Fightful Wrestling Weekly 10/23: Bischoff Firing, AEW, IMPACT Wrestling, NWA

Brian Cage

Brian Cage says that he knows IMPACT isn’t “knocking everything out of the park” and says there will be flat tires here and there, but thinks that IMPACT has been the most consistent product in wrestling. When he signed it was right after a roller coaster period and he was hesitant to sign, but the new regime and helping right the ship led to him signing.

He said that he found out about the Anthem buying AXS news when about everyone else did. He says it feels like the IMPACT roster and staff has been working together to make sure that the product improves as opposed to focusing on themselves. He spoke of the difficulties in staying creative, and noted that the creative freedom helps foster a positive work environment.

He’s hoping that IMPACT can get away with more on AXS since Anthem owns the channel, as a lot of projects that IMPACT tried to work into the POP era ended up getting nixed by the network.

Sami Callihan

Callihan seemed very proud of Bound For Glory selling out, as the company had “one foot in the grave” a couple of years ago, and some companies haven’t drawn well at the Odeum Expo Center. He’s excited about the move to AXS, and called some of the previous stations that they’ve been on “terrible.” He said that IMPACT pretty much gives fans that want the Attitude Era what they’re craving, and aren’t afraid to have an edgy product and offend some people.

Callihan doesn’t think “intergender wrestling,” should be a thing, and that it should be more about “pro wrestling,” instead of labeling it. He compared it to comic book film franchises and Game of Thrones.

Taya

IMPACT Knockouts Champion Taya said she’s very confident in the content IMPACT produces, the masses just need to see it. She compared the IMPACT roster to misfit toys that all have roles and push each other to do their best work. She spoke of IMPACT’s willingness to bring in people that nobody has seen before, but also their willingness to bring legends in.

The women’s division was tackled, and Taya was very happy with the fact that almost every woman has a story and something to do on the show, even outside of the title program. Taya is a major proponent of intergender wrestling, and put over Tessa Blanchard’s work with Sami Callihan

Taya tackled her tough schedule and traveling between Mexico, U.S. and Canada as well.

Abyss Making A Finisher

The latest Making A Finisher profiled WWE Producer Abyss, who talked about his iconic Black Hole Slam. He said it was a play off of the Bossman Slam, which was his original finisher in the mid-90s before he added a spin to it to make it unique. AJ Styles and Matt Sydal were the two names he pointed to as being the best at taking it, and said there were only a couple of guys that he had trouble getting it on.

Some of the hazards that go with being Abyss are landing in many of the objects you’ve laid out for your opponent. According to “The Monster,” barbed wire, thumbtacks and boards would also take him out while delivering the move to someone.

As for the move being emulated by the next generation of talent, Abyss told me that he sees it as an honor that someone would be influenced by him.

Notes

– The AEW Dark opening match with Kip Sabian, Peter Avalon and Sonny Kiss was edited due to Sabian’s finger injury.

– As mentioned in the Fightful Weekly, IMPACT Bound For Glory wasn’t just sold out, it’s was over capacity.

-Chris Sabin was backstage, and helped put together the X-Division Title ladder match. Gail Kim helped put together the Knockouts Championship match. 

– We’re told Triple H got out of an NXT meeting just minutes before going on the air with WWE Backstage.

– NWA seemed very happy about their week one viewership. They were planning to push things more on the Youtube end of things in light of Facebook coming under scrutiny for some skewed numbers.

Eric Bischoff Notes

– Bischoff was one of the names that Ali had impressed a while back with his King of the Ring performance. 

– One person said that Prichard was already overseeing a pretty encompassing group of tasks, and had resumed his role as “Vince’s right hand man.” We’re told that Prichard has been more hands on than Bischoff, and that the latter was taking time to adjust to the familiarizing himself with the roster and product.

– The situation had “been building for weeks” per this person, and this was a WWE call, not an Eric Bischoff call. There was a lot of talk that Bischoff was not “all in” on the late night meetings among other things. 

– Some of the short term employees that are brought to Stamford are in corporate housing, but we weren’t sure Bischoff’s “moving” situation, outside of the fact that he was moving in July — until he clarified he was in a corporate apartment. Generally if you’re hired out of the local area, you’re provided three months of corporate housing and a rental car. 

– Bischoff had ceased appearing on Afterbuzz’s After 83 Weeks Post-show once he moved to Stamford in July. 

– Staff and some talent heard about Bischoff’s firing at roughly 1 PM EST, while plenty of others learned about it as it was revealed on social media. One talent told us they “saw it coming,” and that Bischoff did ‘not seem comfortable’ with the role or what went with it. 

– There was a lot of confusion among talent that we spoke to of Bischoff’s defined role. One said that Smackdown talent was told to take creative ideas to Bischoff, and that Bischoff actually solicited them for ideas on their characters. This extended from those who hadn’t been appearing on the show to regulars. 

– Bischoff was subject to the same tirades in meetings from Vince McMahon that others were.