As noted earlier this week (via PWInsider), Impact Wrestling executives met with WWE officials last week. Mike Johnson discussed the story on PWInsider Elite audio. “Interesting little rendezvous last week in Stamford, CT,” Johnson said.
The folks at Impact were not happy that the news got out. Johnson continued, “They had a sitdown with members of the Triple H executive team at Titan Tower. I can tell you Impact wasn’t happy I found out.”
Impact is denying that there were any talks to sell the company. Keep in mind that Impact previously denied when Dave Meltzer reported that they were being canceled by Destination America in 2015 and they denied that they were up for sale before Anthem bought the company.
Johnson added, “The one source at Impact that I spoke to was very steadfast [saying] ‘we were not talking about selling the company and we were not talking about selling the library. They didn’t say they weren’t talking about licensing the library.”
It’s possible that they were just there to discuss licensing of Impact Wrestling footage. For whatever it’s worth, Impact has begun negotiations to lock in wrestlers to longer deals so that can be taken as a good sign by some people. However, you can argue that they would need to lock people into new deals so they can show that they are stable whenever they enter business negotiations.
Impact is on a barter deal with Pop TV and they have yet to announce a new TV deal for 2019 so they aren’t making much from the U.S. deal. At this point, their main source of revenue is coming from India. Johnson wondered what would happen when their TV deal in India expires. “The India deal is what they’re hinging on. When their India deal is up, that’s gonna be where I wonder what’s gonna happen with them.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit PWInsider with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
