Moving their TV product to the obscure outdoors-focused Pursuit Channel was clearly not Impact Wrestling’s first choice. According to WrestlingInc, they had talks with Syfy, TruTV and WGN America before landing on Pursuit, which is co-owned by Impact’s parent company, Anthem Entertainment.
Now the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported the strangest might-have-been of all. Apparently forces within Impact and Anthem tried to sell the company to All Elite Wrestling, the new company that was probably founded by Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, and Tony Khan, co-owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. I say “probably” because AEW hasn’t announced their existence yet. We only have a name for them because of trademark filings, although the official announcement may be coming on New Years Day. In any case, the newly formed company reportedly turned down the offer to buy Impact, which would make sense if they’re attempting to brand themselves as something new and exciting on the wrestling scene.
Meanwhile on the Killing the Town podcast, Impact’s Co-Executive Vice President Don Callis did his best to put a positive spin on Impact’s move to the Pursuit Channel:
This week we announced our move from Pop TV which was a great partner for us. A lot of fans thought, “Wow, you guys should be on a different network with a different demographic” so we announced this week we’re moving to Pursuit which is an exciting thing for me. When you talk about how you deal with your content as a company because our parent company Anthem owns not only the Fight Network and Game TV, they also own a significant stake in Pursuit. It’s a great strategic move for us, and I think people are going to love to see a sexier, edgier, maybe even a little more hardcore IMPACT Wrestling. I’m really, really pumped about that.
I know that when I was watching Eddie Edwards trying to beat Sami Callihan to death in the woods, or soulless Allie killing Su Yung’s minions with a hatchet as blood spattered on her face, I was thinking “Gosh, I wish this was edgier and more hardcore.” It is true though, that being on a channel owned by the same company may give Impact more room to experiment. Here’s hoping that experimentation gets them enough interest to get back on a channel that people have and watch. As I’ve written about at great length this year, the Impact product has been quite good for a while, but their history is clearly dragging them down nonetheless..
