LOADED update: CM Punk, Mistico, Clon, Jade Cargill, Beyond Nitro, Hologram, TNA news, much more!

SRS is back from a mini vacation, and he, Corey and Luis put together an absolutely loaded news update post for paid subscribers today. Subscribe at $5.99 a month, and avoid aggregation on dozens of pieces of news in this that we'll almost certainly have to correct! Also this week, SRS' Q&A show went over an hour. Lock in your year-long subscription to get a big discount ahead of a ton of new content being added to Select in 2026!

Updates for paid subscribers in this post alone include: Smackdown finish, Jade Cargill, Hologram, Clon, Mistico, Ella Envy, Beyond Nitro, Ridge Holland, Swerve, ISHOWSPEED, Mustafa Ali, Myron Reed, and tons of European news

We've also added a new Friday tradition: a rumor roundup and debunkathon.

• Ridge Holland's injury was during the TNA tapings this past weekend. He had to be helped to the back.

• Regarding last week's Smackdown, we're told that Tiffany Stratton was late to breaking up Jade Cargill's pin on Nia Jax, and Nia Jax had to kick out. We aren't sure why the three wasn't counted for Stratton as that was apparently the finish. Details are still foggy and multiple things were claimed internally.

• Obviously Jade Cargill was not supposed to get busted open. She was said to have handled it well and the wound got taken care of. We were told to not be surprised if she isn't wrestling this week, but physically seemed okay all things considered and was in good spirits.

• Hologram's knee injury happened on last week's AEW Dynamite. Wrestling Observer reported he's slated to be out the rest of the year, which matches what we've heard.

• In addition, Clon had sustained an injury recently as well. However, he seems to be good to go now. It appears the Clon angle will continue.

• Former NWA Tag Team Champion Ella Envy was an extra on WWE Raw.

• There was a birthday party this week held near Dynamite for Swerve Strickland. Some AEW names were present. Swerve Strickland had repeatedly highlighted that he's 36 now, as wikipedia has had his age wrong for years.

• Mustafa Ali's promo on NXT was well received by both those in NXT and TNA. We'd long heard at Fightful that Shawn Michaels was actually adamantly against his release, and had plans for Mustafa Ali, including him actually becoming North American Champion. To the point where Ali had North American Champion gear made.

• Myron Reed was presented a "TNA All Star" trophy after the last set of tapings. This is something TNA has been doing for standout performers and employees of late.

• Randy Orton, Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, Chelsea Green, Cathy Kelley and other wrestlers were at the premiere of IShowSpeed's "Speed Goes Pro." Randy Orton will be in episode 3 of the show.

• Wrestlevotes had reported that the name of NXT/TNA Invasion to Showdown was happening. We can confirm it was because of the pushback they received on "Invasion" being on a date coinciding with the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel

• CM Punk was at Dancing With The Stars, seated next to Jensen Karp to support Karp's wife Danielle Fishel. We're told that Karp and Punk have been friends for years and Karp has actually contributed to his promos in the past!

Mistico speaks to Fightful Espanol's Luis Pulido!

• Reflected on winning once again the 2025 Grand Prix, said he worked hard to get prepared for it & was happy to bring it back to Arena Mexico

• Reflected his 2024 & 2025, including winning the Leyenda Azul tournament, changing weight classes from Middleweight to Light Heavyweight (and vacating both Middleweight belts from MLW & CMLL because of it). He also mentioned he was keeping his eye on the MLW World Heavyweight title

• On his match against MJF, he said there were moments he thought he would lose but the people motivated him to get back into despite the blood. He also said he was happy to have silence a lot of people who thought that match would suck, saying it was one of the best matches.

• Mentions Ultimo Guerrero is not an easy opponent and looked forward to defending the Opera Cup on Saturday

Jesús Rodriguez speaks to Fightful Espanol's Luis Pulido!

• mentioned he has enjoyed a lot working with Cesar Duran and Salina de la Renta as figure heads of MLW

• regarding his work as an agent, he mentioned his 19 years of experience & working in WWE & MLW had helped a lot on his current role. He also mentioned he was helped out with the women’s division as well as the crossover talent from CMLL

• Recalling his time as El Local in WWE, he reminisced about how his experience in training with Látigo Blanco, Phoenix Star, Zokre & Nemesis in So-Cal helped him in working with Mistico (then Sin Cara) across house shows.

• He also mentioned that mistico we saw in WWE is completely different to the won we see now in CMLL and said his match against Ultimo Guerrero on Saturday will be an Instant Classic.

• regarding Cesar Duran’s BLOOD MONEY comment, he said that, at its core, it was about MLW being focused on satisfying their fans. He also mentioned that they were here for them & to give good wrestling

• recalled teaming with Atlantis, says it has been a dream come true having him and others like Blue Panther, Star Jr., Virus, as his co-workers.

• He also said it was important that MLW is working with CMLL in bringing the flavor from Arena Mexico to the US

European News from Corey Brennan

• Arez, who plays El Clon in All Elite Wrestling, was announced for 2026's 16 Carat Gold tournament in wXw. When we asked about the booking, we were told by wXw sources that it was a direct booking without AEW involvement.

• For those who’ve asked, Will Ospreay will continue his work with Pro Wrestling EVE while on the shelf following neck surgery.

• Zozaya, Aigle Blanc and Mike D Vecchio have reported to Orlando following their signing by WWE.

• Despite a packed Grand Prix weekend, we are told by wXw sources that there was no major injuries coming out of it. Elijah Blum was said to have been banged up after the first day, but toughed his way through his remaining matches.

• We are told that wXw’s Extreme Wrestling Party event was the highest selling tickets wise of the weekend.

• A wXw source, as well as several others in other European promotions have spoke highly recently of the drive of talent to step up in the wake of Zozaya, Aigle Blanc and Mike D Vecchio’s signings.

• On the recent SummerSlam tryouts, we have heard of several talent being passed on, but have yet to confirm if any independent talent were signed. One source claimed several athletes were signed, but we haven’t been able to confirm that.

BEYOND NITRO Excerpt. We'd like to thank Guy Evans for sending this in for our readers. Check out his book at this link.

In the 12 months prior to April 2012 – a period encapsulating episodes of Impact occurring between Lockdown 2011 and Lockdown 2012 – TNA’s flagship show recorded a 1.13 average in the Nielsen ratings. Subsequently, the next 12 months of Impact (episodes occurring between Lockdown 2012 to just-after Lockdown 2013, due to the latter event occurring in March) produced an average of 1.01, representing a 10.6% drop in relative audience share. Therefore, while the show likely benefited from a more defined structure – particularly in terms of its overall coherence – it failed to attract a new crop of viewers (and, in fact, as evidenced by the numbers, the opposite effect had ultimately transpired).

With this lack of ratings growth came a renewed focus on another oft-derided constraint of the TNA business model. Since June 2004, the company had taped and aired its programming from Universal Studio Florida’s Soundstage 21 in Orlando, colloquially referred to as The Impact Zone. With a maximum capacity of only 1400 fans, the familiar old venue (the site of numerous WCW syndicated shows in the ‘90s, incidentally) contrasted unfavorably against the bright, enormous, and stunningly well-lit arenas utilized by WWE (and WCW, for that matter, during its heyday). A certain school of thought developed that TNA, despite possessing a clear financial incentive to record its shows from the soundstage, was perhaps destined to be limited by this ongoing reality. On October 18, 2012, a Twitter user messaged Hulk Hogan to communicate that sentiment. “I love TNA bro,” wrote the fan, “but you gotta get out of the impact zone, it’s killing the product.” Hogan replied in the affirmative:

Agreed…tell Dixie. HH

“For years,” explains Scott Fishman, the executive in charge of production at Spike TV, “TNA basically had a residency at Universal. The negative there is that you’re paying Universal for the lease of the space, and you’re not making gate [revenue], because the audience were actually park guests. So you’re paying out of pocket from the space…and by the way, there’s an advantage to that. [At] Sound Stage 21, we never had to take down a lighting grid. We didn’t have to take down ‘PA’. We didn’t have to take down scaffolding for the hard camera, or screens – or anything else. You walk in – you turn the lights on – and you’re ready to go. You’re also saving a lot of money on ‘load in’ and ‘load out’ [instead of] moving around every week.

“But I think it probably got to the point,” continues Fishman, “just from a business model standpoint…TNA figured, ‘You know what? We gotta figure out how to put this thing on the road, because we gotta start making money [from the television tapings].

“So now it was going to cost a little bit more to tour – because now you’ve got trucking that you’ve got to deal with…you’ve got to do set up and break down…you could be [dealing with unions] which means fees for labor could be higher…but I think TNA looked at it said, ‘We gotta put our foot in this water. We’re paying Universal. We’re not making gate. We’re doing minimum on ‘merch’…because these are park people.’ They were coming in because it was hot outside, and so they could sit in the air conditioning for two hours. They weren’t coming in because they just loved Kurt Angle and they had to have his T-shirt! So [the thought process was], ‘Let’s take this thing on the road, and although it’s gonna cost us a little bit more – because of trucking, labor and all the [aforementioned factors], maybe we can make it up – and then some – if we can get the proper gate.’”

And so, from the spring of 2013 onwards, Spike agreed to support TNA’s ambitious new initiative, partially offsetting some of the increased production costs that came with the move. In the wider press, the decision to take Impact! on the road was advertised – similar to the early 2010 expansion to Mondays – as a decidedly ‘permanent’ strategy. “This is a tremendous step forward for TNA,” promised Dixie Carter in a statement. “Fans from around the world have been coming to us at Universal for more than eight years to be a part of the ‘Impact Wrestling’ audience. It’s now time for us to take the ‘Impact Wrestling’ television cameras to them. This is a very important next evolution for the company.”

“I [recall] that Dixie came to us,” says Kevin Kay, formerly the President of Spike TV, “and said, ‘We got to get out of Orlando.’ I think we had [also] given her the feedback that, ‘Look, the show looks the same every week. The people in the audience are the same. They’re the same people that are trying to get out of the park to find shade…and air conditioning.”

“It was smart for their brand to get out [and tour],” adds David Schwarz, Spike’s former VP of communications, on TNA’s decision. “As great as having one place was budgetarily…to really connect with fans…there’s nothing like being in somebody’s hometown, [or having fans] experience it live. I think that was the strategic decision…and I thought it was a good one.”

Not everyone was convinced. “If you have a product that you produce often,” argues Keith Mitchell, still commandeering the proceedings from the TNA production truck, “your smartest way of doing it is with the least amount of expense.

“There’s a question I used to ask people,” continues Mitchell, “when we were discussing where we were going to do the show from. I’d ask, ‘What’s your favorite TV show?’ [They would respond], and I’d say, ‘Well, where do they shoot that?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know’ [would be the reply]. I’d say, ‘Well, it really isn’t all that super important…is it?’

“When you zoom in, you’re looking at a 20x20 foot ring – whether that ring is in Madison Square Garden, or whether it’s Wembley Arena, or if it’s in Universal Studios. You still have a 20x20 canvas – figuratively and literally! That’s not changing. What you do between that 20x20 canvas is what determines whether or not people watch the show – not where that canvas is put up.

“I think when you have a solid following of viewers, the reasons why they watch your show are varied…but seldom is it that it’s coming from Chicago, [for example] – as opposed to Universal Studios in Orlando. I mean…you’re sucked into the conflict, and the substance of the show itself. [Moreover], I knew that it was going to be extremely expensive. I knew we were going to have to work our asses off, and I knew that our numbers were not going to improve all that much.”

Nonetheless, the plan was soon approved – and TNA started touring the country for Impact. Looking back on the period, Mitchell estimates that the production costs associated with each excursion registered around $125-150,000 dollars per outing. “It was not really comparable to the cost of a Nitro,” he explains, “because our staff was much smaller. We were much more of a ‘guerrilla production’ as opposed to a big, beefed up army that Nitro got to be. The lighting rigs were much smaller [in comparison]. The staging elements were different. The pyro budget was smaller. We didn’t use production trucks that were cutting edge [either]. [Nonetheless], the cost of doing a show on the road – where you have to move everything you own across the country, set it all up…and take it all back…it’s an enormous difference between having everything set up in a studio year-round.”

Ultimately, the “next evolution” for TNA wouldn’t last long, and on November 21, 2013, the company returned back to Universal in Orlando. “TNA [eventually] looked at it,” says Fishman, “and went, ‘You know what? This isn’t working. We got more money going out the door than we did when we were at Universal, and we’re not necessarily taking [enough in]. Why don’t we go back and do the Universal thing?’”

“It cost more money to be on the road,” states Kay matter-of-factly, “and we weren’t seeing any ratings change. It sort of fizzled out for that reason. Our license fee was fixed with them, but they were spending more of their license fee on traveling and all that stuff…[as opposed] to talent. It wasn’t moving the needle in the way that they hoped – or the way we had hoped – so they ended up back in Orlando.”

“It had a horrible effect,” sighs Mitchell in summarizing the move, “and I could have predicted it – in fact, I probably did on multiple occasions. I knew that Panda wasn’t going to spend that much money [indefinitely].”