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As its a destination for wrestling fans from all over the globe, WrestleMania week has become a time & place where every wrestling promotion wants/needs to have a show.
But there are only so many venues, and days of the week. The logistical problems are compounded when companies share talent - an increasingly common thing as feds don’t demand exclusivity so they can attract and book the top stars necessary to make promoting shows profitable, especially during a peak time like ‘Mania week. And this year in an expensive market like New York/New Jersey.
MLW and Impact ran into this problem when their shows were set to go head-to-head on the night of Thurs., April 4. So they teamed up as best they could.
Impact is changing gears and splitting off from House of Glory, with whom they were promoting their ‘Mania week Culture Clash event in Queens on April 4 at 8PM. That would have happened at the same time as MLW’s Fusion tapings. Rather than split talent and fans, Impact is moving to Rahway, NJ and a late night start time (not possible in New York City due to curfew laws) that should allow wrestlers & ticket buyers to do both shows.
House of Glory will now go it alone on the afternoon of Sat., April 6.
Here’s the press release from Impact & MLW about the changes, and their alliance:
“IMPACT Wrestling and Major League Wrestling Announce Collaboration for April 4 Events
TORONTO | NEW YORK CITY – IMPACT Wrestling, a subsidiary of Anthem Sports & Entertainment Corp., and Major League Wrestling (MLW), announced today that they will be collaborating for their events on April 4 by coordinating talent and schedules to ensure that fans can attend live events presented by both organizations when virtually the entire professional wrestling world descends upon the New York metropolitan area.
April 4 show details for both organizations are below:
Major League Wrestling
MLW will host “Rise of the Renegades” tapings on April 4 at 7:00 p.m. ET for its weekly television program “Fusion” airing on beIN Sports. Tickets start at $20 and are already on sale at MLWTickets.com. The live event will take place at Melrose Ballroom (36-08 33rd St.) in Long Island City, NY. Click here for directions.
IMPACT Wrestling
IMPACT Wrestling presents “United We Stand” on Thursday, April 4 at Rahway Recreation Centre (275 E. Milton Ave.) in Rahway, NJ. The event, in partnership with WrestlePro, begins at 11:00 p.m. ET and streams live on Twitch. Tickets are on sale at www.IMPACTWrestling.com and start at $40. Click here for directions. The event will stream live on IMPACT Wrestling’s official Twitch channel –www.twitch.tv/impactwrestling – which also features the flagship weekly show IMPACT!, simulcasting on Pursuit Channel across the U.S. on Fridays at 10:00 p.m. ET.
“This arrangement eliminates talent booking conflicts and ensures that loyal and passionate fans of both IMPACT Wrestling and MLW are able to attend our respective live events on April 4th,” said Ed Nordholm, president of IMPACT Wrestling.
“Both promotions believe in putting the fans first,” said MLW COO Jared St. Laurent. “Fans will be traveling from all over the world in hopes of seeing the best of the best. MLW and IMPACT Wrestling agreed without hesitation that the fans deserved to be able to see both of these amazing events without having to choose one over the other.”
IMPACT Wrestling executive vice-president Scott D’Amore added: “Due to the New York curfew preventing us from starting at 11:00 p.m. ET, we have moved our live event to New Jersey. We want to thank our partners at WrestlePro for facilitating this collaboration on April 4th and also thank House of Glory and stress that we couldn’t make this happen for our great fans without their cooperation. We look forward to working with House of Glory in the near future and will have an announcement coming soon about a future event together.”
The two venues are roughly 30 miles apart and travel time between the two is generally about an hour.
Even before the announcement of All Elite Wrestling, promotions were setting up partnerships and alliances, such as New Japan, CMLL and Ring of Honor, and Impact and AAA. Will MLW and Impact continue working together past WrestleMania week?
We shall see.