Impact Wrestling News: Impact Wrestling President reveals how dispute with the Hardy family affected him
What’s the story?
As reported by Newsweek, Impact Wrestling President Ed Nordholm opened up on how the promotion’s legal dispute with Matt Hardy affected him.
Apparently, Nordholm was indeed flustered by the dispute, particularly by the fact that he constantly found himself in the midst of a Twitter war with Hardy family matriarch Reby Hardy. Besides, Nordholm also opened up on how Impact Wrestling’s modified policies serve to improve wrestling as a whole.
In case you didn’t know…
Ed Nordholm-helmed company Anthem Sports & Entertainment purchased TNA (now-Impact Wrestling) from Dixie Carter early last year.
Nordholm was involved in a courtroom battle with the Hardy family (Matt Hardy, Reby, Maxel, Senor Benjamin & Jeff Hardy)—with the aforementioned Hardys having portrayed the Broken Universe in Impact Wrestling.
The heart of the matter
As we’d previously reported, Ed Nordholm and the Hardys reached a settlement in January of this year, whereby Matt Hardy now owns the intellectual property rights to the Broken gimmick and is free to use in it any professional wrestling/sports-entertainment promotion he performs in. Nordholm revealed what he regrets about the entire fiasco—
"Attacking Hispanic women (Reby Hardy) who are protecting their men…As a fresh person into the wrestling world, a guy from the corporate environment where we don't play in the social media world, we clearly took on a s**tstorm—and I got my head handed to me."
Furthermore, Nordholm pointed out the catalyst which resulted in Impact Wrestling now allowing its talents to use their gimmicks that were created in the company while performing for other organizations as well—
"The catalyst was finding out our talents were doing other (wrestling) shows under other names, it seemed to me that's absurd in the world we're in today.”
Additionally, Impact Wrestling’s Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore explained that the very idea of a wrestling company owning the intellectual property rights to a character portrayed in the organization’s storylines doesn’t make sense, as under those rules said wrestler is disallowed from using the same name or outfit while wrestling for other organizations.
D’Amore continued that Impact Wrestling wants a collaborative environment where the wrestlers can feel that they’re creating something with the company, and when they leave, they still retain their creation and could use that while performing for other companies. In reference to the same, D’Amore cited the example of Mike Hutter who worked in Impact as EC3 and is now being referred to as EC3 in the WWE.
What’s next?
Ed Nordholm presently looks to revive Impact Wrestling after the promotion experienced several revenue issues all through 2017.
On the other hand, Matt Hardy continues to portray his Woken/Broken gimmick in the WWE.
Author’s take
Ed Nordholm entered the pro-wrestling business as an outsider but quickly seems to have learned the ropes of the trade.
No one messes with Queen Rebecca, or else they shall fade away and classify themselves as Obsolete!