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WWE News: Backstage Update On WWE’s Interest In TNA & The Status Of A Potential Sale

By Andy Slawecki
Published on: 03:59 PST, Sep 20, 2016

There has been a lot of buzz over the last week regarding the potential sale of TNA and the WWE’s rumored interest in acquiring it. TNA has been in a state of flux over the last several years, dealing with financial struggles that have led to network changes and corporate restructuring. Meanwhile, the WWE, of course, has basically monopolized the global sports entertainment business, with no equals since the demise of WCW.

TNA has tried to present an alternative to the WWE with prior goals of offering actual competition to Vince McMahon and company. However, as hard as they tried (Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Sting, Kurt Angle, Aces & Eights, etc.), they came up short at every turn. While TNA has been able to procure some of WWE’s castaways, many of their home-grown top talent have defected to the WWE in recent years.

And though that wouldn’t appear related, there have been recent reports suggesting that TNA is for sale and there are multiple bidders for the company. The WWE has come up on several occasions as being one of the potential suitors, and that has been cleared up as of Tuesday morning. In a report from the Daily Wrestling News, there are reportedly only two serious bidders for TNA at this time.

It appears that WWE did put in a bid at one time, but it was only for their tape library and was for an estimated $7 million. They would have no intentions of continuing to run TNA as a wrestling/sports entertainment company, similar to what happened with WCW. The major difference, however, is that WWE bought WCW to eliminate their competition and offer many of their talents a role with the WWE.

The purpose of only going after the TNA tape library is for highlights, video packages, and vignettes of current WWE superstars like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Austin Aries, Bobby Roode, and others who used to work in TNA and are now receiving pushes with WWE. But because Vince and the WWE only appear interested in the footage, their offer was obviously much lower than the one presented by current TNA President Billy Corgan. WWE’s offer was apparently made some time ago, but only as a gesture if no one else was interested.

In fact, Corgan has already invested more capital for a 30 percent ownership share than the WWE was willing to pay to purchase the whole thing. Corgan remains a confirmed bidder for TNA, with another company in the mix as well. Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio would not reveal who the second party involved is, but he did confirm there is one. Ring of Honor parent company Sinclair Broadcasting was believed to be in the mix, but there is no truth to their rumored involvement.

Another company that had ties to any TNA sale was Aroluxe, but they too have been eliminated from any involvement. Aroluxe had until the first of September to come up with a proposal, and that deadline has come and gone. They still do, however, have a stake in TNA and had even taken over the TNA trademark due to the financial hardships that had overtaken the company.

Billy Corgan was hoping to have a deal in place, either his own offer or that of the unnamed second party’s, by October 2, which is the date of the Bound For Glory pay-per-view. The other company sees that deadline as extremely rushed, as they would not have enough time to perform their due diligence.

There was also a rumor suggesting that the price tag for TNA would be around $40 million, but that appears grossly exaggerated. If that were an accurate figure, the 30 percent that Corgan invested would equate to $12 million. That $12 million would certainly be enough to finance television tapings for close to two years instead of the week-to-week format they currently find themselves in.

In any event, TNA looks to be on the brink of a sale, and it’ll need to happen soon. But it won’t be WWE unless everything else falls through.

[Featured Image by WWE]

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