Impact Wrestling media call: Scott D’Amore, Brian Cage, Taya Valkyrie
Impact Wrestling co-executive vice president Scott D’Amore, Impact World Champion Brian Cage, and Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie were part of an hour-long conference call Thursday, hitting up a variety of topics on the company’s past and future ahead of their official weekly AXS TV debut this Tuesday.
The whole call can be heard below, but a few highlights:
- D’Amore addressed the rumor of the TNA brand returning for one night in April during WrestleMania weekend in Orlando. He said it’s early in the process, but that “we don’t run from our history, we embrace it.”
- On Kylie Rae returning to the company, “the door is certainly open if she is interested.”
- D’Amore and Valkyrie were asked a lot about intergender matches which D’Amore said they are proud to be at the forefront of. Valkyrie jokingly challenged Cage to a title match and Cage retorted with that it didn’t go well for Valkyrie when they wrestled in another organization.
- D’Amore said their rebuilding process is over and that they have spent two years putting out a great product. He talked about restoring trust in the Impact name. He said they had to rebuild that when he and Callis took over two years ago. After a lot of negativity in ’18, he feels they have reclaimed a lot of that trust in ’19, but need to keep at it.”
- D’Amore said that other wrestling organizations are competition, but in a good way. “While other companies are competition, they aren’t enemies. For us to success, they don’t have to fail. Competition breeds innovation. We need to answer the challenge,” he said.
Other topics include Joey Ryan’s signing, co-promoting with New Japan Pro Wrestling and WOW, Killer Kross’ status, returning to the UK, some prank calls, and running on Tuesday nights.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.