Newsweek caught up with Anthem executive and Impact Wrestling president Ed Nordholm and his newly installed vice-presidents Don Callis and Scott D’Amore recently. The first order of business was confirming reports yesterday (Jan. 30) from first PWInsider and then others that long-time star and producer Jeremy Borash was headed to WWE.
Nordholm, Callis and D’Amore were gracious and professional in their comments about Borash and EC3, who showed up at TakeOver: Philadelphia this past Saturday and was introduced as a new NXT talent. They also repeatedly hit a “change is good” theme.
Rockstar Spud wasn’t mentioned, probably because he actually left Impact some time ago, but another name rumored but not yet officially headed to WWE was - Bobby Lashley. Without revealing any details, the Impact team’s comments certainly didn’t do anything to dispel visions of Lashley on Raw or SmackDown in the near future.
Here are some highlights of what they said about each man:
On Jeremy Borash:
Nordholm - “We wish him all the best. He’s a talented guy and has been with the company forever. But we have a lot of talented guys—change is good and it gives other guys a chance to step up.”
D’Amore - “This company has historically given new people opportunities. We always wish Jeremy well... But we have editors on our team who don’t get the notoriety that Jeremy does. We have great players ready to step up.”
On EC3:
D’Amore - “His contract was not up. He came to us, we had a frank discussion about where he saw himself going. We decided to sit down and work something out that worked for us on how we’d wrap up this portion of his career.”
Callis - “He’s a talented guy, but change is good. Yes, EC3 left, but Brian Cage came in, Johnny Impact came in, Austin Aries returned.”
On Bobby Lashley:
Nordholm - “Bobby is free to figure out what he wants to do next, whether it be wrestling or mixed martial arts. We wish him all the best. He’s a great talent, it’s foolish to say, ‘No, we wouldn’t want to retain him,’ but he has his own ambitions about what he thinks is good for him next in his career.”
There’s honestly not much else they could say, and just the fact they’re out here, in a major publication, addressing the issue head on in a civil manner feels like a huge step forward for the former TNA. After years of constantly being behind the public relations’ eight-ball, Impact’s management team now comes across as a unified group of adult businesspeople.
That that’s impressive is telling about what a mess their past is, but you have to start somewhere.
Check out the whole Newsweek piece here.