In an update on the Audience Of One Productions vs. IMPACT Wrestling lawsuit, IMPACT Wrestling admitted before the United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia that the company did indeed breach their deal with their former production company, Audience of One Productions and that their repayment agreement with Audience of One was a valid and enforceable contract in a filing on April 14th.

For those wondering, as part of the admission, IMPACT Wrestling agreed that the remaining balance they owed Audience of One would be paid immediately, plus interest and agreed to pay the $336,602, with the court officially closing the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning that as long as Audience of One are paid in full, that they can’t bring new claims against the company.

Audience Of One’s lawsuit, filed back in September of last year, claimed that IMPACT Ventures (the parent company of TNA Wrestling at that time, before now being re-branded as IMPACT Wrestling) and TNA’s Chief Financial Officer Dean Broadhead worked to get them on board under the false pretense of using them full-time as IMPACT Wrestling’s production company, only to then fail to pay them in a timely fashion for work done, requiring the set up of an agreed upon payment plan and that according to the lawsuit, IMPACT allegedly stopped paying after the first initial payment installment was made, which IMPACT admitted to breaching in court.

The lawsuit at the time stated that IMPACT Wrestling began conversations with Audience of One Productions in 2015 about a possible long-term, multi-event production services agreement, pursuant to which Audience of One would provide a variety of production services for live TNA professional wrestling events, including audio/visual and broadcasting work, lighting, set construction and breakdown, as well as retention and payment of audience “wranglers” (personnel who would patrol the crowd and try to engage audience members with the event), among other things and that the lawsuit stated that before and during the negotiations between the companies, TNA production was overseen by Ron and Don Harris and that upon information and belief, the Harris Brothers were not providing sufficiently high-quality production work to TNA, despite their industry experience and that Audience of One understood that one of the reasons TNA initially sought a long-term business relations with them was due to Dean Broadhead’s dissatisfaction with production services work previously provided by the Harris Brothers and that the two sides began working together specifically on Universal Studios tapings, with the lawsuit alleging that Broadhead and Ron Harris consistently represented to Audience of One that these two events were the first of many and that TNA and Audience of One were on the verge of a long and fruitful relationship, as well as that TNA came to Audience of One and hired them to produce the 2015 TNA Bound for Glory pay-per-view, despite the fact that the company was apparently in dire financial straits at them time of these negotiations, with reports in the media suggesting that, among other financial woes, TNA Wrestling were behind on paying some of its key talent, i.e., wrestling personnel.

The lawsuit alleges that after the show, Audience of One billed IMPACT Wrestling for $223,000 for services rendered in October and the following month, Broadhead, in an email to Audience of One, stated that TNA were working on finalizing a new TNA deal that would put the company in 80 millions homes and stated that the company are planning to go back into Universal Studios in 2016 and get back on the right track with their production, asking Audience of One to hang in there with them, noting that they would come out of those difficult times in a much better position as a company and partner, to which Audience of One allege that this e-mail was sent to prevent them from moving to a more aggressive collection attempt on the money owed.

The lawsuit alleged that Audience of One sent a second invoice, including a 1.5% late fee in November of that year, which led to Ron Harris requesting an itemized invoice before Audience of One could be paid and that the communications included discussions on a new set design, which Audience of One allege that IMPACT were having discussions with other vendors at the same time. The lawsuit noted that in January 2016, Audience of One reduced the amount IMPACT owed them by $29,001.57, noting that the amount was removed as Dean Broadhead directly paid some of the independent contractors who had worked on TNA Bound For Glory production, meaning that Audience of One no longer needed to pay those contractors themselves and that Audience of One alleged that IMPACT made those payments directly to insure that those contractors would continue to work for IMPACT after they cut ties from Audience of One.

The lawsuit alleged that Broadhead opened into discussions with Jeff Wade, the owner of Audience of One, regarding a payment plan to begin to reimburse Audience of One for money owed from the Bound For Glory event and that based on the agreement, the money would be paid in monthly installments starting in March 2016 through August 2016 and that IMPACT stated that they were on track to begin to make payments, however the lawsuit alleged that upon information and belief, TNA’s financial troubles had become increasingly severe by this time and that Dean Broadhead, who would have been intimately familiar with those financial troubles, failed to share any relevant information with Audience of One, who continued to negotiate in good faith with TNA and Broadhead over the repayment terms for the Bound For Glory event.

The lawsuit claimed that in March 2016, Aroluxe provided some form of financing to TNA which upon information and belief, was sufficient to allow TNA to continue operating for the foreseeable future and that this financing was secured with a lien on all or nearly all of TNA’s assets, including, but not limited to, all accounts receivable as well as all fixtures, inventory and equipment and alleged that the financing gave Aroluxe and, by extension, the Harris Brothers, two of Aroluxe’s principals, considerable incentive to oversee and coordinate TNA’s financial affairs going forward and that on March 18th, 2016, TNA were to wire the first payment to Audience of One, but 12 hours later, Broadhead told Audience of One that the company could not wire the money, which was later received via FedEx and that the lawsuit alleged that upon information and belief, the failure to make a timely wire transfer to Audience of One resulted from intervention by Aroluxe and/or Ron Harris who, at that point, had every incentive to disrupt and delay payments to Audience of One so that other creditors could be paid sooner. The lawsuit notes that from that point on, IMPACT stopped responding to invoices regarding money owed to Audience of One.

It was noted that at the time the lawsuit was filed, it was alleged that Broadhead and Harris were responsible for dragging out payment with false promises of future work as a way to get Audience of One to agree to the repayment plan, of which IMPACT did not maintain and that over the course of the lawsuit, Aroluxe and Ron Harris were dismissed as defendants after providing declarations to the court that they were not involved directly in the situation and that means that IMPACT Wrestling and Dean Broadhead were on the hook as the lone defendants, while on April 13th, a declaration filed before the court by Anthem Media’s Ed Nordholm noted that the IMPACT Wrestling Board of Managers were made up of Anthem Media, Aroluxe and Dixie Carter.