TNA President Carlos Silva: “Intentional Blood NOT Banned, There Is No Such Ban In Place” – Talks New Directive Surrounding Subject
TNA aired one of the bloodiest matches in recent history last week on their TNA iMPACT! broadcast when Steve Maclin and Eric Young participated in a very physical and gruesome Dog Collar Match, and this came about two weeks after Mance Warner and Sami Callihan had a very intense Barbed Wire Mayhem match at the TNA Unbreakable show on April 17th.
Following the taping of the dog collar match, PWInsider reported that TNA was banning “heavy and intentional blood” going forward. Now, it seems Jon Alba from Sports Illustrated has an update on that directive from the company.
“In the days following the PWInsider report about intentional blood being banned, several TNA sources, both talent and officials, reached out to The Takedown on SI to indicate the edict from the meeting was misrepresented, and that intentional bleeding was in fact not outlawed in the promotion. On Wednesday, TNA President Carlos Silva told The Takedown on SI that there is no such ban in place.”
“Silva did confirm an element of PWInsider’s report, acknowledging the company is being cognizant of potential advertisers and partners, alongside confirming The Takedown’s note on shopping for a new media rights deal. However, Silva said when addressing talent in the meeting, it was instead done to encourage the locker room to utilize brutality and intentional bleeding more sparingly, coming off of two extreme instances in a short period of time.”
“He told The Takedown on SI that if creative or the talent feel intentional blood or heavy violence is earned for their story or the stakes of the match, it is “absolutely” something TNA is open to exploring using.”
“Though viewers can expect to see less intentional blood on TNA TV, Silva made clear to The Takedown on SI that there is no ban on it, and they are open to using it if the situation calls for it and it is not being overused.”
This is great news that TNA is, in part, using this as a way to scale back on certain elements of the show to shop it to new potential media rights/television partners.
Last week, Sports Illustrated’s Jon Alba reported that TNA has been “heavily” shopping around for new and better distribution.
Many TNA talents and figure heads have been talking about finding bigger distribution for the product, most recently Frankie Kazarian back in March when he said that “getting on a better network is the focus of management.”
Speaking of a better TV deal, TNA star Matt Hardy has repeatedly stated that Anthem/TNA is “actively working on that.”
Back in December of 2024, Anthem hired Carlos Silva to oversee Anthem Sports Group – which includes TNA Wrestling, Invicta FC, and Fight Network – who stated that his near-team focus is to find the best distribution available and sponsorships.
Back in January, Tommy Dreamer spoke about the ambitious goals of TNA in 2025, which mincludes “a larger television platform.”
Whether a new television deal happens in 2025 remains to be seen, but TNA has also been licensing out their replay rights to regional networks in multiple areas.
Within the last week or so of 2024, TNA confirmed the Bodyslam report that they would be partnering with Sportsnet in Canada for an exclusive, multi-year deal to air their weekly TNA iMPACT programming on their Sportsnet 360 channel.
It was also announced last week that TNA will be airing on Claro Sports for the Latin America countries.
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