If there’s one question on the tip of the internet wrestling community’s tongue, it’s “is Impact Wrestling canceled, or what? Because I mean –”
News of Impact’s cancelation on the Destination America channel broke last week, and was immediately denied by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. They even threatened legal action!
Yesterday, Destination America was all, “please welcome Ring Of Honor wrestling to Wednesday nights,” and the conversation became, “is Impact still being canceled, or is DA building a pro-wrestling block on Wednesdays? More work for the boys means better business, and so on!” Wednesdays have already kinda become smark armageddon, with NXT, Lucha Underground and now Ring Of Honor all running shows.
According to this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it’s the first one. Instead of formally announcing Impact’s cancelation (which isn’t a thing television networks really do), they’ve instead opted to simply not renew. Here’s what the memo allegedly says:
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 [Do Not Advertise] list.
The way the story is going, we’re expecting TNA and/or Destination America to come out and say the memo is a fabrication, and sue for defamation. Then in the third quarter, poof, Impact is gone. I want to see a version of Impact that doesn’t have a television deal and tours, but still pretends like it’s on Destination America because America is their destination. Or they could just become an international touring company and make a ton of money carting Gunner or whoever out in front of UK crowds. They could become a global force, you might say.
We’re excited to continue to follow the story, and update you this afternoon about Dixie Carter parachuting into the Destination America offices.
