Backstage Update on Anthem & TNA Denying Claims of TNA Talent Being Banned from Maple Leaf Pro Shows Over AEW Association

As noted before, TNA Wrestling and their parent company Anthem Sports & Entertainment denied a recent report about there being a ban on TNA talents from being able to work for Scott D’Amore’s Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling events due to their association with AEW. This claim was originally made by Moose during a recent virtual fan signing event for Signed By Superstars.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that several people spoken to off the record stated that a ban on TNA talents working for Maple Leaf Pro shows is actually true. Those same people spoken to reportedly brought up how “Speedball” Mike Bailey and Josh Alexander had appeared on early shows for MLP but since then no TNA wrestlers had.

In regards to TNA Head of Talent Relations and creative official Tommy Dreamer’s recent comments denying the story being accurate, Meltzer reported that Dreamer mentioning it was a complex situation was due to those who contradicted TNA and Anthem did not want to go public for obvious reasons. Those spoken to reportedly pointed out that TNA talent had appeared on D’Amore’s initial shows at first due to him being friends with many of the TNA wrestlers. Meltzer reported that the reason why Santino Marella and Geroge Iceman have been able to appear on MLP shows since then is due to neither of them are wrestlers in TNA. Iceman reportedly is a close friend of D’Amore and while TNA gave Marella their approval to be on a recent show, they did not do the same for others.

Meltzer reported that one person who publicly issued a denial of sorts about the initial story had contacted him privately and stated that it was true exactly as had been reported.

Meltzer also reported that while Alexander, Bailey, and Marella had been on recent shows, many other talents within TNA who had requested the same were turned down since then.

Meltzer also reported that there is currently some hope within TNA that for the company to prove it wrong after going public about the denial that they would have to allow talent to appear on D’Amore’s MLP shows going forward. Meltzer also reported that while MJF had recently challenged Nic Nemeth to a match on a future MLP show, that match may be harder to get either side to approve but the belief is that MJF was only doing it as a grandstand social media play to begin with.