TEE-ENN-EHH: The supposed “competition” to WWE, Total Non-Stop Action, just announced a big shakeup in their power structure.
Smashing Pumpkins lead vocalist Billy Corgan, who been working with TNA’s parent company, Impact Ventures, for the past 15 months as a “senior producer,” has been promoted to president of the company. Dixie Carter, who has been the president for quite some time, has been demoted to chairperson and “chief strategy officer.”
According to a press release, Corgan will be responsible for leading day-to-day operations for IMPACT and its affiliated brands. As chairman, Carter will focus on long-term planning, strategic partnerships and global growth.
“Billy is a visionary, an iconic artist and savvy businessman with an incredibly gifted creative mind. He has built a decades-long successful global brand, and also has a deep passion and understanding for professional wrestling,” Carter said in the release. “In working with Billy over the last 16 months, he has impressed me to the point that I’ve been in discussions with him to take an elevated strategic leadership role within the company. The more we discussed our vision for the organization, the clearer it became that position needed to match his commitment.”
As far as what kind of impact (no pun intended) it will have on the fledgling wrestling company, it remains to be seen. However, a change needed to be made. Carter has done a poor job of running the company, with rumors of financial turmoil swirling, along with a couple of bad TV deals that fell apart with Destination America and now on Pop-TV.
As a fan of wrestling, it’s always better to have another viable option to the big one. While NXT has grown a cult following on its own, it is still under the WWE umbrella and only seen on the WWE Network. Ring of Honor had the chance, but it doesn’t have the national TV deal. Lucha Underground has its niche audience on the El Rey Network, but it’s a little too avant-garde. Like it not, TNA is the only viable No. 2.
Perhaps the hole Carter created will be too big for the guy who once sang, “Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known/Can’t live for tomorrow, tomorrow’s much to long/I’ll burn my eyes out before I get out,” to dig out of it. We’ll see.
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