Various: Billy Corgan on NWA’s Deal with Roku Channel Took “At Least Six to Nine Months to Put Together”, Backstage Update on TNA’s New Rule for Talents Banning Slaps for Matches Without Approval, Indies/Misc.

Billy Corgan Comments on NWA’s Deal with Roku Channel Took “At Least Six to Nine Months to Put Together”

As noted before, the National Wrestling Alliance recently signed a new streaming deal with the Roku Channel to air their content on a new wrestling-based FAST channel called Wrestling Central on the service.

A recent episode of the Busted Open Radio podcast featured NWA owner Billy Corgan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Corgan’s thoughts about the NWA’s new streaming deal with Roku took around six to nine months to put together.

“If anybody might have seen just the other day, it came out that we’ve signed our first real true first-run television deal for NWA Powerrr with Roku, the number one streaming platform in North America. This is a deal that’s took at least six to nine months to put together and I think it’s the first significant NWA TV deal probably since the days of NWA-TNA and if you wanna go back further than that because obviously, Jeff Jarrett was trying to build up TNA, you’d have to go back to somewhere into the 90s so, this is a huge deal for us and it’s total credit to our team… We worked very hard as a team to put this together so credit to our great team for sticking with it. Many people have doubted the NWA’s progress, doubted the NWA’s game plan which I said many, many times was gonna take a long time. I wasn’t just gonna throw money at it and try to be a puffed-up indie. I wanted to run an international promotion that was gonna compete at the highest levels and I think as you’ve seen recently, when the WWE allowed Nattie to come in and wrestle for the NWA at Crockett Cup, I think that shows you that we’ve earned our flowers once again in the business and there’s such a great will around the NWA because the wrestling ecosystem as you see with WWE and now with AAA, and with TNA, you see this wrestling ecosystem open up which you know, on your show many times, I predicted this is where the business was going and so here we are. We are here at the optimal way for the business to be generated back towards the fans. In many ways, it harkens back to the territorial era, where really it was about the fans and letting the fans sort of tell promotions what they really need and now you’re seeing the benefit of that.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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Backstage Update on TNA’s New Rule for Talents Banning Slaps for Matches Without Approval

As noted before, TNA Wrestling enacted a series of new bans for their talents in regards to what is no longer allowed to be done in matches going forward in the company. Among the new bans included talents no longer allowed to perform slaps as moves unless they get approval beforehand from an agent.

Figthful Select reported that their sources within TNA stated that the reason for the new rule enforcing the slaps ban without permission was due to an incident between Tessa Blanchard and WWE NXT talent Arianna Grace that took place at this past May’s Under Siege 2025 event.

It was reported that during their match, Blanchard slapped Grace and Grace responded with a slap of her own in a real in-ring physical exchange. This incident reportedly caused TNA management to have internal discussions and acted as a “wake up call” over talent not exactly following their new rule banning slaps without permission.

An internal memo reportedly was issued the following day reminding the locker room that all slaps must be cleared in advance. Several sources spoken to reportedly stated that this internal memo was “brought on from that match.

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Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Lucha Libre AAA official and talent Latin Lover announced on Instagram that he recently underwent successful shoulder surgery. Lover stated that his surgery operation lasted for four hours.

BRG (Brett Ryan Gosselin) announced on Twitter that his contract with Major League Wrestling officially expired on Friday and he is currently a free agent.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that the filming for the upcoming new American Gladiators reboot television series for Amazon’s Prime Video service officially began on Friday. This upcoming new series features The Miz as the host and AEW talents Wardlow and Kamille, former WWE talents Rick Boogs, and Ohio Valley Wrestling talents Jessie Godderz and J-Rod among the cast of gladiators.

Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre reportedly drew an attendance of around 10,000 for their June 6th Martes Populares event at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Stardom reportedly drew a paid attendance of 1,405 for their June 8th event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Pro Wrestling NOAH reportedly drew a paid attendance of 302 for their June 7th Sunny Voyage 2025 event in Yokohama, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

United Japan Pro-Wrestling held a meeting this past Wednesday in Japan to officially announce that Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS will be joining their organization as a full member and Pro Wrestling WAVE, World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana, and Pro-Wrestling Dradition will be joining as supporting members.

TNA Wrestling reportedly drew an attendance of 1,807 for their June 6th Against All Odds 2025 event and 1,536 for their June 7th Impact! taping in Tempe, AZ, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated’s The Takedown on SI, The IInspiration’s Jessie McKay & Cassie Lee gave their thoughts about their recent return to TNA. McKay stated “It was absolutely incredible to get back in the ring at Prestige this past April. It had been three years since Cassie and I had had a tag team match together, and honestly, we were ready for it. We’ve been training since last October at an amazing wrestling school in Orlando – Flatbacks and immediately starting brainstorming gear ideas and how we can make this run better than ever. We have been having so much fun and want to keep up that momentum.” Lee responded stating “TNA is the right place for us as when we stepped away three years ago, it was from TNA. We really enjoyed our time there and loved the people and performers we were able to grow into. So, it only felt right to make our return to TNA. Now is the right time as we both have our families set up at home. We stepped away to start our families and have loved getting to spend every moment with them.” McKay also gave her thoughts about the potential of The IInspiration making a NXT return as part of TNA’s current working partnership with WWE. McKay stated “We learned so much at our time in NXT and the women’s roster there now is so talented so it would definitely be a full circle moment for us.“

Reality of Wrestling announced one new match for the card of their Power Shift event on Saturday in Texas City, Texas:

• Thea Hail vs. Monica Monroe