Scott D’Amore and NJPW color commentator Don Callis recently joined Impact Wrestling as Executive Vice President and will report to President Ed Nordholm. Callis and D’Amore recently joined the Talk Is Jericho podcast to discuss their hiring, the future of the company and more.
Jericho revealed that he personally called Impact to recommend they hire Callis. He said he believed Impact needed a fresh start with people at the helm who hadn’t previously led the company. Jericho said hiring Billy Corgan would’ve been an upgrade over Dixie Carter, but it wouldn’t have presented a new direction for the fans to be excited about, so he suggested Callis and D’Amore.
“My thought process was, and this is not a slight on anyone that has ran that company or been part of that company, working with that company, that has been around for so long, through so many incarnations and through all its ups and downs, and now I found with the last incarnation with TNA/Global Force is that it was a dead company. There was nothing exciting about it or sparking it, so to me, the only way to get it rolling would be to completely change directions and go with somebody new and different,” Jericho said. “When Billy Corgan was up for it I would have much rather him run it over Dixie Carter because it was somebody new, and I just really felt that it was my place to call the guys and say, listen, if you guys really want to lose money go for it, or use it as a tax write off then you have the right place. But if you really want to do something and role with it and be at a place where people are excited about then you have to go in this direction, and these guys [Callis and D’Amore] are the guys to do it with. So that was basically the jist of the conversation and it worked because here you guys are, but this is really the only way the company to grow is by doing something completely different and new.”
