The artist formerly known as Bray Wyatt may have a new home soon.
According to SEScoops.com, IMPACT Wresting is reportedly interesting in bringing Wyatt into the promotion.
Dave Meltzer says that iMPACT officials are “really after Wyatt.” Wyatt was released by WWE in July.
IMPACT Wrestling has announced the following changes to their announce team.
Josh Mathews Has Been Promoted To Behind-The-Camera Position; Updates On Madison Rayne Forthcoming
IMPACT Wrestling confirmed today that a new broadcast team will start on Saturday, Jan. 16, at the Hard To Kill pay-per-view, which will originate from Nashville, Tennessee.
Matt Striker will be IMPACT’s new play-by-play announcer, while D’Lo Brown will handle color commentary duties. The two also will be the announce team for the flagship weekly TV show, Impact!, airing every Tuesday from 8-10 p.m. ET, on AXS TV.
Josh Mathews, meanwhile, has been promoted to Senior Producer for the weekly TV show and all pay-per-views, and he also signed a new, multi-year contract with the company. Madison Rayne, a 5-time Knockouts Champion who provided color commentary for most of 2020, will discuss her wrestling future this weekend at Hard To Kill.
“My play-by-play career has spanned nearly 20 years – from WrestleMania to Bound For Glory to incredible moments from IMPACT Wrestling on AXS TV,” Mathews said. “Producing will allow me to have a bigger role in the overall production of our weekly show, PPVs and IMPACT+ Specials.
“This transition has been a great process, Matt and D’Lo are bringing a fresh energy and are ready to go. It was a special year in 2020, and both Madison Rayne and I will always be grateful for the opportunity and look forward to these exciting changes.”
Striker, a former high school teacher, transitioned from wrestler to wrestling broadcaster for the WWE and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide. He is a past winner of the Best Television Announcer Award, presented annually by the Wrestling Observer.
“I’ve always loved professional wrestling. It is a love that unites so many people,” Striker said. “Pro wrestling is a sport and I want to be mindful to call it as such. I’ve learned and grown so much since I began, and I thank the fans – and the critics – for that.
“It is not lost on me the opportunity that is before me – I can once again lend my voice to the sport that I love. In doing so, I’m poised to describe, analyze, and witness the most advanced athletes the sport has ever seen. I am excited, nervous, thankful, and humbled. I cannot wait to get out there. You will always be able hear the fan in me.”
Brown had an illustrious in-ring career with multiple singles and tag-team championships in numerous promotions worldwide, including the WWF European Championship (4 times), the
WWF Intercontinental Championship and the NWA World Tag Team Championship (with Gran Apolo).
“I’m very excited to join the IMPACT Wrestling broadcast booth and I know working alongside Matt Striker will be a lot of fun,” Brown said. “I believe in IMPACT Wrestling, with its amazing roster of skilled Superstars and Knockouts – and can’t wait to have the best seat in the house to call all the action.
“I’m humbled to follow the IMPACT broadcasting path of Don West and Mike Tenay, and most recently Don Callis, Madison Rayne and certainly Josh Mathews. I’m beyond grateful for this opportunity. I know there are big shoes to fill, but Striker and I will do our best.”
Striker and Brown will be ringside for the Hard To Kill pay-per-view, featuring one of the most-anticipated main event matches ever. AEW World Champion Kenny Omega joins forces with IMPACT Tag Team Champions, The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson), to face the reigning IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann and the Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley).
Deonna Purrazzo puts the Knockouts Championship on the line at Hard To Kill against Taya Valkyrie, while a three-way battle for the X-Division Championship pits Rohit Raju vs. Chris Bey vs. reigning champion Manik.
HARD TO KILL will be available on Pay-Per-View in North America on Saturday, January 16 at 8pm ET/5pm PT on InDemand, DISH, DirecTV, Vubiquity, Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Sasktel. It will be available around the world digitally via FITE TV (pre-order NOW).
PWInsider is reporting that IMPACT Wrestling saw a 33% increase in viewership for their broadcast on Tuesday night.
For TV, IMPACT Wrestling saw 221,000 viewers, up from 166,000 last week. The replay saw 166,000 viewers tune in as well, up from the 133,000. IMPACT beat the NFL on Twitch with 55,000 viewers (the NFL peaked at 30,000).
The reason for the increase? IMPACT Wrestling hosted All Elite Wrestling champion Kenny Omega for an interview with Josh Matthews. That segment has seen 140,000 views on Facebook and 240,000 views on Youtube.
AEW is expected to bring in over 1,000,000 viewers for tonight’s broadcast of Dynamite on TNT.
Update: IMPACT Wrestling has released a statement featured below.
IMPACT Wrestling executive Bob Ryder has passed away after a battle of cancer. According to PWInsider.com, Ryder was found this morning in his home. He was recently in contact with the office for IMPACT.
Ryder had been battling cancer for a few years now and outlived the 3-6 month diagnosis he originally got.
IMPACT Wrestling released the following statement late this afternoon:
Everyone at IMPACT Wrestling is heartbroken by the passing of Bob Ryder, one of its founders and in many ways the heart and soul of the promotion.
As many fans know, the very idea to create this company was born on Bob’s fishing boat, during a trip off the Gulf Coast in 2001. It is no exaggeration to state IMPACT Wrestling would never have existed without Bob’s inspiration and would not have gone on to entertain millions of fans over two decades without his passion and dedication behind the curtain.
Anyone who remembers Bob on the 1990s Prodigy chats or his role in launching 1wrestling.com or him co-hosting WCW Live! knows few people love pro-wrestling with the passion Bob did.
At IMPACT, we joked that the chair and desk at Bob’s house was IMPACT’s “mobile command center.” Every wrestler and staff member knew that if they didn’t have a place to stay, if they’d missed their flight, if their car had broken down, they could call the command center – Bob’s phone – and he would take care of it. Bob prided himself on that and being available 24/7. Even during his annual Christmas cruises, he’d carry his cell phone and laptop everywhere, so he was available to help even from the middle of the ocean.
Few people love professional wrestling with the passion that Bob did. Wrestling was his life. Since learning the news, we’ve spoken to dozens of his friends across the business and they all have said the same thing; that they’d spoken with Bob just a few days ago.
The last time we saw Bob face to face was a month ago, during BOUND FOR GLORY week in Nashville. Because of the pandemic, Bob was unable to attend the event, but the three of us were able to celebrate his 64th birthday together at a small dinner. Bob talked non-stop about the upcoming matches, how excited he was about the talent and the future of IMPACT.
He also spoke – because he seldom didn’t –about his beloved LSU athletics, particularly football and basketball.
To the end of his life, Bob was a loyal, trusted, hard-working and beloved member of the IMPACT Wrestling family. He was also infuriatingly – and endearingly – stubborn. That stubbornness steeled him in his battle against his illness. It surprised none of us who knew and loved Bob that he outlived his diagnosis by years.
During that entire time, Bob insisted on continuing to contribute to IMPACT. He refused every offer to take time off, or a sabbatical, even after chemotherapy sessions. He wanted, needed to be involved. There are a lot of people who live for pro-wrestling; with Bob it may have been literal.
IMPACT Wrestling will be celebrating Bob’s life in the days and weeks to come. We will think about the best way the honor him and the legacy he left us. For now, we will take a moment to say farewell to a member of our family.
We’ll never forget you, Bob.
Ed Nordholm & Scott D’Amore
Here is a full memorial from PWInsider:
Ryder was a true pioneer in the emerging Internet era of wrestling in the late 1990s. A lifelong fan who owned a travel agency in Baton Rouge, LA, Ryder found himself volunteering to head up the professional wrestling area of one of the two dominant online service providers of the era, Prodigy. Ryder began reaching out to personalities in the business for interviews and hosted the first-ever online WWF chat at Wrestlemania 11 in Hartford, CT with Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash. He would also regularly travel to live events for WCW and ECW, providing live coverage for Prodigy chat rooms, even paying to have a specific phone line installed in the ECW Arena for those events to insure he would be able to get online in the jurassic days before Wifi.
In his role as the head of Prodigy Wrestling and later as the founder of 1Wrestling.com, Ryder would break a number of major stories at the time, including Bret Hart’s decision to leave the WWF for WCW. As the owner of 1Wrestling, which he founded with Joey Styles, Ryder would often write editorials that would rankle those in positions of management in professional wrestling. His infamous RAW IS PORN column following an angle where Mark Henry would have a run-in with a transvestite friend of Chyna, drove certain people in Titan Tower at the time absolutely crazy.
Ryder parlayed his Internet reporting into a position for World Championship Wrestling, working on their website and hosting WCW Live with Jeremy Borash nearly nightly with broadcasts online before and after Nitro and Thunder. Borash and Ryder were actually the final voices heard on any WCW broadcast as they closed out after the final Nitro in March 2001.
Ryder also purchased the original domain for the ECWWrestling.com website when Paul Heyman didn’t have the time or ability to put a website together, with our own Dave Scherer overseeing the day to day of the site.
Ryder was extremely vocal privately about his concern that the deaths of WCW and ECW would lead to a monopoly on pro wrestling, leading to his suggestion during a fishing trip with Jeff and Jerry Jarrett that the timing was right for another company, leading to the June 2002 launch of TNA Wrestling, now known as Impact Wrestling. Ryder was the first and probably the longest-running employee for the company, handling contractual negotiations with talents, timing out shows, handling travel and a 1,001 other hats that were required of him. Even after he became ill, Ryder still worked on the road until his health didn’t allow that and worked all the way to his passing from home.
Bob truly loved Impact Wrestling and knew where all the bodies were “buried” so to speak. He did everything he could to help keep that company running, including once getting the entire talent roster to convert their contracts, personally doing it over the course of one afternoon at a TV taping in 2015, in order to keep the company financially viable. Over that afternoon, only one talent refused, and that talent remained to finish out their storylines before departing.
The entire trajectory of professional wrestling on the Internet would have been completely different without Bob Ryder. He once planned to write a book about his time in the business titled “How I Killed KayFabe” but later pulled back on the idea and stopped writing, privately noting that he didn’t want to anger and upset those he had worked with around wrestling by telling stories as he remembered them, stories that likely will never be revealed.
PWInsider.com would like to express our deepest condolences to Bob Ryder’s brother, his friends and everyone who read his work.
John Morrison returned to WWE last year after 8 years away from the company. During his time away, Morrison went on to become the Lucha Underground champion, IMPACT Wrestling Champion, worked for Triple A and other organizations all around the world.
When Morrison left WWE in November of 2011. He talks about the reason he returned to WWE was that Lucha Underground had closed.
“So when season four of Lucha Underground ended? They have some stuff on their contracts where there’s a tail” John Morrison began on the podcast.
“The tail doesn’t start until the episodes stop airing, so I’d signed with IMPACT… When everything was free and clear? I decided ‘I’m a free agent again, completely free like no ties anywhere. I’m going to figure out where I want to go.’” John Morrison continued. “So I talked to WWE, and I talked to AEW.”
What made Morrison sign with WWE? He said he talked to Vince McMahon and had a good offer from them. “I had a really good conversation with Vince and they made me a really nice offer. And, I ended up taking it.”
The lawsuit filed by Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Entertainment (Parent company of Global Force Wrestling) against IMPACT Wrestling’s parent company, Anthem Sports & Media, Inc, has been delayed by the court. According to PWInsider, the trial, which started last week, has now been postponed due to growing concerns of Covid-19.
The trial is set to resume on July 21, 2020 by Chief Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. According to to the report, the judge and representatives for both parties will be having a conference call on July 10.
The Jarrett/Anthem lawsuit is over the Global Force Wrestling AMPED master tapes that Anthem acquired during a failed merger between Jarrett’s company and Anthem in 2017. Jarrett alleges that Anthem did not have the authority to air AMPED on Pay-per-view. Anthem also deleted the master copy of the tapes before Jarrett’s Global Force was able to regain ownership of the tapes and copyright the content.
Bully Ray has been with Ring of Honor Wrestling since 2017. It was recently revealed that Bully was not offered a new contract. According to Dave Meltzer, ROH is just not offering new deals to performers who’s deals expire during the pandemic.
SEScoops writes,
“Bully Ray’s contract expired and he wasn’t given an offer for a new deal because ROH isn’t offering people new deals right now,” wrote Dave Meltzer. Bully signed with ROH in 2017.
“Nobody whose deals are up are getting new offers right now,” Meltzer continued.
IMPACT Wrestling has been teasing Bully Ray’s return to the company on TV recently.
“So, Jimmy, you might want to bring your autograph book because I just got the scoop. Someone who we didn’t even think was available might be coming, I’m just saying,” Callis said on a recent Impact post-show stream. “I’ll say this, I learned a lot from him, Jimmy, I learned a lot from him from 99 to 2001, do your homework, everyone. All you internet people out there, you figure out, who am I talking about? Who’s undergone some changes recently?”
The legal battle between TNA Wrestling founder Jeff Jarrett and the current owners of IMPACT Wrestling Anthem Sports is coming to a head. The judge presiding over the case has set a trial date of June 30th, pending the Covid-19 situation.
Jarrett and Anthem Sports have been battling over the intellectual property of Global Force Wrestling. Jarrett founded Global Force Wrestling in 2014 and after failing to land a TV deal, Jarrett attempted to merge with Anthem Sports in 2017. Jarrett became the Chief Creative Officer and would gain a minority share in the new IMPACT Wrestling/Global Force Wrestling corporation.
Jarrett left Anthem in September of 2017 and subsequently the merger between Global Force and Anthem was called off. Anthem went ahead with plans to air footage that Jarrett shot in Las Vegas called Global Force Wrestling: AMPED!.
Jarrett is not claiming that Anthem did not have the proper permission to use the footage or distribute the content. Anthem then deleted the master copies of GFW: AMPED! and Jarrett was unable to get the footage copyrighted.
The judge presiding over the case ordered the two partied to go through mediation. The two parties were unable to come to terms in mediation, hence a trial date of June 30th. Since leaving Anthem in 2017, Jarrett has worked for the WWE in a creative capacity.
IMPACT Wrestling airs on AXS TV.
Rey Mysterio was recently written off WWE TV with an injury angle. According to Dave Meltzer, this angle was done in case Mysterio does not renew his WWE deal.
The word on the street is that Mysterio’s current deal is a massive money deal and it is not currently known if WWE would be willing to make a similar deal with the lucha libre legend. Mysterio signed an 18 month contract in December 2018.
It is interesting to note that Mysterio is a partial owner of the slow starting Lucha Libre company, AroLucha. Arolucha was launched by Aroluxe media, former investors of IMPACT Wrestling, in December of 2017. Mysterio was announced as the star of Season 1 and a partial owner, but season 1 has yet to be taped. The Nashville based Lucha company is running another event on July 10, 2020, if it isn’t cancelled due to Covid-19.
Mysterio’s contract is coming to an end close to the next Arolucha event. He could be heading to the company he has an ownership stake in. AEW could also benefit from Mysterio’s signing.
PWINSIDER and TMZ are reporting the following new detail regarding the alleged sexual assault by former WWE and TNA Wrestling champion Alberto Del Rio/ Alberto El Patron.
The FOX affiliate in San Antonio first reported the arrest of Chucuan, 42 years old. The FOX article stated that the victim reported to local authorities on 5/4 that the previous evening, Sunday 5/3 at 10 PM that Chucuan allegedly became angry with her and physically assaulted her after accusing her of infidelity. When the victim would not admit to the infidelity, Chucuan allegedly slapped her “across the head” several times. The victim also alleged that Chucuan “forced her to wear a dress and dance for him” and that when she refused and he told her not to start crying because if she did, “he would take her son and drop him in the middle of the road somewhere.”
The arrest affidavit stated that the woman alleged Chucuan had sexually assaulted her and that she had her injuries documented via photographs.
FOX’s report noted, “Police said Rodriguez Chucuan then tied the woman’s hands with boxing straps, put a sock in her mouth and sexually assaulted her for several hours, using various objects. According to investigators, he also punched her in the back during the assault, causing visible injuries. The victim told detectives she does not remember much after he placed his hand around her throat.”
TMZ’s report brings the accusations into a much more disturbing light, stating that the victim reported the attack started at around 10 PM on 5/3 and that it lasted over 16 hours, ending on 5/4 on 2:30 PM. The victim went to the police the same day with TMZ’s report noting that the responding officer saw bruises on her face, arms, legs and neck.
The victim alleged that Chucuan attempted to burn her passport and smashed her laptop computer and cell phone. TMZ reported that the victim, “..also claims Del Rio attacked her, causing multiple injuries and left her, ‘feeling woozy and dizzy from the hits to her head.’ ”
The victim told police she is afraid and intends to leave San Antonio as soon as possible.
Chucuan was taken into custody on Saturday 5/9 at 11 AM local time. He was released on $5,000 bond (which means bail was $50,000) at 5:29 PM local time yesterday. If he is found guilty, the minimum prison sentence for sexual assault under Texas law would be 2 years. As a second degree felony under Texas law, sexual assault can also lead to a fine of up to $10,000, in addition to incarceration. He does not yet have a court date scheduled.
Chucuan is best known publicly as former WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio in WWE, formerly Dos Caras in Mexico and who has wrestled as Alberto el Patron in Impact Wrestling and fought under that name last year for MMA group Combate Americas, where he also holds a figurehead executive position.