Impact President Ed Nordholm Says He Got "His Head Handed To Him" During Matt Hardy Dispute
Newsweek has a new piece today with the new Impact Wrestling management team. Impact President Ed Nordholm talked about their latest attempt to rebrand and the issues they've had since taking the company over from TNA President Dixie Carter last year. In the article, Nordholm discussed one thing he would have done differently.
"Attacking hispanic women [Reby Hardy] who are protecting their men," he said. "As a fresh person into the wrestling world, a guy from the corporate environment where we don't play in the social media world, we clearly took on a s–tstorm?and I got my head handed to me."
We first exclusively reported in early January that Hardy had reached a deal with Anthem Sports to own all of the core characters created in TNA associated with the "Broken" gimmick. Impact Wrestling has also changed their contracts to allow talent to own the rights to their characters after they leave the company. Former TNA World Champion Mike Hutter was billed as "EC3" when appearing on NXT television at Takeover: Philadelphia last month despite the character being created in TNA.
"The catalyst was finding out our talents were doing other [wrestling] shows under other names. It seemed to me that's absurd in the world we're in today," Nordholm stated.
"If you look at it, the idea of a wrestling company owning the [intellectual property] wasn't really to profit from it, but owning the I.P.?if a person leaves they can't use that name or wear that outfit people recognize," added Impact Executive Vice President Scott D'Amore. "We want a collaborative environment where people can feel like they're creating something [with us]... and if the time comes where you go separate ways, you both get to walk away knowing you have some ownership of something you created. Mike Hutter gets to go out and play the character he helped create. It's better for him, better for wrestling, and better for us?we have a library full of amazing EC3 content."
Nordholm also discussed Jeff Jarrett's departure from the company, their goals and more. You can read the full story by clicking here.