TNA News: Lashley Gone and Big Monday Press Conference

http://www.heavy.com/post/exclusive-bobby-lashley-full-time-mixed-martial-artist-3689

Heavy.com: On to pro wrestling, do you feel like your pro wrestling fans have followed you over to MMA and vice versa?

Lashley: It's kinda weird. It seems like it is almost the same fans. I like to keep in touch with my fans, so I hear it all. 'You should only fight. You should come back to professional wrestling.' So I don't know who is watching me where, but as long as they are there. I love my fans and I'll never turn my back on my pro wrestling fans and I'm very happy to have new MMA fans as well.

Heavy.com: You were recently 'fired' as part of the story line on an episode of TNA Wrestling. Does this mean you are going to focus on MMA full time?

Lashley: I believe so.

Heavy.com: So, at least for the time being, Bobby Lashley is solely a mixed martial artist?

Lashley: Yes.

Heavy.com: All these short answers! Give me the skinny.

Lashley: (laughs) I don't really know much man. I had a talk with the guys a while back about doing both. Everything seemed to be working well. I think maybe there were some complications there towards the end. I got back home and got all these calls from people saying that I had been released from wrestling. So as far as I know, I've been released, so yes, I can focus full time on MMA.

That's the skinny on it. Check out the link to hear his MMA thoughts, but since this is about wrestling, we'll keep it at that.

So it does seem like Lashley is done. Honestly, I never thought of him much as a wrestler, but TNA pushed him to the skys. I mean, the man still has a title shot from last year. Dixie has praised Bobby and really wanted to reach new heights with him.

However, it all seemed to go downward once Eric and Hogan came on board. They went on interviews and called out Lashley, saying Strikeforce should not be his focus, but it should be TNA. Hogan doesn't want guys that has their focus on other projects (bet they would change their tune if somehow, The Rock wanted to jump on board) and called Lashley out. Shortly after, Lashley's profile was gone from the website and he's been playing fans as to what has happened.

It seems like we finally have our answer. Lashley is indeed gone from TNA. With all the new additions, will anyone miss Bobby? If anything, I feel bad as someone else could have used that title shot to help their career. Seemed like neither party got to use each other in the way they wanted to and business wise, it didn't work out. Given more time, maybe. But we now know who is calling shots in TNA. If Dixie wants you in TNA, but Hogan doesn't, you can kiss your job goodbye.

I got this from nodq.com:

TNA will be making a "major announcement" this Monday at the Impact Zone in Orlando, FL.

Company president Dixie Carter and Hulk Hogan will be making the announcement at 2:30 p.m. EST before TNA tapes its next set of Impact episodes.

According to PWTorch.com, the announcement is expected to be that TNA will be moving to Monday nights full-time.

This is the day after Against All Odds PPV. There has been numerous reports about the on again, off again, on again, off again, etc etc etc taping on March 1st. Could this be the announcement that TNA is finally going to Monday nights, or, at the very least, LIVE? As a wrestling fan, I can only hope they stay on Thursday nights. That's their call, though, and where they see the money at. However, I do hope they go live from now on. The taped programs kill it for me. I read the results and have no interest to watch the program. I don't believe I've watched a Thursday show in quite a while as I'll just DVR it and watch it whenever I'm bored. I cannot say that about Raw.

With these two big news items for TNA, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. Will there be more TNA pink slips? Scott Steiner is already gone and while some think it is a good thing, the man was at least entertaining. And what will this news conference be about? A good move or a bad move if they go Mondays or live?