On a recent edition of the “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, former TNA Wrestling President Scott D’Amore discussed his plans for Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, which includes an event at the Maple Leaf Gardens.
The promotion’s debut show, Forged in Excellence, is scheduled for October 19-20 at St. Clair College Gymnasium in Windsor, ON.
D’Amore said, “I don’t think I’ve said this publicly, one of the things about re-launching this brand, we want to be back in Maple Leaf Gardens. Maple Leaf Gardens, for those that don’t know, doesn’t exist as a 17,000 seat arena anymore, but the structure is still there. The building is still there, the facade is the same. The marquee is there, it says Maple Leaf Gardens. The main floor is like a grocery store, you can still see the center where the ring used to go. One of the things they have there is an ice rink, they have a 3,000 seat ice rink. I think it’s appropriate that in 2025, Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling makes its return to the building that it’s most synonymous with and what, to me, after Madison Square Garden is probably the second most iconic wrestling building in history. It’s the one building that, if you look at it historically, every company came into Maple Leaf Gardens. The AWA guys, you’d see the NWA guys, you see the WWF guys all come in until WWE bought it in 1984. It was the one place where everybody came in. Multiple champions, world champion versus world champion matches. It was a cool meeting place. That’s one of our things. We’re gonna get content out there, we’re gonna run some more shows after these two, but we’re gonna run these two, decompress, take a look at what we do right and what we need to tackle differently and then plan for 2025. That’s our game plan to get out there and see what we can do.”
D’Amore also stated that he initiated the discussions between TNA Wrestling and WWE regarding their ongoing crossover.
