PWInsider.com recently interviewed Billy Corgan following Corgan’s lawsuit settlement with TNA, and below are some interview highlights. You can listen to the entire interview in the video player below.
On Why He Invested into TNA and Not ECW When He Had the Opportunity To::
Well that’s the million dollar question and it’s not that simple to answer. There are some things that I can’t discuss so it’s complicated. I can talk about what initially lead me to invest money into TNA, before Slammiversary. In return I was labeled a “Predatory Lender” and all sorts of things. What is that saying? No good deed goes unpunished. Let’s go back to the ECW situation where I could have invested to purchase that company. When it was pitched to me by Paul Heyman to invest one million dollars to invest to purchase 10% of ECW Paul wasn’t aware that I was aware of the amount of debt he had owed the talent, and not too ironically, the money that he owed the talent was going to go from my wallet to his and straight to the talent, I was skeptical about that situation because that money wasn’t going to go towards investing into the company, but was going to go into the pockets of the talent, plus I didn’t have any experience in professional wrestling at that point. I hadn’t produced anything, or booked anything. In the TNA situation, I had worked in the Indy’s for a while, I worked with them for a while, and had a sense of not only what I wanted from the company but also had relationships that I can count on, people who I can lean on for opinion, and let’s not forget, with media, it has risen by itself where you have a better grasp of the landscape of professional wrestling in the business side of it, so I had a sense of, if I invested in TNA where I invested in situation X and got out of situation Y, then it would be worth it. I had my own reasons for it, and I felt that it would be a good investment. I realized from a lot of people who saw this as a poor investment, including my own lawyers who told me not to invest into the company.
On Not Wanting to Be a Lender for TNA:
June, or whenever Slammiversary was, was not the first approach that I had received about purchasing the company. There were other, let’s call it, “soft approaches” about whether or not I would be interested in it, and every time I was approached the circumstances, the terms, or whatever was thrown at me, was not even close to what I was thinking so I wasn’t even considering it for more than 5 seconds. June was different because I knew the company was sort of a ship about to hit a rock, and maybe because I gained some stature with the company, had good relationships with the talents, I started to see if I could position myself in greater position of power, including creative direction, because as far as I was concerned, the creative direction needed even more of an overhaul, and I got some. What would I need to invest in order to get to that position where I would have enough say with Dixie Carter where I could overrule anybody, so that was the initial process that lead me down that trail, but I need to say in regards to that, in the get go, when it comes to exchange for money and what you get in terms of X,Y and Z, from that moment forward, I was mislead by her as to many things about the company. So, I wasn’t getting, which was what lead me to file the lawsuit; if I tell you that you are buying a car with four tires and an engine, and the person gives you the money, you open the hood and there is no engine, you know what I mean? It’s not the time to find all that out after you give someone the money. So, that was the situation I found myself in after. To answer your question as far as ownership stake, I never wanted to be a lender. I told her from the beginning that I had no interest in becoming a lender. It was my lawyer, to his credit, who created an interesting legal advice to have my money “float.” In essence, I would have the Shares procured, and nobody else can take those Shares and it would be up to me whether or not I could pull out of those loans or go forward with the process. So, in my eyes I felt that I had control of ownership of the Shares because no one else could take over those Shares as long as I had the option, and that’s where we get into the complications of the legal case. I think it says a lot where I had a phone call with Dixie Carter and she yelled at me for saying that I did have minority ownership, because in her mind, and that followed up all the way into the trial in Nashville, she had to believe, and continues to believe that I didn’t own any piece of the company because that was the way she was able to convince herself and other people and other things.
On Why He Agreed to Take Ownership of the Company:
That is a great question and that says a lot about the people I was in business with. At one point in time, I agreed to a structure where I was in a sense going to report to other people, so I’m asking everybody listening, why would somebody agree to that and in the end tear it up? The answer to that is, I didn’t. I agreed to it because I had every intention of operating under a new ownership/institutional culture that I would report as part of it. In essence, I wouldn’t run it. I only wanted to run it because the people I was in business with were lying to me. So, once you’re in. It’s kind of like the mob; once you’re in you’re in. So, for me the “easiest way out” was to take control of the company, to root out the sources that I felt were driving the company under to then, in essence, save the company, not only from itself financially, but also institutionally.
On Whether He Released All Claims:
In making this deal with Anthem, and I’m very happy with the deal, and I sincerely wish them the best. I think they are the best people to take over the company, given the circumstance that I think played out and what I know now. With that said; the deal that I had made to make this deal insolvent; I did not release all claims regarding this matter, and I specifically put in the paperwork that there are certain people that work with the company that I have certain abilities to go after directly.
