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IMPACT-HARDYS, ONE NIGHT ONLY PPV THIS FRIDAY AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2017-03-13 10:09:00

Obviously, the big news surrounding Impact Wrestling is that they have sent a cease and desist to the Hardys, Ring of Honor and PPV distributors regarding Matt and Jeff Hardy appearing on PPV as the "broken characters" which led to the ROH PPV from being yanked by DISH Network and led to ROH having a more toned down version of the Hardys on the show.  Rebecca Hardy has been going off on social media and Matt Hardy has continued to use the hallmarks of the character, so the Hardys are obviously intending to fight the idea that Impact has any ownership. 

From speaking to someone close to the situation, it appears that Hardy filing the trademark for "Broken Matt Hardy" is what set Anthem Media into action.  Their stance appears to be that since Hardy was not the only person involved in creative, others deserve a piece of whatever pie Hardy is going to get in terms of future revenue from the gimmick.  It's not like Impact will use the "Broken Universe" going forward, so this is their way of trying to be compensated for the Hardys taking it elsewhere, especially if they land in WWE.  

So, the strategy is to put pressure of the Hardys to sign a deal where Anthem gets paid a percentage.   One person in Impact described it to me as similar to royalties for songwriting.  I don't know if I agree with that personally, since I don't see Anthem (if they did get money from future revenue) then turning around and cutting a check to Dave Lagana, Matt Conway, Billy Corgan, etc. for their piece of the pie and let's be frank here, no one has ever gotten creative royalties from something devised and executed in pro wrestling. 

That's not to say Anthem doesn't have a leg to stand on.  At the end of the day, even if this upsets people, it will come down to the language in the contract.    If the language explicitly states that any new characters, etc. developed while the Hardys were under contract belongs to Impact, Impact could be in the right, but they are also going to have to prove that Impact, not Matt, etc. created the costuming, hallmarks, music, look, etc. of those characters if this indeed goes to court. 

This sort of thing happens in the entertainment industry at times, but rarely within pro wrestling.  WWE is pretty cut and dry when it comes to ownership of characters they've created.  Elsewhere, including Impact, is a lot more murky.  Bully Ray owns the rights and copyright of his character, one that was created while he worked for Impact, so right there is precedent that works against Impact.

In the entertainment world, Conan O'Brien, when leaving NBC had to contend with some of his material being considered their intellectual property.    More recently, Stephen Colbert received a legal letter from Viacom warning him that using intellectual property from his old Comedy Central show was not allowed on his current late-night CBS series after Colbert revived his old character there.  What made that situation amazing is that he was told he could not play the character of Stephen Colbert, which led to him announcing he, Stephen Colbert could not play the Stephen Colbert character again.  He then introduced the identical cousin of Stephen Colbert, who was also named Stephen Colbert, on the CBS series.  I kid you not. 

The fact that Anthem is going this route while signing talents to new contracts that don't offer ANY royalties has me scratching my head, but that's just me.  More on this as it develops but I suspect the story won't be resolved in a rapid, quick manner.

One thing is for certain, based on the response to this in social media - even if Impact is 100% legally in the right, they have once again put themselves in a situation to give the audience they are trying to win back over a reason to dislike the company.  The timing of this, especially as they push the "Make Impact Great Again" direction, could not come at a worse time, in my opinion.

***

Oh, there's Impact news, too:

TNA One Night Only: Rivals will debut on PPV as well as The Fite App this Friday evening.  You can download the Fite App for free for your cell phone or mobile device, by clicking here.    The App can be streamed from your phone to Samsung smart TVs as well as Roku devices, as long as the items are on the same wifi network.  The PPV will feature:

*Matt Hardy vs. Drew Galloway
*Moose vs. Mike Bennett
*Lashley vs. Jeff Hardy
*DJ Z vs. Trevor Lee
*Braxton Sutter vs. Spud
*James Storm vs. Mahabali Shera
*Aron Rex vs. Jesse Godderz
*Decay vs. Bram and Kingston
*Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

Jesse Godderz missed the last set of TV tapings, depending on who you ask, either to allow his character time off TV to be freshened up or because he has yet to convert his former deal with the company to one of the new deals.

Go Shiozaki vs. Eddie Edwards has been announced for the 3/25 Pro Wrestling NOAH event in Tokyo's Korakuen Hall. 

Grado was at the WWE event in Madison Square Garden over the weekend visiting.

Set for this week's Impact Wrestling, based on what was taped:

*ODB vs. Rebel
*Trevor Lee vs. Suicide vs. Braxton Sutter vs. Andrew Everett after Laurel Van Ness distracts Allie and Braxton.
*The debut of the new LAX vs. DCC
*Mahabali Shera & Garza Jr. & Laredo Kid vs. Idris Abraham & Fallah Baha & Mario Bokara
*Reno Scum vs. Decay
*EC3 vs. Alberto el Patron.

 

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