There was a cloud over the Royal Rumble this year – and rightfully so. After retiring after allegations of abuse from numerous women caused Vince McMahon to “retire” in mid-2022, the man forced his way back into WWE in 2023 under dubious Succession style means. In his time back with the company, he seemed primarily focused on selling the company he had built to an interested party, with rumours that folks like the Saudi government were interested in running the show.
When a deal was announced around the 2023 edition of WrestleMania, the push behind this sale became quite clear. While there were rumours that there were offers that would have benefited shareholders quite a bit more, a deal was struck with a group called Endeavor that would seek to merge the WWE with the UFC’s operations in a group called TKO – and somewhat importantly, there was a provision put in place that Vince could not be removed as a chairman of this new company without his participation and consent.
A veteran of weaseling out of all kinds of bullshit, McMahon was poised to get away with another round of heinous behaviour, when one of the women he settled with came swinging back, alleging that Vince had not followed through with payment terms regarding a non-disclosure agreement, which left the matter open to litigation once more.
This can of worms cracked open the week before the Royal Rumble would take place, and came to a head when Vince himself tendered his resignation the day before the show went live. Up until this point, top executives at Endeavor and TKO had openly talked about how Vince was as a liability to the organization. His ousting was only a matter of time, and many speculated that he was manipulated into a cheaper deal with Endeavor by WWE’s own Nick Kahn – who in addition to being a former contestant on Wheel of Fortune – was also a longtime associate of Endeavor head honcho, Ari Emanuel. Regardless, having finally been severed once and for all from a place of power within WWE, a fresh path suddenly presented itself for the company, and many of the players within. And while they would (very poorly) reckon with the continual focus of bad press (again, for good reason), within the liminal space of the professional wrestling stage, an array of interesting possibilities opened up.
Vince had been notorious for instigating several rules and rigid ideas, ranging from don’t ever sneeze in my presence to don’t ever acknowledge wrestling outside of this company on the show. While small bits of that had been shed when he “retired” in the first place, a lot of the rigid structure remained as his grip on the company never truly went loose until his full resignation.
This was the atmosphere when the 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble went into full gear.
Always billed as the start of the “Road to WrestleMania”, the Royal Rumble event often gives the first glimpse at what WWE wants to present at the yearly culture phenomenon. The show is always anchored by two Rumble matches – women’s and men’s – where 30 participants fight it out to determine a single winner who will go on to be a main event at WrestleMania. Over the course of this match, these participants are slowly eliminated to hone a focus by the end.
Given the amount of spots in such a match, the company has often filled the match with a few different people who are nice surprises, but have absolutely no chance of winning. For the most part, these “spots” go to wrestlers who have had history with the company in the past, but don’t work with them on an ongoing basis. Those folks come in, get a huge cheer when their music hits, and the heel (or “bad guy”) who tosses them out gets a good, sustained boooooo out of the crowd before the match builds to a crescendo with final participants.
Things were going to formula for the start of the women’s match this year with the first participants. You had some anchor participants in some WWE veterans like Natalya and Bayley entering in fairly early, with a returning Naomi coming in at the number two spot to great fanfare. She had left he company for some time under a dispute that is a whole entire article unto itself, and this was a homecoming of sorts. All part and parcel with how the Rumble normally goes. Candice LeRae come out as a bit of filler as the 4th entrant (talented as she is, there was zero chance she was winning), and then the countdown hit for the fifth entrant.
The buzzer sounded. A siren wailed. The building went nuts. It couldn’t be.
Out from the back struts Jordynne Grace, an absolute brick house of a woman, and most importantly, a champion for a completely different company – TNA Wrestling. This was a remarkable thing, and the crowd knew it. While it wasn’t the first time the TNA Women’s Champion had been a part of the Rumble – that distinction would go to Mickie James just a few years previously – it was the first time that the participant (a) hadn’t been a former member of the WWE roster, and crucially (b) under contract with another company (when Mickie had competed in the Rumble, she was working on a per-appearance deal with TNA).
This was something different. This was something wild. Grace would go on to do a remarkable bit of business in the match before being eliminated by WWE powerhouse Bianca Belair after spending nearly 20 minutes in the match. This wasn’t a treatment that was given to stars cultivated outside of the company, let alone one not signed to WWE at all – which begged the question – what the heck was going on?!?
On the surface, the answer was simple: WWE had reached out to TNA to see if they could work out a bit of a surprise, and TNA obliged. It would be good exposure for the company whose entire existence had been (and continues to be) fraught with issues, dating back to a few weeks after their first shows in 2002 when they nearly had to shut down due to a lack of money.
For the longest time, TNA had been “the number two” wrestling promotion in the US (and arguably, the world, where it sometimes did better than WWE in markets like the UK and India). In recent times, the “little promotion that could” has continued to move along under the ownership of the Canadian company Anthem – which airs the promotion’s weekly show “Impact” on stations that they own in Canada, and the US. Both channels aren’t well watched by any metrics – with Impact regularly landing outside of the top 150 cable programs that air on the day the are broadcast. This means they are watched by a number of folks resembling sales of a mid-tier Marvel or DC book – which is anemic for television. Any exposure at that point would be good exposure right? Well.
A very short time after Grace appeared in the Rumble, TNA experienced its own bit of drama when it was revealed that Anthem was terminating the contract of Scott D’Amore, the man who had helped bring TNA back from the brink of death (the most recent time) and pushed it back into the spotlight. D’Amore had been part of the company on and off for most of TNA’s existence and was considered by many to be the heartbeat of the company – so much so that upon his termination, an open letter from the company’s talent implored Anthem to reconsider their decision. They did not.
In the days since, it was revealed that D’Amore made the deal for Grace to appear at the Royal Rumble knowing full well his time was up at TNA. The higher ups were seeking to tighten the belts while D’Amore had built up a strategy of expansion. He felt so passionately about this that he set out a proposal to purchase the company from Anthem, believing that his strategy would see the company build up even further, while Anthem’s cuts would see a return to the danger zone TNA always seemed to live a hair away from in the bad times. They turned him down.
So the Royal Rumble comes and goes, and TNA once again entered a period of turmoil. Mysteriously, a lot of the talent posted an hourglass emoji to their social media accounts, with no explanation – though many assume that it was a signal to D’Amore that the clock was ticking on all of their contracts, and they stood in solidarity with him. Regardless, folks wondered if there was more to come from this newfound relationship between WWE and TNA. Hints and rumours said that there would be more to come, but nothing really materialized until May, when the siren once again sounded during an episode of NXT (WWE’s developmental brand), and Jordynne Grace walked out once again to challenge Roxanne Perez (the NXT Women’s Champion) to a match for the NXT title at the brand’s next big event.
In short measure, it was said that Grace was to be paid in six figures for three appearances – the initial challenge, an interim match to show her off to folks who were unfamiliar with her work, and the championship match itself. This wasn’t information stated on the shows, but rather on sites that report the “real life” business of wrestling. (Shout out to Fightful, truly the only place I trust to report this type of information with journalistic rigour.) That said, the figure is significant considering the amount of dates involved – something that showed that WWE were taking the connection between the companies pretty seriously.
This relationship grew in June when viral sensation Joe Hendry and Frankie Kazarian (both TNA wrestlers) appeared on NXT to challenge in a big match to determine a #1 contender to the men’s championship for that brand. So naturally, questions have arisen – it is clear what TNA is getting out of such a deal, but in what way could WWE benefit from featuring these wrestlers who are not beholden to their business? Especially when they are viewed in the millions, and TNA is viewed in the tens of thousands (at least on broadcast television – they have several streaming options to their names as well).
Well, an idea quickly started circulating that WWE was in the business to buy TNA as a feeder system to their empire – or at least feed off of it in the present. On the surface, this made some sense. In the past, the company had done something similar with ECW, floating the (at the time) influential company with investments and getting first crack at a lot of their biggest talents – eventually helping bleed the company dry before absorbing the corpse.
This type of behaviour has been common with WWE, but in the past they only worked with outside companies when there was a way they could stand to benefit. Outside of that, they were often behind the scenes pulling strings and acquiring assets. With that type of game play in mind, it seemed completely within the realm of possibility that WWE had interest in TNA for something quite outside of their anemic viewership. And with reports that Anthem weren’t just “cutting to the bone, but cutting actual bone” in the way they had been running things since Scott D’Amore’s departure… why wouldn’t TNA be up for sale?
Well, the idea has been rejected by many in the know for a couple of reasons. The first was the fact that Anthem runs TNA to have content for their stations. While it might not be an earth shaker, it seemingly holds its own with their expectations for their channels, which can mean quite a bit for a company like that. And second, was the fact that Vince’s bullshit wasn’t the only legal trouble WWE found itself attached to in the past few years.
For some time, a fledgling company called Major League Wrestling had started up with a former WWE creative at the helm. In recent years, this company had been building quite the reputation and following, to the point that they were having conversations with different outlets to carry their shows. It was alleged that this company was blocked from a fairly lucrative deal by WWE who pressured potential partners like Vice TV and Tubi from carrying MLW’s content. After nearly two full years of legal maneuvering, WWE settled with MLW to the tune of $20 million – an unprecedented legal loss for a company that had, to that point, squeezed its way out of all kinds of terrible things they (allegedly) perpetrated. This is not a situation that WWE wants to see repeated – and what better way to do so than to be seen collaborating with a “competitor” for the first time in decades?
So yes, despite TNA’s perpetual osculating state of crisis (and the fervent wishes of every wrestling fan’s dream to witness unfettered dream matches between wrestlers from different companies), things appear to land more along Occam’s Razor than anywhere in the fertile imagination of the folks that would love a good crossover, or a neat shake up. While it would be interesting if after all these years, WWE purchased a company that was built quite defiantly as an alternative to their brand, but at this point, WWE isn’t operating on the carny wrestling level anymore. It is owned by a large private equity style company, which is only in acquisition mode when it identifies assets it can exploit for a gain – and a company pulling viewers in the tens-to-light-hundreds of thousands doesn’t quiet seem viable. And that’s before you consider the fact that Anthem truly has this company to fill some blocks in their programming.
While I don’t doubt WWE would be open to purchasing TNA based on the value of their archives alone, they probably wouldn’t do so unless there was a fire sale of some kind, like when the ended up purchasing WCW (their main competition) in 2001. In the meantime, a few trademarks have been filed and linked to the address of Scott D’Amore’s wrestling school – mainly something called Maple Leaf Wrestling (somewhat ironically also MLW) and Grand Prix Wrestling – which puts a closer eye on the hourglasses that were posted by any of TNA’s contracted wrestlers. Are folks waiting out their contracts to start up something new in the future?
Only time will tell.
