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Obviously, the major news is the departure of Drew Galloway and the Hardy Boys, but with TV taping scheduled for this week, there is other TNA news, Hardy-related and beyond.
In an email sent out to the roster this week, the company officially announced that Dutch Mantel was now head of creative going forward. It was noted that John Gaburick would be remaining with the company as a consultant and would still be at TV tapings running the gorilla position, but beyond giving feedback to the new creative team, will not be involved in the company's creative end going forward.
Jeff Jarrett will oversee everything as the Chief Creative Officer. We have heard he won't be on TV anytime soon, but I would be shocked if the company didn't utilize Karen Jarrett as an on camera personality as soon as this week's TV tapings.
PWInsider.com has also confirmed that former creative team member Matt Conway has indeed officially left the company.
Also leaving the company is long-time employee Bill Banks, who worked in WWE and WCW creative before working in a number of different positions for TNA. We are told Banks' departure is not a result of the company changes, but a decision to return home to the Northeast and start a new chapter in his life.
In regard to the Hardys' exit, there has been talk today within the company that the entire "Broken" gimmick is TNA's intellectual property and if they decide to pursue that, it could obviously cause some static with the Hardys. The company email to talent did acknowledge that the Hardys reconsidered TNA's offer and were seeking outside offers. One story that made the rounds among wrestlers today is that when the Hardys received their contracts, it was for two years, not the agreed upon one year. In regard to the Hardys receiving their contracts so late, one source claimed that the company attempted to get in contact with Jeff Hardy for weeks but did not have their communication returned.
Matt Hardy's wife Reby took to her Twitter account to scorch the company, writing (edited for language, so check out her Twitter to read the unedited comments), "UNREAL WITH THE LITTLE B***** S***. U N R E A L. Why try to do things the right way when you get bs & drama in return? Matt is a nice guy. I'LL keep the sh**s "hostage". F outta here. If mfers don't start coming correct, I'm bout to melt some gold & have me some new gold hoops. Sigue y vas a ver. I've said it many times TNA was the perfect situation for our family & how grateful I was for professionalism/open communication/respect...now think about what kinda negative changes & straight f***ery would have to go down for us to leave."
The "sh**s", by the way, appear to be the TNA Tag Team championship belts, which are currently in the Hardys' possession.
There are expected to changes to talent contracts as the company goes further. Previously, talents were paid by the episode they appeared in on TV, so if, for example, Robbie E. worked four different episodes in the span of one taping day, he was paid per episode appearance. We are hearing that the company is shifting to a pay scale that would be per date, so if E now worked those four different episodes, it would count as one payday because he worked the one date. In some cases, talent will only be able to work approved independent dates and will be required to pay the company 10% of their wrestling earnings outside of TNA. There's been a lot of talk among talents we've heard from about royalty payments changing as well. TNA sources we reached out to declined to comment on contractual changes.
There is still talk of doing live events later in the year. We had heard a pitch to begin them in June, but it doesn't appear that will be the case as it will likely be closer to the fall. Obviously Jeff Jarrett and Ed Nordholm were in the UK setting the stage for the company to return there down the line.
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