New details are emerging about Scott D’Amore’s departure as TNA President and Anthony Cicione’s replacement, leaving talent dissatisfied with management.
D’Amore had a disagreement with management prior to his release, and because Len Asper, the head of Anthem, had the final say, it was D’Amore who left. D’Amore approached Anthem with an offer to buy TNA outright with the backing of a major bank, but it was rejected.
D’Amore’s termination was planned a month before it was announced.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer mentioned that D’Amore made an offer to buy TNA prior to Hard To Kill, TNA’s most successful pay-per-view event in years.
“So the timeline of everything, just to make clear, is that while the announcement of Scott F’Amore being gone was basically like a week ago, the decision was made before Hard To Kill. So it wasn’t as if they, like all of a sudden, had big success with Hard To Kill. And then they got rid of Scott. They’d already made that decision beforehand and Scott knew. The attempt to purchase by Scott D’Amore was in response to knowing that he was going to be gone. It was not like he tried to purchase the company but got turned down. And then they got rid of him. It was he knew that they were making the decision to cut him and Ed Nordholm, who is an executive with Anthem, and he had been working with TNA and both of them had been trying to get, you know, Anthem, spend more money on the product to you know, try to try to expand, they made plays for Will Ospreay, they made a play for CM Punk, you know, making plays for, for bigger name, guys. I mean, they did get Nick Nemeth, who started in the last set of shows, but the decision on D’Amore was already made before the pay-per-view was so successful.”
