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TNA held a meeting with Zoom with talents to inform them of Scott D’Amore’s departure this afternoon and to introduce everyone to new TNA President Anthony Cicone, who will be heading the day-to-day of the company going forward. Anthem Head Len Asper was on the call as well.
A number of talents on the call relayed to PWInsider.com that during the meeting it was stated that D’Amore had “stepped down” from the company, which was not the case and not even what was stated in the company's official statement. We are told by several that this did not sit well with some of the talents and as one wrestler said, “This wasn’t the way to start off” a relationship with the locker room, especially since so many talents had a connection with D’Amore and that the vast majority liked D’Amore.
Cicone read what was described as a “prepared statement,” which some didn’t like but others noted that he was in a no-win situation given he was replacing D’Amore.
There was nothing specific stated about creative going forward, but the remainder of the creative team beyond Scott D’Amore are still with the company.
The meeting did not give talents a chance to ask any questions, which we can confirm did not endear some talents to the changes, either.
The beginning of the call, when talents were informed about Scott D’Amore’s departure before Anthem execs joined them, was extremely angry for some talents while some of the veterans tried to calm the waters, noting they have to at least give the new exec a chance.
One TNA personality who was on the call commented that Anthem “had a lot of work to do” moving forward.
There are some taking a "wait and see" stance as they look to see how it shakes out and whether there are additional changes. There are others trying to keep the faith in the fact that the remainder of the team was still in place and that they had to bear down and get back to work when the No Surrender PPV comes in New Orleans.
It should be noted that one story making the way around talents is that Anthem wanted the TNA brand to be more in-line with the parent company going forward and that the brand had been too D’Amore-centric with Scott as the face of the company. That was not addressed on the call, however. While D’Amore was regularly on TNA programming as the head of the company, he was also the company’s biggest cheerleader, no different than Paul Heyman in ECW or even Tony Khan in AEW, someone who was living 24/7 for TNA and in many ways, his life was entangled with TNA brand, at least, until today.
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