Rich Swann is working under a per appearance deal.
Following KC Navarro’s ACL injury, A.J. Francis kicked him out of First Class and reintroduced the former Impact World Champion.
It appeared that TNA had signed Swann to a new deal, but that isn’t exactly the case. According to Fightful Select, Swann is under a per appearance deal with the promotion. There’s no word on whether officials are interested in possibly changing that over to a long term deal in the future.
Swann’s original deal with TNA ended in 2024. The promotion had the option to extend his contract for a year, but they opted against doing so. Unfortunately, a public intoxication charged that forced him into rehab was likely a big reason that TNA decided against re-signing Swann at the time. The Baltimore native was a big part of the company’s rebranding as he made his debut in 2018 and spent time down in the X-Division. Swann eventually won the X-Division Championship at the company’s Homecoming show in 2019.
Once he dropped it later that year, TNA focused on elevating him to the upper card and Swann had finally achieved success as a main event star by beating Eric Young for the Impact World Championship at Bound For Glory 2020. He managed to keep the belt for 183 days before dropping it to Kenny Omega at Rebellion 2021.
Following that, his final year was mostly spent in mid-card programs, though he did win the now defunct Digital Media Championship. But that reign only lasted 34 days. Despite his quiet release, Swann wasn’t upset about it and explained in detail to K100 about his exit.
“When they told me the 30-day suspension and afterwards, we would talk about my contract because it was coming up at the end of that December and it was going to be a rollover decision on if they would want to keep me for one more year or, you know, if I wanted to leave or anything like that, and it was gonna be a bump in pay.
“But the one thing that I was told by the person that was released from IMPACT was that they were switching the way that they were doing their business and their contracts, and models, and they didn’t want to have anybody on a guaranteed contract. At the same token, I’m somebody that’s going to take responsibility for my actions and for myself. As a company, you don’t wanna have somebody that has on their — as a stain. Oh, he’s being arrested. The alcohol and everything…”
Besides working for TNA, Swann mainly competes in the Wrestling Revolver. He recently had a high profile match against Ricochet at FSW Mecca X: Beynefit For Bey show back in March. He’s also worked for Scott D’Amore’s Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, Combat Zone Wrestling, NWA. TNA is currently on hiatus, so we won’t be seeing him anytime soon.