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Impact Wrestling Executive Vice President Scott D'Amore sat down with PWInsider.com earlier this week for a conversation about the promotion and this Friday's Bound for Glory PPV. Elite subscribers can listen to the entire 45 minute discussion at this link. Here are some highlights from the discussion transcribed by Billy Krotchsen.
Holding onto Talents Impact cultivates when there is an arms race for talent among WWE and AEW: "Yeah, Mike, that's a good and valid point. And when you look at things like, certainly there's more downside let's, let's kind of call it how it is. I mean, the analogy I'll use is that I'm a sports guy. Mike, we're the Minnesota Twins. You know, we can't go and compete for talent with the Yankees and the Red Sox. It's not how we're going to do business. We're gonna be strategic. We're gonna scout well, and we're gonna develop talents. And that's one of the things that I'm most proud of under Anthem's regime that we've been really good at. We've been good at using talent that has all the skill set and the potential, but that needs to be fostered. And I think we've been very good at fostering that potential. And part of that is yes, there's going to be a turnover because there's going to be talent that moves on and goes to other places. And that's okay, because talent needs to rotate. I think one of the things in the last many years of wrestling that has helped stagnate it, you know, lead to stagnation can be a lot of talent movement. If you look at the territory days, talent used to move around, and it doesn't as much anymore. I mean, I would certainly be lying, Mike, if I sat here and said, "Hey, I wish I didn't have a checkbook that we could open up and we can just do everything we wanted with every day." That's not our model. That's not where we are and that's fine. Because the fact is, Mike, talent out there knows, if they come to Impact Wrestling, they're going to be given an opportunity and to develop a skill set. They know they're going to be supported, developed and nurtured. And I think that's a good reason why a lot of talent will give us multiple years of their career to come in and work for us. Because if you look at our track record, you know, since we took over and you start looking at those other rosters that you mentioned, how many people on that roster developed here and don't want to sit there and say, hey, that's our main purpose. But the fact is, we get the best talent in a lot of situations. And I think we do a good job working with talent, developing the talent, fostering a positive atmosphere that gets the most out of them. And some of them will stay here and continue to succeed. Some of them will move on. What it does lead to on the positive side of things, Mike, is there's a lot of really talented people that want to come be part of Impact."
"How D'Amore looks at the current roster: "I don't think a roster is ever set, you know, it's constantly evolving. It's like when a team comes out of training camp, it has its roster set, but in the first, second, third week there's going to be lineup changes. There's going to be people called up, there's going to be people moved, and it's the constant flow. Stagnation is the onset of death when it comes to putting a roster together, so I don't think we're ever done. I think we're very happy with the roster that we're fielding right now. We're cognizant of the fact that there always has to be some changes. We're cognizant of the fact that there's a lot of great talent out there that can help us change things up and put in a little, a little bit of a jumpstart in certain situations. So I think that our roster is great, but I think that our roster is always going to evolve. And you asked about this Friday at Bound for Glory, well, you know, it's one of those things and one of the matches is the Call Your Shot gauntlet. It is a 20 person, male and female, Royal Rumble style gauntlet match where the winner gets to call their shot and gets to declare themselves for whatever title they want in Impact Wrestling. You know, when there's Call Your Shot, you know there's going to be surprises. Some of those surprises will be returns, some of them could be debuts. Some of them may be completely off the wall like last year, the KISS Demon, I mean, whoever thought they're gonna see the KISS Demon in a wrestling ring again. And that, to me, was one of the fun moments in last year's battle royal. So you're always gonna see talent come in, you're always gonna see talent depart and you're always gonna see things in flux. The one thing that you can know is that the roster will remain talented, and the product will remain focused and we'll go out there and we'll put on a kickass show."
The possibility of Impact TV airing someone beyond AXS TV and recent issues with cable & satellite guides listing Impact as reruns: "Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I'll use a different word other than frustration, I'll say it's, it's an obstacle for us to work through. For those who don't know, to your point, there's been a lot of the cable providers who have mistakenly listed Impact's Thursday night, you know, show instead of a being of a debut as a repeat, which leads to DVRs not recording the show on a bunch of carriers. It's an honest mistake. I can tell you this, as somebody who wears two hats, you know, not just EVP of Impact Wrestling, but also EVP of Anthem Sports and Entertainment Sports Media Group, I get to see how hard AXS is working on fixing a problem. So it's, it's something that's taken very seriously. It's something that we have people, you know, been very diligent and carrier by carrier, we continue to work on that to make sure it gets changed. And I think at this point, most of them are, but I can tell you this - AXS TV takes this just as seriously as Impact Wrestling, because Impact Wrestling is a core piece of AXS TV. You know, it's part of our overall corporate plan, having Impact Wrestling on our owned and operated broadcasters and services is an important part of the model. Does that mean we wouldn't love to be in a 90 million home broadcaster? Certainly, I wouldn't say that. We'd be happy. Our doors always open to look at that. And one of the things that I say that is, you know, part of the light at the end of the tunnel is whether or not that opportunity comes, every day that we continue, the world moves more away from linear broadcast television, into streaming. And when you look at the options out there for streaming, they grow exponentially each day and I look at the digital side of our company, and I look at the growth that I've seen with that over the last six years, to me, it's mind boggling. You never would have ever gotten me to comprehend the amount of opportunities that are out there in the world. Like there's just an article that came out and talked about how Impact, I want to say we're the number four sports brands, when it came to fast channels, like we have 11 different platforms that you use in like fast channel platforms that you can watch Impact on. We also went on there and you know, AXS is great. Obviously it's a key part of our thing. We also went out there last year and we put out our Impact YouTube subscription service and for 99 cents, you can watch every weekly episode of Impact. You know, either Thursday night if you want or video on demand whenever you want after that. So I think that's a great option to spend a quarter an episode and be able to watch all of Impact's weekly flagships and if you like it, you can decide and you can upgrade to a premium membership or subscribe the Impact Plus and you know for a very reasonable fee, catch all of our other premium content. So I think we've worked very hard on trying to develop and be at the forefront of the streaming and the digital age and we will continue to do that. And whether it comes through a conventional linear broadcast or what comes to the growth and explosion of streaming and digital delivery, I think we'll continue to see you know, growth for us, both domestically and certainly internationally."
Whether there is a sleeper bout on Bound for Glory fans should be paying closer attention to: "Boy, you know, it's so hard to say that there's a sleeper because I honestly, Mike, and it sounds like carny, you know, circus, you know, BS but it's like you literally you look at it, Call Your Shot, Mickie versus Mia Yim with Mickie James' career on the line. The Knockouts Tag Title, I mean, everything that we talked about, we talked about the World Title, you've got the Machine Guns and Honor No More - that to me, I mean, you can't say it's a sleeper because if you don't expect the Kingdom and the Motor City Machine Guns to tear it up then you just haven't been paying attention to wrestling. I'll say this - like to me one of the things that I'm really looking forward to seeing is Frankie Kazarian and Speedball Mike Bailey. You got Frankie Kazarian, who's one of the cornerstones that the Impact Wrestling X Division was built on and you got Mike Bailey who is such a fresh competitor, so unique. So uniquely charismatic, like he doesn't have a classic charisma, but he's got something that draws people to him. And he's just on a tear of great matches. And to me, these are two greats from two different eras at a time when they overlap in that window of time when they're both still at their absolute best. So I can't wait to see that along with everything else. "
Impact Wrestling will present Bound for Glory this Friday on PPV, FITE.TV and more.
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