More On Impact Wrestling’s Negotiations With AXS TV Falling Through: Talks Began In December, When The Move Was Supposed To Happen

It was reported yesterday that talks between Impact Wrestling and AXS TV for a possible TV deal had fallen through, which is bad news for the company as they had been hoping to get out of their current deal with Pursuit. An update later said that Anthem Sports actually had interest in buying AXS TV, and that was rumored to still be ongoing.

According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, talks with Anthem Sports owner Leonard Asper to buy AXS started in December, not as few months ago as the previous report suggested. One of the reasons nothing has been reported until now is that everyone involved has had to sign NDAs.

The idea is that Impact moved to Pursuit, which Anthem owns, without a long-term contract. If they made a deal with anyone else, they would have to make that long-term commitment. After the deal with Pursuit ended, they would move to AXS and be a major part of the channel. There were those in Impact who believed this was going to happen. At first they thought they would move in June, and then they thoguht it would happen the week after Slammiversary. Rumors began to start at the tapings this past weekend that AXS decided not to pick up another wrestling show since they already had NJPW and WOW.

Meanwhile, the Observer suggests that the talks to buy AXS from Mark Cuban, R. Seacrest Media, CAA and CBS have also fallen through.

When the talks with AXS fell apart, Impact then announced a new deal with Twitch that would include more episodes of the series on Friday nights from 10 PM to midnight, as well as exclusive content like pre and post shows, live monthly arena shows, Xplosion and more.