Billy Corgan says NWA finances are ‘fine’, denies reports of talent & cost cutting

The past few news cycles haven’t been kind to the National Wrestling Alliance or its owner, Billy Corgan.

After the latest report claimed the NWA is cutting spending on talent, production, and in other areas as no money is coming in and “been funding everything out of pocket for the NWA for years”, PWInisder reached out to the Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman and former TNA producer for his side of the story.

Corgan confirmed that he’s “100% owner” of the NWA with no other investors, so he makes the call on spending. He says the company’s “financial health is fine”, mostly due to the money his career as a musician generates:

“For those who have noticed, this has been an incredibly successful period in my musical life; including a massive summer tour in 2023 and two more tours on the books for 2024 with an arena and festival summer run in Europe flowing into stadium tour with Green Day. So if I needed additional funding (I don’t currently) I can get it easily, because I also own all my songs as well as my recorded work (what they call ‘masters’) since 2001; and which one could get loans on against future earnings, etc. if needed.”

He points to this weekend’s NWA show at Robarts Arena in Sarasota, Florida as proof. Corgan says the “live-to-tape event” is a “much more expensive” way to generate episodes of the promotion’s flagship show Powerrr than taping in a TV studio, which they’ve usually done in the past:

“So we are actually spending more money, not less. 2023 has been the most expensive year yet of the Lightning One era and that’s a good thing because the wrestling and quality of our productions has never been higher, which feeds into landing TV deals.”

One of the most talked about reports from the past few weeks has involved the NWA landing — and possibly losing — TV deals. Corgan can’t divulge details, but he continues to maintain the NWA has two separate television deals, “and those deals have been in place for a good, good while.”

The strongest denial came when Corgan was asked about talent cuts:

“None. The territorial system being reinstated is partly to make sure that if key roster talents are not in a particular TV taping cycle they keep working in our NWA ecosystem. We value everyone that works for us; and some are under contract and some are not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want everyone working for us all the time. [If I didn’t want them], I would not have invested time (and money by extension) in storylines and promotion of a character they own.”

There you have it. Time will tell if Corgan is vindicated, or if the reports are correct and Billy’s quest to again make the NWA a big wrestling brand is in trouble.