TNA NEWS
-Impact Wrestling crowned a new champion this week, as Ethan Carter III defeated Kurt Angle to become the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. The Wolves also defeated Bobby Roode and Austin Aries in the final match of their Best-of-Five series to become the new TNA tag team champions.
-TNA is airing the ‘Knockouts Knockdown’ special as July’s ONE NIGHT ONLY PPV. The event features a guantlet match to crown the “Queen of the Knockouts”, Awesome Kong vs. Andrea, Mia Yim vs. Brooke, Cherry Bomb vs. Gail Kim, Havok prior to her release from TNA and more.
-Kurt Angle noted in a recent Q&A that if he were to retire – which will likely be happening in the next couple of years, if not sooner – he’d like his final match to be against WWE’s Daniel Bryan. Speaking of Angle, apparently he’s known about the tumor in his neck since 2012. It wasn’t causing any issues and may have been safer to just leave it in place for the time, but now it’s begun to put pressure on a nerve and has to be removed. Given that Impact has already been taped for the next two months, he may not miss any time off at all.
-Andy Barton, a long-time senior executive with TNA who has been with Dixie Carter since her pre-TNA company, has officially parted ways with the promotion.
And that’s where the EASY news ends as far as TNA is concerned. It’s time for yet another round of, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN TNA!?”
The big question right now is, just what the heck is going on with Jeff Jarrett and Global Force Wrestling? After showing up on last week’s Impact, winning a brand new title belt at Slammiversary, and being inducted into the Hall of Fame (set to air on a future episode of Impact), Jarrett’s GFW brand announced the signing of the recently released Magnus and the still-employed (so far as we know) Bobby Roode.
So what’s the deal? About a month ago, Tyrus was signed up to work GFW live events before being pulled from that at the last minute; tensions have been high as Dixie Carter did not want TNA talents working for the promotion, which caused some drama from Karen Jarrett on social media in her direction. It’s incredibly unlikely the two sides made up, but business is business and we have certainly seen stranger bedfellows in pro wrestling before.
Talent is said to have no idea what is going on. Rumors range from a one-time talent lend, to a full-on invasion angle, all the way up to Jarrett and Toby Keith buying out the company. Given TNA’s history, and penchant for being less than honest (ei. outright lying to the press) it’s pretty much impossible to tell at this point. The hard thing for workers is that we’ve seen this kind of thing before – when WCW was in its collapsing years, the roster had no idea what was going on, and it made everyone extremely uncomfortable, to the point where many just packed their bags and headed elsewhere. Obviously we have already seen that with a few names.
