For the last few weeks, much of the discussion in the wrestling world has focused on the ongoing lawsuits regarding TNA Wrestling and its chairwoman Dixie Carter. From being sued by American Express, having a tax lien from the state of Tennessee, to current TNA Wrestling president Billy Corgan attempting to take over operations, the focus isn’t on the great product the talent has been producing, but on the ineptitude of a neophyte who ran the company for years.
This week saw the first in what will possibly be months of court hearings regarding the future of the company and the unsealing of court documents. The documents were damning and showed, albeit from just one side, the inner workings of TNA and just how bad things have gotten. According to the documents that were obtained by Pro Wrestling Sheet editor Ryan Satin, Corgan stated that he bailed TNA out on numerous occasions, with the last one featuring an “agreement” that if the company ever became insolvent, he would assume full control of the company.
“Impact Ventures and Mrs. Salinas (Dixie) also entered into an equity pledge agreement with plaintiff, whereby Mrs. Salinas pledged 100% of her equity interest in Impact Ventures to plaintiff as security for Impact Ventures’ performance of its obligations,” according to the documents that were unsealed on Tuesday.
In addition, Corgan stated in those documents that he had no idea about Anthem Sports & Entertainment (the parent company of The Fight Network in Canada, which airs TNA Programming) giving Carter the funds to put on Bound for Glory and their last set of tapings. Apparently, TNA reportedly owes $3.4 million to Anthem, its production company Aroluxe (who also owns the TNA name, a make-good for the company not paying them back) and MCC Acquisitions. Another hearing will be held on Monday to determine whether a restraining order that Corgan wants on Carter, her husband and other TNA officials will continue.
This is all happening with tapings that were supposed to tape place this coming week cancelled due to funding issues.
To Carter’s credit, TNA’s legal team responded to the Corgan claims.This is from Pro Wrestling Sheet:
They (TNA’s legal team) claim that Corgan used his loan as a way of strong-arming himself into the role of President.
The lawyer’s add, “He then purported to use Ms. Salinas’s own voting power to terminate the individual defendants, including Ms. Salinas (Carter), from the company’s Board of Managers and install himself as Impact’s sole manager.”
TNA also claims that Corgan is attempting to “prevent the business from repaying his loan and to prevent Ms. Salinas from selling her controlling interest in the company to anyone else.” Explaining, “If plaintiff succeeds, he will next try to seize Ms. Salinas’s 92.5% interest in Impact and obtain true control of the company at a cost to him far below the amount at which he has recently valued the company and far below the company’s true value.”
Here is the current ownership structure in TNA:
Dixie Carter- 92.5%
Aroluxe- 5%
Anthem- 2.5%
So we now have a fight for the company and a controlling owner who sold off parts of the company to different entities. However, those entities have no idea how much they really should own. We have the president of the company loaning the Chairwoman– not the company – money and expected something that apparently was not ever going to happen. Add in the numerous wrestlers and employees of TNA that have no clue what is going on and you officially have a mess the likes of which has never been seen in the modern era of wrestling. The last months of WCW in 2001 wasn't this bad and tabloid newsworthy.
TNA Wrestling has been a mess ever since it lost its Spike TV deal, a point that was well discussed inside The Wrestling Observer newsletter. Since then, you had a negligent owner who surrounded herself with yes people that have absolutely no idea what is going on. On an episode of the Something To Wrestle With podcast, former Senior VP of TNA Bruce Pritchard told stories of alleged tax withholdings being taking out of his paycheck, ignored phone calls for important matters and other stories that showed how poorly ran TNA was and is. After listening to the almost three hour podcast, it's shocking to believe that the company is still around to this day.
In the end, this fight will continue even past this week’s court hearing. Corgan has some valid points and Carter...quite frankly doesn’t have many. She played Corgan and in the end, she may win because it seems that nothing was ever legalized and set in stone concerning their reported agreement. Everyone is hoping that Corgan wins since it seems that he has the company’s best interest at heart, but we will not know a victor right away. Here’s hoping that TNA keeps the door open and remains an alternative for those who do not want to work for the machine called the WWE.
