Global Force Wrestling: Bound for Controversy... Again
- Sep 9, 2017
- 6 min read
TNA under controversy and their future in doubt? Must be Bound for Glory season.
Note: I use Global Force Wrestling interchangeably with TNA Wrestling and Impact Wrestling. You can change the name, but you're still the same company you ever was.
So… I guess we’re doing this again.
With reports are that Anthem is “hemorrhaging funds” with the Global Force Wrestling venture, it seems that TNA’s biggest annual show is going to have some very dark clouds over it for the fifth year in a row. You can almost set your watch to it.
It’s getting to be old hat at this point, but I’m struggling to remember a time in recent memory where Bound for Glory didn’t have at least a bit of controversy heading into the event. Don’t believe me? Let’s us count the ways.
2013. The budget cuts.
In the three months leading to Bound for Glory, the following people were let go in an effort to cut costs, either by firing them outright or letting them walk (either through granted releases or allowing their contracts to expire): Madison Rayne, Taeler Hendrix, Joey Ryan, Christian York, Crimson, Doc (Gallows), Todd Kenely, Jesse Sorensen (through a settlement that prevented him from suing the company after suffering a career-ending neck injury on their watch), Mickie James, Tara, Matt Morgan, and Bruce Pritchard.
Despite this, TNA brought in famed MMA fighters Tito Ortiz and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson for an angle mandated by Spike TV and Bellator. It was to set up an eventual bout between the two—a bout that never took place.
But the biggest loss (or gain depending on how you look at it) came three weeks before the event when Hulk Hogan, the central figure of the company for the past four years, decided that that was enough and he was heading home for one last WWE payday. It’s widely believed that Hogan even engineered his own exit , to the point where he didn’t even bother making TNA look good on the way out.) Oh well, the good was that this definitely freed up some money as he was making a reported $35,000 per appearance.
The bad was they didn’t bother giving some of that money to AJ Styles, who had been with the company since it was born. He too was asked to take a paycut, and Uncle Allen was like… nah. Oh, and by the way, AJ won the TNA world title while his contract was in limbo. So… good job.
2014: The cancellation.
On July 15, Vince Russo accidentally outed himself as an under-the-table consultant for TNA when he cc’d an email to PWInsider’s Mike Johnson. I’m not saying this directly caused what went down 12 days later, but it’s hard it’s hard to put two and two together and not get four.
In the late hours of July 27, TMZ broke the news that Spike TV was cancelling Impact once their current television deal expired in September. Vince Russo being with the company as a secret consultant pissed off many, including the wrestlers, management, Wrestle-1, and Spike TV themselves.
This by the way comes a little over a month after what many reviewers called one of the worst episodes of Impact ever. And that covers a lot of ground.
Spike eventually played nice with its soon-to-be former wrestling promotion by giving them until the end of the year while they looked for a new home. Spike also thanks them by leaving them to rot on Wednesday nights with little or no promotion.
At least Bound for Glory went off without a hitch… a half a world away on tape delay in Tokyo. Two of its champions wrestled on the show… both of whom had lost their titles before making the trip. Then-world champion Bobby Lashley didn’t even make an appearance on the show.
But it’s okay, everyone! Just before the year ended, TNA found a new home in Destination America. Destination America is carried in only about half the homes that have cable. Spike TV is available in four in five homes that have cable.
2015: Get cancelled again.
Just six months after finding a new TV home, said TV home Destination America tells TNA the network will exercise their out clause effective September. For the second straight summer, TNA’s television—and promotional—future is in the air. Then-TNA president Dixie Carter reacts to the news quite well, calling executives at Destination America dummies in an email. The email is inexplicably cc’d to the network’s president. And she called the president of Discovery Networks (the parent company of Destination America) a dummy. I mean…
The company has a second summer roster bloodletting in three years. From June 25 to August 24, Low Ki, James Storm (a TNA day oner), Magnus (their world champion one year prior), Austin Aries (their world champion two years prior), Taryn Terrell, Awesome Kong (though she would walk it back), executive vice-president Andy Barton (who had worked for Dixie Carter before TNA even existed), Bully Ray, and MVP were all leaving or have left the company.
I almost forgot: Shawn Hernandez was fired from TNA because he showed up on their programming while still under contractual obligation to Lucha Underground. TNA head of talent relations John Gabruick was not punished for this egregious error.
Oh, and as it turned out, they weren’t just cancelled in the States: their programming was pulled from Discovery channels in Latin America and Europe. And they would lose their TV deal in Germany and Austria.
Oh, and only 280 tickets were sold for Bound for Glory, quite possibly the last ever TNA show ever filmed as there was no house show on the schedule after that event. Hell, their first house show of 2015 was in September.
But it’s all good everyone: not only did Destination America let TNA play out the string (in late nights, no less), they landed a new TV deal just before Thanksgiving, going to the POP Network, the former TV Guide Channel. At least they’re on in more TV homes.
2016: Who owns TNA anyway?
The story of TNA leading to last year’s Bound for Glory is so complicated, I’m sure I’ll miss a few details. But basically, Panda Energy had long stopped funding Dixie’s little plaything, so she was looking for some longterm investors. Unfortunately, Dixie still wanted to keep a majority share of the company, so she couldn’t find anyone.
But why would anyone want to do business with Dixie considering the company had been littered with lawsuits around this time. Among the parties that sued TNA: Billy Corgan, Aroluxe (their production company who bought a minority stake), Audience of One Productions (their former production company), American Express, MCC Acquisition Company, an affiliate of Anthem Sports and Entertainment, BankDirect Capital Finance, and the State of Tennessee.
Billy even tried to buy TNA at one point, but the deal was not only never finalized, Corgan would for all intents and purposes be pushed out the company when Anthem, the company that funded Bound for Glory literally on the weekend of the show, ended up buying the company. Oh, and they brought back Jeff Jarrett to run it. And they rebranded it Global Force Wrestling. Because of course they did.
2017: There’s no end, is there?
Which brings us to the news that broke this week: PWInsider reports that Anthem is bleeding money and they are considering selling Global Force Wrestling. As it turns out, wrestling programming isn’t exactly cheap, and there is speculation that The Fight Network had to scale back some of their programming to pay for GFW…
…which Anthem may not even own the rights to. PWInsider reported yesterday that the GFW/TNA merger was nowhere as done as it was first reported, as Global Force Wrestling, LLC still own the trademarks. If this is true, then Jeff Jarrett could take the letters with him. Yeah, they may have raised the profile of GFW, but who would even want to work for them?
Running concurrent with this is the speculation that Jarrett may be on the outs with the company, and his act at Triplemania this past weekend may be the last straw. Jeff may have had a little too much sauce and went out to AAA’s biggest show in no condition to perform. TNA performer under the influence of something being unable to perform at a big show… I feel like I’ve heard this story before.
Look, I have been openly rooting for this promotion’s demise for years. Yes, I fully understand the consequences of what that means, especially for the performers, but it isn’t nearly the death sentence it was back in 2001. It’s not like TNA/Impact/GFW was ever a threat to challenge the WWE at any point in their existence. But at this point, a heavy price has to be paid for all the misdeeds of this promotion, and that bill’s long overdue. But like past years, I’m sure they’ll kick out at two and put on a Bound for Glory event that will likely be met with indifference.
But it probably would be in the best interest of all involved to just fade away and classify themselves as obsolete.
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