny Impact vs. Killer Kross
* Rich Swann vs. El Hijo del Vikingo
* Ethan Page vs. Trey
* The Desi Hit Squad vs. The Rascalz
* Impact Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie returns to action
Impact Wrestling announced that they’ve renewed their broadcast deal for Mexico with Mexico City-based MVS Comunicaciones MVStv.
“Hot off the heels of a pair of successful events in Mexico City, we are thrilled to extend our partnership with MVStv to broadcast our premier content across Mexico,” said Ed Nordholm, president of IMPACT Wrestling. “We had more than 30 million social media engagements in Latin America across our YouTube, Facebook and Twitter platforms in 2018. We are very pleased that our fans in Mexico will now have an opportunity to see our full lineup of original content.”
MLW also announced an international television deal, as they will partner with Ananey Communications to bring MLW’s flagship weekly series, MLW: FUSION, to Israel on Ego Total.
“This is the perfect home for Major League Wrestling as we keep on our track as the fastest growing wrestling property in sports,” said MLW CEO Court Bauer. “As a combat sport league, this is a great fit for us and for our partners. We’re excited to bring MLW to Israel each and every week.”
“As the home of professional Wrestling in Israel for the past decade, we are proud to add MLW to our broadcast roster and looking forward to a great partnership,” said Adi kfir Ego Total Vice President.
The first episode will air on Ego TV in Israel on Tuesday at 6:10 PM local Israeli time.
– MLW also announced that World Heavyweight Champion Low Ki defending his title against “Filthy” Tom Lawlor will headline the MLW: SUPERFIGHT live national televised special emanating from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia on Saturday, February 2nd. Also added to the show was Puma King vs. Gringo Loco. The live broadcast begins at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Fans can buy tickets starting at $15 at https://www.MLWgo.com. Bell time is 7:15pm.
Source: WrestlingINC
As reported on Wednesday, Impact Wrestling Hall of Famer Abyss (Chris Parks) and Impact veteran Sonjay Dutt have left the company to take jobs with WWE.
In an update, Parks and Dutt are being hired for behind-the-scenes roles in WWE, not as performers, according to PWInsider. There’s no confirmed word yet on what those backstage roles will be but there has been a push as of late to hire new Producers, and they continue to hire staff for the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, and now the new UK Performance Center in London.
It sounds like we could see more wrestling veterans sign with WWE for behind-the-scenes roles in the coming months as they look to keep the developmental system stocked with a variety of styles. Triple H was asked about staffing the UK Performance Center during a media call this week. He called is an ongoing process. He was also asked what they learned from staffing the main Performance Center. He revealed that they are already seeing talents improve after running the UK PC for a few weeks.
“The staffing of it is an ongoing process, and is kind of a switching out process where we’re sending people in and taking people out, and moving them in,” he said. “I think part of that is also helpful to get the variety of different opinions and training, and all of it. As far as what we’ve learned, obviously the Performance Center in the UK is a different size and scope, it’s a scaled down, slightly, version of what we have in the US. There’s not as many people, not as much demand on space and time, and everything else. We don’t yet have the need to have as much… I’ll give you an example – language training, and things like that. So space for training people language-wise. Different opportunities that as time goes by, will expand and grow. We knew what the basics are of what we need to train them in, we knew how we wanted to protect our health and wellness, we knew the things that we needed to accomplish there, and we were able to get them nicely in the space that we had. You know, we obviously were over there launching it and kind of showing it off to everybody, but we’ve been using it here for a little bit and kind of functioning, and I see the clear difference in talent already. In just their point of view, and how they’re understanding things, how they’re executing them. It really made a big difference, and even for us from a production standpoint. It’s headed in the right direction but it’ll also be a work in progress as we move forward to make sure that as that grows, the UK brand grows, all of it continues to morph and grow along with it, to provide what it needs.”
We noted before how Impact officials confirmed the departures in an e-mail to the roster earlier this week. Both departures were said to be amicable and it was said that Impact officials did not want to hold back both men from pursuing better opportunities that were offered by WWE. It was noted today that Impact had to release them from contracts in order for them to be able to sign with WWE, and the internal feeling was that there was no positive in forcing them to stay.
Dutt had been working with the Impact creative team and Abyss, the longest-tenured performer in company history, had been working as a backstage producer. There’s no word yet on when they will start working with WWE.
Source: WrestlingINC
As seen above, All Elite Wrestling Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes revealed the premiere episode of “The Road to Double Or Nothing” on his YouTube channel tonight.
The video reveals that AEW has signed up & coming indie star “Jungle Boy” Nate Coy (Jack Perry). The 21 year old is the son of actor Luke Perry of 90210 fame. He made his debut on the California indie scene back in 2015. It was rumored that AEW had offered a two-year deal but Jungle Boy brought his father and their lawyers to the negotiations, deciding on a shorter deal. The length of the deal has not been confirmed.
Regarding the big AEW Double Or Nothing event on May 25 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Cody said he’s not sure who he will wrestle yet. There will be a Double Or Nothing Ticket Announcement Party on Thursday, February 7 at 6pm local time from the MGM Grand Hotel. The party will be streamed live online.
Cody also talks about Chris Jericho signing with AEW and how AEW is looking to build the roster up with fresh talents.
Source: WrestlingINC
https://twitter.com/MattJackson13/status/1088622504896122880
Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega almost ended up signing with Impact Wrestling, according to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Impact Co-Executive Vice President Don Callis, who is good friends with Jericho, was reportedly very close to signing Jericho and Omega to contracts before All Elite Wrestling brought their offers to the table.
Jericho recently revealed that his AEW contract is the best deal of his pro wrestling career. Omega is expected to sign with AEW once his New Japan Pro Wrestling contract expires on January 31, however his signing has not been confirmed.
The Observer notes that before AEW was the plan, the idea was for Omega to keep working for NJPW and then do 30 dates per year for Impact. Jericho would have worked for Impact while working another year for NJPW since he would have had so much input on his creative plans. Jericho recently confirmed that he will continue to work with NJPW in the future.
Jericho recently spoke about signing with AEW on his “Talk Is Jericho”podcast and discussed his talks with Impact. Jericho praised Callis and Scott D’Amore for what they’ve done with the company, adding that he really enjoys the product these days.
“I’ve gotta tell you guys, man, I’ve been really impressed with Impact over the last year,” Jericho said. “I thought Don Callis and Scott D’Amore have really turned things around in that company, and I really, really enjoy it. And I thought long and hard about doing some shows there. I even had a meeting with Scott and Don in Toronto, and Ed Nordholm. The offer they made was a great offer. That’s something that’s funny when I hear all these companies are vying for the talent, for the free agents – WWE, AEW, Ring of Honor, New Japan, and someone mentioned MLW. Dude, what about Impact? They’ve got money. They were going to spend some money on Chris Jericho. We had some great matches planned. Jericho vs. Sami Callihan maybe, or with Johnny Impact, Brian Cage, Rich Swann. I’d love to work with Rich Swann. I did honestly talk to Impact and really, really thought about going there. And then Tony Khan came in with this offer, that’s the biggest offer I’ve ever been offered in my career.”
Source: WrestlingINC
Pro Wrestling Sheet has confirmed Abyss and Sonjay Dutt recently split with Impact Wrestling and it’s believed they’ll be joining WWE.
PWInsider first reported news of their exit and reports are that both wrestlers were allowed out of their deals to pursue other options recently presented to them.
Pro Wrestling Sheet reports that the Impact talent was notified of the change this yesterday via email.
According to sources, Konnan and Tommy Dreamer will replace them on the creative team.
Abyss, who was the longest tenured person on the roster and a recent Impact Hall of Famer, had been working as a backstage producer. Dutt was working closely with Don Callis, Scott D’Amore and Jimmy Jacobs on the creative side of things.
It’s unclear at this point if Sonjay and Abyss will be working in backstage positions at the WWE Performance Center or elsewhere in the company.
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
Impact tonight on Pursuit Channel and on Twitch – 10/9c
* LAX vs. oVe
* Rich Swann vs. Trey
* Jordynne Grace vs. Dark Allie
* Eddie Edwards vs. Ethan Page
* Scarlett Bordeaux select winner of talent search
* Heath update on Taya Valkyrie
Kenny Omega appeared at the Tokyo Sports Awards earlier this week and wished good luck to All Elite Wrestling.
“I cannot tell the future. I would like to say good luck to AEW. It is going to be amazing. I am interested because it is a group of friends of mine. Since they are my friends, I have no choice but to support,” Omega said, according to a Google newspaper translation from Japanese to English.
Omega also said he won’t be on the Tokyo Sports stage next year, for New Japan, but that he “would still be putting on Match of the Year performances on a large international platform,” according to a translation by Chris Charlton.
It’s believed that Omega will sign with AEW over WWE once his NJPW contract officially expires at the end of this month. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported that Omega already turned down an offer from WWE.
Source: WrestlingINC
Impact Wrestling star Matt Sydal was pulled from a Warrior Wrestling event earlier this month due to an injury. No additional details were known until yesterday when Sydal announced he is having surgery next week to repair torn cartilage in his knee. Sydal noted he should be back to in-ring action by March or April.
Over the last week, we’ve heard many of the names that will comprise All Elite Wrestling’s active roster. From Cody and The Young Bucks to Hangman Page and Chris Jericho, the roster is taking shape and fans can expect a solid product in the ring.
But there hasn’t been as much discussion about the behind-the-scenes personnel involved with AEW. Outside of Billy Gunn being a producer, we haven’t heard much else about the agents, production staff or writers.
There’s a good reason for that as Cody Rhodes said that the promotion isn’t looking to hire writers any time soon. Cody had an interview with sescoops.com where he said the “wrestlers are the writers” and talent doesn’t need to be micro-managed.
“We’re talking bullet points, we’re talking an overall knowledge of the business, and hey, let them go out and play,” said Cody. “Take a look back at the wrestling you and I love. For the most part, they’re all grown men and women doing what they were hired to do. They’ve cut their teeth, they’ve paid their dues and now they’re going to go out there and play their music. I would very much like a presentation that mirrors that. We don’t need to micro-manage and we certainly don’t need to script a great deal of the product we’re planning.”
Cody said he has good relationships with lots of available writers/producers out there including Eric Bischoff, Bruce Prichard and Jim Cornette. But for now, he plans on keeping things in-house and let the talent be the driving forces behind AEW Creative.
“This is probably going to be an unpopular thing to say, but I will say it. There won’t be a writer hired for All Elite Wrestling any time soon,” admitted Cody. “Because wrestlers are the writers. We’re the writers. Like I said with guys going out there and playing their own music, believe me – the day comes that I see ‘this is something we can really benefit from’ – absolutely, but I knew 40 writers in WWE and about four of them actually did anything. The reason I remember them and value them, they helped produce pre-tapes, they were team players, so right now that’s one thing we’ve gotten a lot of questions about. We’re keeping it very in-house for now.”
Some of this could be due to budget concerns or it could be, as Cody said, many writers don’t actually do much to impact the product. As of now All Elite Wrestling has just one event on its schedule with Double or Nothing in May, so there is also not likely a need for a writing team at this time.
Source: WrestlingINC
Wrestling News Blog 