Scott D’Amore has reflected on Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling’s first television season and how his departure from TNA shaped his approach to running MLP.
The MLP president spoke with John Pollock in a Friday interview ahead of Saturday’s Northern Rising pay-per-view, which serves as the finale to the promotion’s 12-week Mayhem season.
MLP’s seasonal television experiment
MLP deliberately structured Mayhem as a limited series rather than committing to year-round weekly television.
The 12-episode format premiered nationally in Canada on TSN in July, with episodes also streaming internationally through MyAEW.
D’Amore said one attraction was knowing the season had a defined destination.
When we walk out of here after Northern Rising this weekend, we’re in the offseason.
We talk about wrestling as a 52-week-a-year endeavor, and we really didn’t want to structure it like that. We really wanted to focus on limited series.
Here’s our beginning, our middle, our end, and tell our stories that way.
Having an endpoint also presented a problem. With only one hour per week, D’Amore said the creative team had little room to establish numerous wrestlers and build several matches simultaneously.
When you have 12 one-hour episodes, when you start looking to tell three, four, five, six stories and build out a card, you have so little real estate on that board.
You have so little real estate on television that really every minute, every second starts becoming important.
He compared the experience to working on TNA’s one-hour television program during its early years on Spike TV, when finding the appropriate amount of time for each storyline was similarly difficult.
D’Amore nevertheless remains interested in the seasonal approach.
MLP plans to meet with TSN regarding 2027 and evaluate its next step. He said the promotion also has organizational work to complete during its break after Northern Rising.
I really do like the seasonal aspect. I think that there’s something to that beginning, middle, end.
D’Amore believes the format could also create a better lifestyle for wrestlers, allowing them either to take time away between seasons or work elsewhere without being tied to an MLP schedule throughout the year.
Another possibility for 2027 is increased touring.
Rather than immediately trying to run coast-to-coast across Canada, D’Amore cited markets such as Peterborough and Kingston as examples of cities that no longer regularly receive events from WWE and are unlikely to feature prominently on AEW’s touring schedule.
He said MLP could potentially fill some of that space with non-televised events while retaining a distinctly Canadian identity.
Adam Copeland gets his Maple Leaf Gardens match
Northern Rising takes place at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Mattamy Athletic Centre, housed inside the former Maple Leaf Gardens.
D’Amore described the building as MLP’s “spiritual home” because of its history with the original Maple Leaf Wrestling territory.
The promotion always hoped to return after staging its first Northern Rising there in 2025, but D’Amore acknowledged that another factor was in the back of his mind: Adam Copeland had long wanted to wrestle in the building.
I did have in the back of my head that there was a certain guy who really, really, really wanted to wrestle in this building.
And we weren’t able to make it happen last year.
Copeland has checked off several personal milestones during 2026, including wrestling at Arena Mexico and Wembley Stadium.
D’Amore recalled overhearing Copeland discussing those experiences backstage at Wembley and referring to his Toronto appearance as the biggest remaining item on his list.
He goes, “You know, and I did Arena Mexico. And now I’m doing Wembley.”
He goes, “And the big one’s coming up in a few weeks.”
And I kind of look like, does he know that I’m here?
D’Amore said Copeland’s enthusiasm for Maple Leaf Gardens reflects his lifelong attachment to wrestling and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He also credited Tony Khan for allowing one of AEW’s major stars to work the MLP event.
I’m just super grateful that it all came together. Very grateful to Tony Khan.
I don’t know any owner, company head in a position that Tony would say, yeah, I’d let one of my guys who is — I don’t think I’m giving a spoiler to say Adam’s got more of his career in the rear-view mirror than he does in the windshield ahead of him.
And he’s a very valuable guy there that they’ve invested a lot in.
Copeland will face Steve Maclin in Saturday’s main event. Their match was set on Mayhem after Maclin spent several weeks antagonizing Copeland and attacking Rhino.
D’Amore on life after TNA
D’Amore also addressed the path that led him to MLP following his departure from TNA.
Anthem Sports & Entertainment terminated D’Amore as TNA president in February 2024, shortly after the promotion formally restored the TNA Wrestling name.
He has previously described the TNA departure as difficult, although he has avoided presenting his entire experience with Anthem negatively.
D’Amore reiterated that position to Pollock, singling out former Anthem executive Ed Nordholm and saying he had been given significant freedom while overseeing the wrestling division.
Specifically because of Ed Nordholm, I had a wonderful experience at Anthem Sports and was given a lot of freedom to go out there and run the wrestling division of the company.
His responsibilities eventually expanded into other areas of Anthem’s sports programming.
However, D’Amore said the experience reinforced a basic distinction between operating somebody else’s company and owning the project yourself.
If you don’t own it, it’s not your baby.
After his dismissal, D’Amore attempted to buy TNA from Anthem before moving ahead with his own promotion.
MLP was revived that August and held its first events two months later.
D’Amore told Pollock he is comfortable being the person responsible for making decisions but does not want MLP to become dependent upon him.
He has intentionally reduced his on-screen presence and said his goal is to create an organization capable of continuing regardless of who is running it.
I want this company, Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, to grow to the point that whether I’m here running things or whether I’m just sitting around watching or whether I’m on a beach in Hawaii or whether I’m gone from this planet, that this can stay and this survives and this thrives.
It can’t just succeed because Scott D’Amore makes it succeed. Then it’s a failure.
He described MLP’s wider purpose as strengthening Canadian professional wrestling and providing a pathway for talent to develop before moving to larger stages.
Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling isn’t about Scott D’Amore. It’s about building a thriving Canadian scene.
It’s about building a pipeline to find, train, develop, showcase and platform Canadian and other talent to go on to a higher level.
And that’s my goal. I want the day where I show up and go, “I’m not sure they need me here.”
D’Amore pointed to Stu Grayson and Rohan Raja as two wrestlers who grew substantially during the first season of Mayhem. He also highlighted Grizzled Young Veterans, Sheldon Jean and Brent Banks among those who benefited from regular television time.
Northern Rising takes place Saturday at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto. Adam Copeland vs. Steve Maclin headlines the show, while Josh Alexander faces interim MLP Canadian Champion Stu Grayson to establish an undisputed champion.
The event will be available on MyAEW and PPV.com, with Fight Nation also carrying the show in the United Kingdom.
John Pollock and Jack Wannan will present a Northern Rising review on Sunday for POST Wrestling Café patrons.
