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Dixie Carter, John Gaburick and company are staying busy heading into Wednesday night's live reboot of Impact Wrestling on Destination America.
Following the news that a show that had traditionally been a pay-per-view (PPV), Lockdown, would be a very special episode of Impact this Friday, a fan on Twitter asked Carter if her promotion would still be in the PPV business. While offering very little in the way of specifics, Carter did say that they would:
@pete0205 A few live PPVs and several One Night Only PPV's.
— Dixie Carter (@TNADixie) January 5, 2015
Creative head Gaburick continued with the stream of talent contract announcements, this time tweeting that TNA has locked up The Wolves for their tag team division.
Let the hunt... continue! Proud to announce Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards inking new deals w/ @IMPACTWRESTLING. pic.twitter.com/pDSqecfRVP
— John Gaburick (@JohnGaburick) January 5, 2015
While none of the announced deals are necessarily bad, they've mostly represented guys (and Madison Rayne) without very many options for signing with companies with name recognition. WWE has passed on The Wolves, just as they had on re-signing Ken Anderson or Kurt Angle, and Richards at least has burned the bridge to Ring of Honor (ROH).
Someone whose options seem to include every major promotion except for WWE is Alberto El Patron, who debuted this past weekend for ROH. His work on the Sinclair Broadcasting-owned show will be in addition to working for Mexico's AAA and presumably Lucha Underground, and also reportedly weighing offers from MMA promotions like Bellator.
TNA allegedly put together a big package to try to get the man who wrestled in WWE as Alberto Del Rio to sign with them exclusively. Now, The Wrestling Observer (via WrestleZone) has said that they're making one last push to try to bring him on-board as a non-exclusive attraction to generate excitement for their re-launch this week. Dixie and company are reportedly willing to bring him in as a one-shot deal for Wednesday's show, believing it would make a statement about their "fresh" product and differentiate it from the version most fans associate the brand with that aired on Spike TV for the last several years.
Is any of these making you more excited for the return of Impact, Cagesiders? Would an appearance by El Patron do the trick?