Various: TNA Rebellion 2024 TV PPV Buys Update, Update on Tonga Twins WOW Departure & Accused of Bullying WOW Talent, Indies

May 11, 2024

TNA Rebellion PPV Buys Estimates Update

As noted before, TNA Wrestling had generated around 1,200 cable television pay-per-view buys for this past April’s Rebellion2024 event for its first week following the event.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Rebellion 2024 is currently at around 1,860 cable TV PPV buys based on updated late buys numbers.

Meltzer reported that Rebellion 2024 is currently down around 85.9% compared to this past January’s Hard To Kill 2024 television buys based on the same number of days after the event.

Update on Tonga Twins Departure from WOW – Tonga Twins Accused of Bullying WOW Talent

As noted before, Women of Wrestling talents The Tonga Twins, Kona & Kaoz revealed earlier this week that they had recently left the company over issues with WOW management.

WOW talent Princess Aussie recently responded on Twitter disputing the claims made by the Tonga Twins and accused them of bullying and threatening WOW talent and claimed they were released by the company over it.

“WOW has many flaws and has had a ton of growing pains with good and bad decisions along the way, but what’s happening right now is NOT RIGHT. The Tonga Twins were LET GO, they did not quit. The Tonga Twins were called out because of their own actions of BULLYING talent, THREATENING talent, and acting off brand online. All of which is documented and hopefully for their sake doesn’t make it online. Women’s empowerment isn’t about burning a company down and taking everyone’s jobs away from them because you didn’t like being told NO, when just hours before being let go, your sending locker room leader motivational speeches in a company wide group chat. WOW has a long way to go that’s clear, but I’ll be damned if I let the ego of two very well treated and pushed talent speak on our behalf out of spite.”

Former WOW talent Heidi Howitzer also responded on Twitter and claimed that Aussie’s comments were accurate and that the Tonga Twins had purposely injured several talents including herself in the company.

“WOW can be criticized for many things, but these women stating they’ll “speak out” for the other girls only received favoritism while bullying and injuring others, the entire time crying “sisterhood.”
I went to the ER due to their negligence and improper training.
I requested my release directly after this incident.
They also bullied a close friend when she was severely injured and spoke up.”

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

New Japan Pro Wrestling reportedly has sold and distributed around 2,834 tickets for tonight’s Resurgence 2024 event at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California as of Saturday late afternoon, according to WrestleTix.

In a recent interview with CBS’ KCAL News, NJPW talent Gabe Kidd gave his thoughts about the type of wrestling fans who watch WWE, AEW, and NJPW shows. Kidd stated “I’ll put it in very simple terms. If you like theater, go watch WWE. If you’re a fat nerd who can’t talk to girls, go watch AEW. If you want to watch the real stuff, New Japan Pro-Wrestling is where it’s at.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Major League Wrestling recently signed several new talents to contracts with the company. It was reported that it is currently not known who had signed new deals with MLW.

MLW recently announced that Okumura is the next official competitor for this year’s Battle Riot match at their Battle Riot VI event on June 1st in Atlanta, Georgia.

DEFY Wrestling recently announced that The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) will be making an appearance for the company at their DEFY For The Glory event on July 19th in Seattle, Washington.

Friday’s Here And Now event for DEFY in Seattle featured Swerve Strickland making a surprise appearance for the company. During the show, Strickland came out to the ring as a surprise and gave a speech reflecting on his career journey and how DEFY played a big part of it. Strickland also praised the current members of DEFY’s locker room and stated that DEFY got him started on his rise as a star in wrestling.

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced one new match for the card of their Hit Em Up event on June 15th in Los Angeles, California: