Alfonso Castillo of Newsday.com is featuring an interview with GFW commentator Josh Mathews where he addresses the report by Sports Illustrated last week stating that Anthem was already looking at selling all interest in GFW/Impact Wrestling.
“I’m kind of disappointed in what I’ve seen out there this week . . . because we’ve been working so hard on these over-the-top platforms that we’re looking to be a part of. This company has been getting beat up for 15 years — maybe at times rightfully so. But I think now to have fake news out there about what we’re doing is sad.”
Mathews later went on to discuss why the reports made no sense just as Anthem and GFW were announcing plans for the launch of the Global Wrestling Network and new TV deals for Impact (both on Pop TV and overseas).
“Never once has anybody said anything about, ‘Well, we might not be around to do these huge things.’ I’ve gotten three or four phone calls from vendors and people that I work with saying, ‘Oh, man. I really hope you guys pull through. And it’s like, ‘No, no, no. We’re good. There’s nothing to pull through right now.’ Put any other company against we’re up against in these times . . . I don’t know if a lot of them survive. But Anthem, with their wisdom, they saw something. They came in. They breathed life into this company. And now here we are at the end of 2017 and there are all these things that are happening . . . And we’ll grow from there.”
For what it’s worth, Justin Barrasso told Wrestlezone recently that he stands by his original report about Anthem looking at pulling out from GFW.