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As previously reported by PWInsider.com, a number of TNA departures took place Thursday 5/30. The most shocking of all may have been Lou D'Angeli, Vice President, Marketing for all of Anthem, who was one of TNA's highest ranking officials.
D'Angeli, who previously ran all of the marketing for Cirque du Soleil and worked for WWE (heading up Wrestlemania AXXESS among other events) as well as managing several major arenas across the country, came on board with TNA (then Impact Wrestling) as a consultant for the company's live event business in 2022 before signing on full-time in the VP of Marketing role.
D'Angeli's exit is especially shocking because the scope of his role for TNA grew exponentially over the last year or so, including bringing CM Punk to the table for negotiations with the company, setting the stage for Trinity (WWE's Naomi) coming in, which developed out of initial conversations with Mercedes Mone in an attempt to set up Mickie James vs. Mone in TNA, and lots of additional creative and production work well beyond the marketing campaign and live event work that D'Angeli handled.
Sources on the TNA side (speaking under condition of anonymity) admitted there had been some fraying of the relationship in recent months, specifically built around the company's slow process in locking in and confirming their dates and cities. We are told D'Angeli had been, for a long period of time, trying to get TNA to break from their normal schedule of running the same cities on back to back nights but management never pulled the trigger on that strategy.
We are also told there was also, at times, issues with dates and cities being relayed to staff and wrestlers, only to have the scheduling change numerous times - and with D'Angeli being the person "in charge" of that live events division, it put him (and others in that division) in the unenviable position of being questioned by wrestlers and staff but not having any answers to relay from those above him in the company.
We are told by sources that sometime last week, there was a meeting between Anthem execs and D'Angeli where it was decided between the two sides that it was time for them to part ways. The story that has made the rounds is that D'Angeli was later contacted by Anthem officials and told that Anthem was moving forward without him, which he was said to have agreed with.
D'Angeli's exit came days after the advance ticket sales for the 2024 Slammiversary PPV in Montreal spurred on TNA's best pre-sales in a decade for the company. D'Angeli's team would have been responsible for TNA's return event in Las Vegas as the Palms earlier this year, which landed the company their highest grossing ticket sale revenue in 10 years at that point. When asked about D'Angeli's importance to the company, one source noted that under his purview, the year over year ticket sales for the company grew annually. The final shows set up under D'Angeli's watch would be the Against All Odds PPV weekend in Chicago on 6/14 and 6/15 at Cicero Stadium, which are expected to sell out.
As noted earlier, TNA has live events laid out through August in Tampa and are working on options for who will take over the live events aspect of the company, including a permanent site for potential live TV tapings, something that they had been working towards even prior to the exit of former TNA President Scott D'Amore. We are told at least one other member of D'Angeli's team has also departed TNA. It is possible that TNA could tap former ECW events head Gregory Bagarozy, who has worked with TNA over the years, to assist them but we have not heard if that is the direction they plan to go in.
When speaking to several TNA talents over the last 24 hours about D'Angeli's exit, the response was a mixture of disbelief and sadness, given how much D'Angeli had been for an advocate behind the scenes pushing for talents to take on additional roles behind the scenes in the company, a strategy similar to what ECW did with their own talents back when D'Angeli cut his teeth in the business working on camera before moving into the promotional and marketing end of that promotion. One talent said that D'Angeli seemed be trying to set up future roles for talents for when they would move on from the ring. Pretty much all felt the company would feel his absence, especially in the short-term.
Multiple attempts to reach D'Angeli have thus far been unsuccessful.
As PWInsider.com reported several days ago, Dave Sahadi, who held the post of Creative Director, RD Evans, who was considered head of creative and was also a Producer, are also gone. As noted, we are told there was at least one additional departure from the Live Events department as well beyond D'Angeli.
TNA has not responded for request for comment on the recent departures, which one source described as a "reorganization."
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