Scott D’Amore on Original Plans for Impact Wrestling’s Rebranding To TNA Was Meant To Be Unannounced Surprise, Him Feeling He Made “Really Fair” Offer To Purchase TNA, & Tommy Dreamer’s TNA Departure

A recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show podcast featured former TNA Wrestling President and current Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling owner Scott D’Amore as the guest. One of the topics discussed included D’Amore’s thoughts about the original plans for TNA’s rebranded from the Impact Wrestling was meant to start at Slammiversary 2023.

“2023 was supposed to be the year for TNA. It was originally — we had everything set for TNA to return at Slammiversary 2023. Yes. It was gonna return completely unannounced. You were going to watch the pre-show and you’re gonna be watching IMPACT Wrestling’s Slammiversary, and then the cold open was gonna be the reveal that it’s gonna be TNA, and while the cold open was playing, the crew would be changing over the skirts and everything else and we come out of that cold open, the entire arena would be built as TNA.”

D’Amore also gave his thoughts about money-related issues being the reason why TNA’s official rebranding did not take place in 2023 and instead was pushed back to early 2024.

“Because we couldn’t properly fund it to execute that, and then it was like, ‘Okay, let’s not screw this up.’ So that’s when we went back and kind of thought, ‘Okay, how else can we do it?’ And that’s when we came up with the idea of announcing it at the end of Bound For Glory.”

D’Amore also gave his thoughts about his attempt to purchase TNA after his firing from the company and his belief that he had put a really fair offer on the table to Anthem.

“Haven’t talked to anybody (about the possibility of TNA being for sale). I mean, I think I tabled what is a really fair offer. I put together an offer in a matter of days, that I think fairly represented what the company was worth and paid a little bit for the excitement of we just rebranded. I think there’s an argument hard numbers-wise that our number was a little heavy.”

D’Amore also gave his thoughts about if he was surprised by former TNA Head of Talent Relations and booker Tommy Dreamer’s departure from TNA this past June.

“I mean, yes and no. Nobody’s irreplaceable, and I would tell people all the time and then when I got the call, I was still kind of like, ‘What the –’ there’s going to be change. I don’t follow the day-to-day of it but, I knew that there was chatter of people, as far as for complaining about but that always happens. At the end of the day, if you don’t own the thing, then you’re at the mercy of whoever and I can’t comment whether Tommy did a great job or a — I can comment that Tommy Dreamer has been a wonderful, amazing friend to me. Tommy’s one of those guys who if I called him right now and said, ‘Tommy, I’m down in a bad end of Brooklyn. I’m surrounded, and I think this is where it ends for me.’ If he could, he would teleport, stand back-to-back and die in that alley with me. That’s the type of friend he is but, his firing, I don’t know. I know that he’s my friend. I called him, I said, ‘I love you and I know you’re gonna be fine. You know that…’ If you don’t own it, it’s not yours…”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3