Total Nonstop Action Wrestling informed Ring of Honor today that effective immediately, all TNA contracted talents have been pulled from scheduled and future ROH bookings.

With the departure of Christopher Daniels last week, that would mean that former ROH champions Homicide and Austin Aries are no longer be allowed to appear at Ring of Honor events and are already done with the company.

The expected ROH return of Samoa Joe later this year, which was foreshadowed when Joe defeated current ROH champion Takeshi Morishima the night before Morishima won the title, is also off the books.

TNA made the call after ROH's announcement yesterday that they signed a deal to begin airing taped PPV events on 7/1. The first PPV will be taped on 5/12 in New York City at the Manhattan Center.

TNA sources acknowledged that the decision will likely upset ROH fans, but felt they had no choice after learning about ROH's PPV expansion yesterday via the Internet. There's no word why the pulled talents couldn't appear on matches that wouldn't be aired on the taped PPV events.

ROH booker Gabe Sapolskly declined comment on the situation when contacted this morning, but given the way the ROH storylines have phased out TNA performers, this likely was not an unexpected move.

Earlier today, PWInsider.com noted that TNA had been cracking down on bookings of talents for promotions that featured DVDs of their events sold via third-party retailers. One of those companies were California independent promotion Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, which announced the following today:


Pro Wrestling Guerrilla ends agreement with TNA Wrestling
Los Angeles, CA - Generally, the Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (http://www.prowrestlingguerrilla.com) news releases have been light-hearted yet informative, however that will not be the case on this occasion.

Since our humble beginnings in July 2003, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has booked employees of TNA Wrestling to appear on our shows, in what can only be considered a successful relationship for all parties involved.

Both companies experienced tremendous growth during this time period, admittedly with Pro Wrestling Guerrilla aided infinitely more so by TNA Wrestling than the other way around, and the relationship between the two companies has been affable.

On April 24, 2007, TNA Wrestling presented Pro Wrestling Guerrilla with a contract that would prevent TNA Wrestling employees from appearing on DVDs sold through or distributed by any third parties. Because this would include long-time partner Highspots.com, as of May 3, 2007, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has severed all ties with TNA Wrestling.

Because of this situation, TNA Wrestling employees Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley will not be appearing at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's DDT4 Tag Team Title Tournament on May 19 & 20. We at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla would like to apologize to Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin, who along with Frankie Kazarian, were not simply employees, but part of the Pro Wrestling Guerrilla family. We would also like to apologize to Samoa Joe, Low Ki, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels, whom we had booked for upcoming Pro Wrestling Guerrilla events. We would also like to thank Homicide, Austin Aries, Petey Williams, and all those previously mentioned for their hard work and professionalism as Pro Wrestling Guerrilla wrestlers.

And most importantly, we would like to apologize to our fans, who have come to enjoy seeing TNA employees both at our live events and on our DVDs. Your appreciation and support gave the TNA employees a chance to wrestle at a level they often time are unable to. We hope you can understand that this was not an easy decision to make, but we did what we feel was best for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla now, and in the future. Later today, we will provide updated information regarding the DDT4 Tag Team Title Tournament, including the last team, more non-tournament matches, and the final DDT4 first round matches!

With TNA's increased schedule (up to 11 live events scheduled for June alone), it's obvious that the company is making efforts towards what they see as protecting their assets, only wanting DVDs featuring their talents to be sold by the promotions themselves, not by outside retailers such as Highspots or Smart Mark Video.

While I can understand why this is going to upset independent wrestling fans, the fact is that if an indy company wants to book TNA contracted talents, they have to abide by TNA's rules to do so. If they don't wish to work by those paramters, they can follow PWG's lead and no longer utilize TNA contracted performers.

On 05/04/07 at 14:10:06, psz wrote:Depends on how much it was for, considering TNA probably pays more. (Though admittedly, it's possible that his TNA-Only contract doesn't financially lives up to the various independant checks he got through the years)