The pro wrestling website PWTorch.com stated that it had learned from multiple sources that FloSports employees were told that Floreani would no longer be at the helm of the media company which counts among its holdings FloWrestling (which covers amateur wrestling) and FloSlam, with a focus on professional wrestling. PWTorch.com also went on to claim that it had been told Floreani "was ultimately forced out of the company."
PWTorch.com went on to offer a possible explanation as to why Floreani had stepped away from the media company he had established a dozen years ago, citing a lawsuit between FloSports and World Wrestling Network (WWN), a professional wrestling governing body and streaming and video-on-demand service.
"Floreani was heavily involved in the lawsuit between WWN and FloSports over the PPV (pay per view) buyrate data that FloSlam was given on a spreadsheet by WWN owner Sal Hamoui before they struck a deal to air all WWN content in October of 2016," PWTorch.com reported this week.
FloSports alleges that WWN was sent fraudulent business records that increased their chances of striking a deal with the company, according to Fightful.com.
The author of the PWTorch.com news story, olumnist Sean Radican, wrote, "Nearly everyone involved with FloSlam has been let go from FloSports, which is crazy to think about given the promise the platform seemed to have in 2016 with WWN being potentially surrounded by major companies like NJPW, ROH, and PWG."
"It will be interesting to see if the FloSports strategy in handing their lawsuit against WWN changes course with Floreani out of the picture," Radican continued. "He was a hands-on CEO who was intimately involved in the lawsuit."
As PWTorch.com and Fightful.com both point out, since the split between FloSports and WWN, FloSlam has been largely inactive, with no content presented in months, and most of the staff laid off. The FloSlam website was last updated in late November 2017.
FloSports was launched by brothers Martin and Mark Floreani in May 2006. As Inc. Magazine told the story in 2017, the brothers set to establish a website that would cover the sports each participated in - wrestling for Martin, running for Mark - "with the same obsessive detail and drama that ESPN bestows on the NFL and NBA."
INC went on to describe FloSports as "one of the most surprising successes in the rapidly shifting sports-media landscape" with more than 250 employees working for the company which offers 25 Web video channels, including FloWrestling.
"Industry giant ESPN is bleeding subscribers at an alarming rate (reportedly averaging more than 300,000 per month); FloSports' subscriptions (which currently cost $150 annually) doubled in the past year, and it's currently adding 30,000 subscribers each month. Its backers include Bertelsmann, Discovery Communications, and World Wrestling Entertainment."
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