Fans who tuned into RevPro’s 14th Anniversary card on Saturday via MyAEW pay-per-view would’ve noticed a particular match missing from the broadcast.
Two-time TNA X-Division Champion Leon Slater faced fellow Brit Liam Slater as part of the card from OVO Arena Wembley, although those who watched the show on MyAEW weren’t able to see the match. It was blacked out for viewers on that platform instead.
The move to block the match on the service was reportedly made by RevPro, who wanted to avoid any issues which could emerge when a TNA star appears on an AEW-owned service.
Dave Meltzer wrote that promoter Andy Quildan said there “were no direct instructions not to air the match on MyAEW, but to avoid problems since it involved a TNA wrestler, he made the call not to put it on MyAEW.”
To make up for the match being absent from the lineup, RevPro plans to upload the match onto Youtube for free.
Over the past year, numerous instances of wrestling politics have played out on the independent scene, highlighting a tension between TNA and AEW. Over Wrestlemania weekend, Slater was notably pulled from a match against AEW’s Ricochet, cancelling what many had considered a dream match. Around that same time, Nic Nemeth was taken out of a booking against MJF, and Moose was pulled from a Maple Leaf Pro event.
The latest move from RevPro shows that TNA’s past actions of pulling talent over proximity to AEW wrestlers might have caused a chilling effect. While no “direct instructions” caused the match to be taken off the air, it’s likely that recent examples of TNA’s issues with AEW have made promoters take extra precautions so as to avoid such conflict.
