More details continue to come out regarding Scott D’Amore being out as the TNA President and Anthony Cicione replacing him, leaving talent upset with management.
Departure
D’Amore had a dispute with management before his release, and since Len Asper, the head of Anthem, had the final say, it was D’Amore who was going. D’Amore went to Anthem with an offer to buy TNA outright with the backing of a major banking institution, but it was rejected.
The wheels were in motion for D’Amore’s termination a month before it was announced.
Attempt
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that D’Amore made the offer to buy TNA before Hard To Kill, TNA’s most successful pay-per-view event in several years.
“So the timeline of everything, just to make clear, is that while the announcement of Scott F’Amore being gone was basically like a week ago, the decision was made before Hard To Kill. So it wasn’t as if they, like all of a sudden, had big success with Hard To Kill. And then they got rid of Scott. They’d already made that decision beforehand and Scott knew. The attempt to purchase by Scott D’Amore was in response to knowing that he was going to be gone. It was not like he tried to purchase the company but got turned down. And then they got rid of him. It was he knew that they were making the decision to cut him and Ed Nordholm, who is an executive with Anthem, and he had been working with TNA and both of them had been trying to get, you know, Anthem, spend more money on the product to you know, try to try to expand, they made plays for Will Ospreay, they made a play for CM Punk, you know, making plays for, for bigger name, guys. I mean, they did get Nick Nemeth, who started in the last set of shows, but the decision on D’Amore was already made before the pay-per-view was so successful. “
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