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We've received a lot of questions about whether Monday's ruling from the Chancery Court in Nashville, TN could be the end of Dixie Carter's involvement in TNA. What is being ruled upon Monday is whether Billy Corgan's current temporary restraining order against the company is replaced by a Temporary Injunction. If that happens, the current stockholders will be unable to sell the company and no major business decisions will be able to be made without Corgan's input and approval. If the injunction is declined, things return to the way they were before Corgan filed suit in terms of Carter, etc. making decisions. A decision on whether Corgan indeed gets to take over Carter's control of the company's 92.5% voting rights could happen, but based on what we have heard from readers who work in the legal field, the fact Corgan's attorney was being asked how they were applying TN law to those claims could be a sign the court is not seeing it the same way they are. In either event, Corgan's loan still has to be repaid by 11/1, which is the day after the ruling. The lawsuit that was filed by Corgan can still move forward no matter what decision is made by Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle regarding the injunction.
The other big question yet to be answered is whether Corgan not only gets his $1.8 million back but also the "corporate transaction" fee, which based on what was stated in court earlier this week, was 50% of his loan, so that's an additional $900,000 he is looking for. Anthem Media's attorney stated in court they were willing to repay the $1.8 but not the $900,000. It's possible that should the lawsuit move forward, the $900,000 becomes something that is wrangled in court even if/when Corgan gets the $1.8 million back.
If Corgan does not get his injunction, it appears what will happen, based on Corgan's discovery, is this: Anthem pays off Corgan and he exits the picture. Anthem takes 85% of the control of the company, as Corgan's attorneys learned through their discovery. Aroluxe takes a secondary ownership stake of 10%, setting up their own CEO Jason Brown as the CEO of Impact Ventures for at least three years. Dixie Carter retains a small ownership stake at 5%. Anthem would then fund the company going forward and for the short-term, the company would tape TV 3-4 times a year and that would be it.
What will be interesting to follow is this: if Corgan ends up out, that's the exit of someone who was extremely well liked within the locker room while Carter would remain in some capacity. Corgan had a lot of communication with the talents in comparison to the other parties involved in current ownership, including Dixie Carter, and was seen as a babyface in the scenario by a lot of (but not all) of the wrestlers. If Carter retains her power, going forward, she then has to deal with the fact that she told the locker room she would not let WWE buy the company, when court documents revealed that not only was she willing to let that happen, but there were talks of a sale all the way back to June of this year. Just a few days before her locker room talk, WWE submitted a non-binding offer to purchase the company's library and assets - which means that unless WWE was going to take all the talents (we are told by a WWE source that they believe that was not the case), everyone involved would have been out of a job. Carter told talents on 10/3 she wasn't letting a sale happen. On 9/25, Dean Broadhead was sending WWE documentation that was requested to help WWE follow through with due dilligence. That is quite the bridge Carter is going to have to mend with the locker room.
As noted previously, the company has dates in January for Universal Studios in Orlando. We previously reported 1/4-1/10. The 1/4 date is actually a load-in date, so the actual tapings would be 1/5-1/10. 1/5/17 is a Thursday, so that would mean a "live" episode. We are told the current plan is to try and shoot 12 episodes of Impact that week, which sounds insanely grueling for all involved.
If they are filming 12 Impact Wrestling episodes, that means the annual UK tour is not happening in 2017, which is not really a shock since the company never put those tour dates on sale. Nothing had ever been announced as to where it was happening or not and it was pretty obvious that it wasn't, but given the amount of email we received from readers across the pond, there were still fans hoping they would.
The 12 Impact Wrestling episodes would then, based on a calendar I looked at, take the company through until 3/3/17, which is Wrestlemania week in Orlando, so it would appear the company plan is to then do another round of tapings that week with a "live" episode on Thursday 3/30. So, it appears we can add free TNA tapings at Universal to the madness that will be Wrestlemania 33 week.
There's also still no announcement regarding the postponed but said to be rescheduled India tour.
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