Speaking under condition of anonymity, Impact Wrestling talent contacted PWInsider.com to inform them they have yet to be paid since the last set of Impact TV tapings in January that were held in Orlando, Florida at Universal Studios.
The talents also claimed they were not paid for the Bound for Glory PPV held last November and the TV tapings that followed in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada until after the Christmas holidays or just shortly before the last set of TV tapings in January.
This news comes just a weeks after a report by The Wrestling Observer Newsletter stated talents booked for independent dates through Anthem and Impact were being forced to wait six weeks to be paid, instead of being paid that night if they booked it themselves.
Impact Wrestling President Ed Nordholm issued the following statement on Friday evening to PWInsider when contacted about the claims by current talent:
Talent is not behind on their pay. We generally provide for talent to be paid as independent contractors in the month following a month in which services are rendered. This was an improvement over previous management, where talent cheques were issued only as the actual episodes aired (could be as much as 12 weeks after tapings before final INSTALLMENTS were delivered).
We instituted a payment policy last year to pay for all services rendered in a month in the following month, regardless of when the shows would air. Accordingly, cheques for January were mailed earlier mid-month; cheques for November were mailed mid-December (and I understand got caught up in Christmas mail delays).
We realize that one unexpected impact of moving our corporate offices to Canada has been a further delay with mail services going cross-border. We are working to streamline our talent payroll processing so future events will be paid closer to the beginning of each month after services are rendered.