00:00 Multiple people shockingly released from TNA!
00:03 The wrestling return of disgruntled Andrade!
00:06 WWE star kicked out of a show and more.
00:09 I'm Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:19 Happy 10th Betray Your Brothers-iversary, everybody!
00:23 Because yesterday 2nd June marked 10 years since Seth Rollins turned on the Shield-oo
00:28 Kingslayer by hitting Roman Reigns in the back with a chair.
00:31 A moment so impactful in wrestling history, Roman's still losing matches because of
00:36 it 10 years later.
00:38 Get over it, ya big dog!
00:40 But did you know Seth's heel turn was a relatively last minute change after loads
00:44 of last minute changes?
00:46 First they were just going to unceremoniously break up the Shield in the 2014 Royal Rumble
00:50 match, then it was going to be Dean Ambrose that did the turn, and then, out of nowhere,
00:55 reportedly because of a single bad Monday Night Raw rating, Vince McMahon hot-shotted
01:00 the angle and had Seth break the faction up.
01:03 Open up Patreon.com/wrestletalk in the link down below to watch mine and Luke's 20 hour
01:09 plus series diving into the first half of WWE in 2014 and all the other weird stuff
01:16 at the time.
01:17 Can I get a cheap plug in the comments?
01:19 Also 10 years ago, TNA was in the creative and commercial pits.
01:23 The Hulk Hogan and following Dixie Carter authority figure eras had been failures, and
01:28 the company would totally run out of money at points over the next three years, where
01:32 they were reportedly not able to pay some people on time.
01:35 Somehow, 10 years later, TNA still lives, after being bought and saved by Anthem Entertainment.
01:42 And this year has seen some of the promotion's biggest ever achievements.
01:45 Their rebranding from Impact Wrestling back to TNA at January's Hard to Kill was the
01:49 promotion's most successful pay-per-view since Genesis… 2006.
01:56 And they opened the Prohibitive Portal when Knockouts Champion Jordan Grace appeared in
02:01 the Women's Royal Rumble match in WWE, bringing a whole new relevance to the initials TNA.
02:09 Success which the parent company Anthem celebrated by firing its longstanding much-loved President
02:16 Scott D'Amore.
02:17 The TNA locker room even sent a very well written open letter to Anthem management asking
02:22 for them to reconsider.
02:24 TNA started to fade in relevance again, until a shocking development on the 28th May episode
02:29 of NXT - where still Knockouts Champion Grace appeared to be Roxanne Perez's NXT Women's
02:35 title challenger at Battleground.
02:38 Reports quickly came out that WWE and TNA had a genuine working relationship, where
02:43 WWE contracted talent were set to appear on TNA programming soon.
02:48 Pre-sales for their Slammiversary pay-per-view that same week saw them get their best numbers
02:54 in a decade.
02:55 Success which their parent company Anthem celebrated by firing everyone behind the scenes.
03:03 PWInsider has reported that TNA's longtime creative director David Sahadi was let go
03:08 after being with the company for 18 years.
03:11 Following this news, Fightful Select revealed that RD Evans, who has been considered the
03:15 head of creative since D'Amore was released in February, left by his own decision after
03:20 growing frustrated with Anthem in recent weeks.
03:23 An email was reportedly sent out thanking Evans for his work, and that he had handed
03:27 in his notice.
03:29 The other big departure is that of Lou D'Angeli, better known to old ECW fans as Sign Guy Dudley,
03:35 which PWInsider have described as "truly shocking".
03:38 He had been working as the Vice President of Marketing at Anthem Sports for TNA, and
03:43 was one of the driving forces behind bringing in Naomi and almost getting CM Punk and Mercedes
03:48 Monét over the last year - apparently at one point trying to make a Monét vs Mickie
03:53 James match happen.
03:55 PWInsider writes that D'Angeli's relationship with Anthem had frayed in recent months, specifically
04:00 around the company being slow on confirming touring dates.
04:04 D'Angeli was apparently pushing to try new things for the live event, but Anthem ultimately
04:08 told him they were moving forward without him, which he was said to have agreed with.
04:13 The backstage reaction to D'Angeli's departure has been a mixture of disbelief and sadness.
04:19 Wrestling Observer Radio has described an uncertain future for TNA following the cuts.
04:24 "They have no marketing team.
04:26 They have no live events team.
04:27 They have nothing booked after they have a taping booked in Tampa, but there's nothing
04:31 after that."
04:32 Looking at the TNA live events page, that taping in Tampa is the 2nd and 3rd of August,
04:38 aka Summerfest weekend.
04:40 So right now, they only have two more months of dates.
04:44 So what is going on?
04:46 As usual, it seems to come down to a simple case of money.
04:51 It's hard to know exactly how TNA's weekly programming is performing, because recently
04:56 they haven't even ranked in the top 150 shows on TV.
05:00 That means they are doing less than a 0.01 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which translates
05:06 into around only 19,000 viewers for the whole country.
05:11 Not in total viewership, remember, just in that important demographic.
05:14 For comparison, AEW and NXT did a .24 and .23 respectively last week, and Raw and SmackDown
05:20 did a .55 and .56.
05:23 That means TNA is between 23 to 56 times smaller than WWE and AEW's programming.
05:30 F4WOnline has said "Clearly the company is going heavy into cost savings mode right
05:35 now, but this has been called more than cutting to the bone and actually cutting bone."
05:41 Cutting bone, title of your next indie pay-per-view.
05:43 And it seems this cost savings mode is at odds with the vision of D'Amour, Evans and
05:48 D'Angeli, who wanted to grow the promotion.
05:50 There's a lot of speculation over the future now of TNA, mostly centred around a change
05:55 in ownership.
05:56 Anthem reportedly already rejected D'Amour's pitch to buy TNA earlier this year, a move
06:01 that happened at the same time they were starting a relationship with WWE - even down to calling
06:06 their pay-per-views "premium Leather Vets".
06:09 So perhaps there's a chance of WWE buying TNA if only for the tape library, which they
06:14 were rumoured to be doing back in 2016 before Anthem bought the company outright.
06:19 Where could the truth be behind this TNA/WWE super plot?
06:22 I know, I'll use the wrestling ring!
06:43 Where perhaps in TNA, Andrade will finally be happy.
06:47 After years of bad booking on the main roster, Andrade requested his release from WWE in
06:52 March 2021.
06:53 He debuted in AEW several months later, and by the following September, was seemingly
06:58 upset behind the scenes there too, where he reportedly tried to get himself fired by starting
07:02 a fight with Sammy Guevara backstage.
07:04 He was suspended instead, and Tony Khan let his contract expire at the end of 2023.
07:11 He then returned to WWE in the 2024 Royal Rumble, now with Triple H leading creative.
07:17 And four months later… he seems to be disgruntled once again.
07:21 It started on Saturday, where he was asked on X about getting caught in the Santos Escobar
07:26 LWO Latino Vortex.
07:28 Why do they always make Latinos fight among Latinos?
07:31 Don't you know of another one?
07:33 To which Andrade replied "I WONDER THE SAME!!!"
07:42 So far so mildly controversial.
07:44 So the next day, he took it up a notch by posting on X all the other places he's wrestled,
07:49 including AEW.
07:52 The real Latino man.
07:54 AEW, CMLL, AAA, with pictures of him in all three of those promotions.
07:59 Funnily, Tony Khan might've responded to the second one, as he posted a gif from Scott
08:03 Pilgrim shortly after that read "See?
08:05 I'm not such a bad guy after all."
08:08 Perhaps either referencing how Andrade gets frustrated easily, or that AEW's booking
08:12 of Andrade was better than what he's had in WWE so far.
08:16 Or it's all just one big Worky McWorkface, like the curious tale of NXT wrestler Brooks
08:23 Jensen.
08:24 Last week, Jensen updated his social media to include his booking email details, implying
08:28 he was preparing for life outside of WWE.
08:32 Which isn't such a shocking idea, seeing that his faction with Briggs and Henley split
08:36 up in December, and there's been a bunch of NXT releases over the last few months.
08:41 He also posted about Sexy Red being on NXT, saying "It hurts when you once bust your
08:46 ass off in the Performance Center for recognition and to be respected by your bosses and peers
08:50 only to be exiled and see this crap."
08:53 And he was also seen at a non-televised live event on Friday sitting at ringside holding
08:57 the sign, saying "Brett would book this better."
09:00 Presumably a shot at NXT's head of creative and sworn Brett enemy Shawn Michaels.
09:06 Security then confronted Jensen, and he was ejected from the show.
09:10 Fightful selectors now reveal that this is all part of a storyline for Brooks, and it
09:14 will soon become a featured part of NXT programming similar to Grace and Waller's feud with
09:18 Michaels last year.
09:20 Before NXT, though, WWE tried to revive another promotion as its third brand, and within four
09:26 months it was an absolute disaster.
09:28 Here's a clip from Luke Owen's documentary on who really killed WWECW.
09:34 Watch it now by clicking the link down below.
09:36 Now what if you took those three letters, stripped back all the things that made it
09:40 special, took apart its very essence, dismantled its entire principle and point, and what you're
09:46 left with is WWECW.
09:49 WWE's incredibly cynical cash-in on a best-selling DVD.
09:55 A brand that was destined to die before it even began, suffered death by zombie bites,
10:01 untimely arrests and a dreadful elimination chamber on one of the worst pay-per-views
10:06 of all time, all in its first six months.
10:11 Then it limped on for another four years to an embarrassing end.
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