The current TNA and former WWE executive discusses a number of subjects.
The ongoing crossover between TNA Wrestling and WWE continues to be on display. The latest episode of WWE NXT saw The Rascalz (Wes Lee, Zachary Wentz & Trey Miguel) reunite and Joe Hendry competed in the show’s main event.
Rob Kligman, who’s the Chief Revenue Officer of TNA’s parent company, Anthem Sports & Entertainment, spoke about the crossover while on EssentiallySports’ Think Tank show.
Kligman spent multiple years of his career with WWE as their Vice President of Global Digital & Integrated Sponsorship Sales. He revealed that TNA is working on getting a bigger distribution deal. He believes that is the only differentiation point between them and WWE.
We both (WWE & TNA) have historical realms behind each brand. The brands both can speak for themselves and stand for themselves. Right now, the difference really is the distribution mechanism that WWE uses to push their content out versus what TNA does. Right now, we’re focusing on getting that distribution even larger than it is for TNA. But that’s the big differentiation point. The production is the same quality and the content is the same quality. The difference is the distribution. So that’s one of the big reasons why I came on board was to help the distribution, work with our team internally at TNA and lock in an opportunity for the fans to see it worldwide and that’s our ultimate goal but right now, that’s where we see the differentiation point between World Wrestling Entertainment and TNA. It’s simply distribution, because when you look at the content, the production — like I said earlier — is spot-on and the content and the characters are spot-on so, once we get that distribution deal, I think you’re gonna see a little bit more of an even keel between both organizations.
Following up on that, Kligman was asked about the idea of WWE and TNA collaborating over WrestleMania weekend. He has not heard anything regarding that, but thinks it’d be exciting. He said one of the goals is for the two companies to collaborate on the same weekend.
That I don’t know yet (if TNA & WWE will collaborate over WrestleMania weekend). I think, again, the way I look at the organization and how I look at building a business is it’s crawl, walk, run. It’s taking those small steps and doing them really right the first time and then mature and get to the second step and get to the next step. That’s an ultimate goal and that would be amazing. I think there’s an opportunity for potentially maybe doing events in the same weekend. Finding a way to do something where we parallel the opportunity for fans to gather around and see content where they wanna see it at their time and that could be an event weekend that parallels TNA and WWE at some point. You just never know. But, obviously, WrestleMania is the ultimate. There is no such thing that’s even bigger than that but, I think the opportunity that could exist to be part of WrestleMania would be an ultimate goal.
It was in June that Kligman was officially announced for his new role at Anthem. He said part of the reason why he joined is the opportunity to work within pro wrestling again.
So the opportunity to revisit being around a wrestling organization was something that was really interesting to me (he said about joining Anthem). I was also looking for a property that was looking for growth. I think this day and age, there’s a lot of consolidation and for me, the opportunity to, one, be within wrestling which is where I spent eight years of my career and really flourished from a career perspective and the opportunity to also get into a female area where I’ll be working with Invicta Fighting Championships which is an all-female mixed martial arts promotion. The opportunity to be within something that as we’re talking about, the Caitlin Clark effect, which is really pushing female athletes in sports to the next level has given me a chance to, one, be in mixed martial arts. But also be within an area that’s truly, truly growing so, for me, the combination of both has made it a really appealing opportunity…
The subject of new leadership in TNA Wrestling came up. Earlier this year, Anthony Cicione replaced Scott D’Amore as President. Kligman spoke about the new leadership that has been brought in.
From our perspective, TNA, I can tell you that we’ve got some really positive people within the organization and positivity leads to success and team-oriented mindsets lead to success and that’s what I’ve seen so far and that’s the type of people that we’re bringing into this organization. We wanna win. We wanna win at a level that we know we’re capable of winning at and that to me is what’s exciting. I think, more than anything, we’ve all checked our egos at the door if we have any and we understand that it’s a team that will make this a success and we have the foundation built at TNA and Anthem Sports Group in general and I think as we work together and we’re smart and we have our steps along the way, it’s gonna be a success.
There is a new episode of TNA iMPACT airing on 7/11. There will be coverage of the show here on POST Wrestling. TNA is moving towards their 20th Slammiversary pay-per-view on July 20th.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit EssentiallySports’ Think Tank with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
