Mad Dog Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 It's also rumored that New Japan is sending Hiroshi Tanahashi to face AJ Styles at Final Resolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Interesting news in that apparently Mike Tenay is the one pushing for X Division tag titles and Jeff Jarrett is the one saying they'd only get diluted with only one hour of TV time a week. It seems like Sting's signing pissed a LOT of the wrestlers off who were taking less money to be good team players. I hope it's true that Spike was footing the bill or else there could be a mass defection. From what I heard, Spike put in a lot of the money to bring Sting in. Still, it's gotta be a sore spot among guys who have been with the company for a long time or someone like Joe who has MOTN on the ppv's, yet is going to make peanuts compared to Sting. I gotta agree with Jarrett on the X Division tag titles. Until they get a 2 hour show they don't need that many belts. They need to develop the X Division period before they start making more belts. Most casuals can't tell the difference between Austin Aries, Chris Sabin, and Alex Shelley. They need to develop those guys first and the only way that happens is with more time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Joe's in a nice spot negotiation wise. Either TNA's gonna give him a fat deal as a make good, or WWE's gonna give him a fat deal to rub it in TNA's face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 I think TNA would be better served with a Television Title that has a 10 minute time limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 It's also rumored that New Japan is sending Hiroshi Tanahashi to face AJ Styles at Final Resolution. This should be good from an in-ring standpoint, but if AJ doesn't rein it in a little, I can see this turning into a styles clash. (no pun intended) Still, while it may provide for a decent match, Tanahashi will mean zero for business or ppv buys. Looks to me as if they don't have anything for AJ since Joe and Daniels are paired off this month. Speaking of, why wasn't AJ or any X Division guys on the ramp last week on iMPACT as a show of guys who were opposing Team Jarrett for the upcoming "War"? Just goes to show you what TNA thinks of it's X Division- not on the level of TNA Main Eventers or the Has Beens of the NWO/Attitude era. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Because X Division guys wouldn't make sense in terms of storyline. Jarrett got his little army together due to paranoia over the new guys taking their spots. Hence they made the most sense. Plus if they want to go with wargames at some point it makes more sense to have brawlers than flyers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Considering the X division has headlined PPVs over the heavyweights on more than one occasion, I wouldn't say TNA thinks less of the X'ers at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 That was when Frank Dickerson was still working and went to bat for the X Division. You can bet they won't headline with JJ having as much power as he has now. I see the storyline bit Mad Dogbut I'm saying that there is a pecking order in TNA and it showed on that episode of Impact and that pecking order is anyone involved with Jarrett is more important than the X Division, which IMO is just about the only thing that is a potential draw in TNA because the has beens and never will bes are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 What I want to know, is with Panda owning a controlling interest in TNA, where's JJ's power coming from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TheShawshankRudotion Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 "The Dicks definitely got some good crowd head" - From a WWE house show report on WO.com. Best slip ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 What I want to know, is with Panda owning a controlling interest in TNA, where's JJ's power coming from? Jeff has Dixie Carter's ear and she trusts him with the business. The shows are still written by committee, but everything has to go through Jeff in the end before it makes it on TV. Jeff is also in charge of booking the NWA Heavyweight title storylines and angles. Tenay and D'Amore do other things. Tenay was responsible for the AJ Pierzynski angle. D'Amore nowadays just seems more concerned with keeping Team Canada on TV as top level heels just below Jarrett. If Morphoplex were to purchase TNA, you could see a shift of power very quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 I'm not sold on Morphoplex buying TNA as being a good thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 TNA should hope Panda Energy never sells. They're the modern-day Ted Turner to wrestling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 I'm not sold on Morphoplex buying TNA as being a good thing.I agree. Most workout supplement companies go belly up. Panda seems to be a lot more financially stable. With TNA not getting out of the red and not showing any signs of turning business around, I could see Morphoplex going under very quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 I thought Morphoplex was just a sponsor, not a potential owner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 From the latest Observer, Morphoplex made an offer to purchase TNA for $20 million from the Carters, but they turned it down. If the Carters were to have said yes, the thing would still be a loss of $6-8 million for Panda. Not sure what possesed Morphoplex to do it, but they tried apparantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Considering Impact got a .9 rating on Christmas Eve (at 11pm, where they went up against some guy in Rome with a funny hat), I think the Carters know they might have something with this wrestling thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Morphoplex pays something like 200k a month for those ads on TNA shows. At this point though TNA isn't doing so horrible financial wise. They're still losing money but I imagine they've cut losses down a lot and aren't bleeding money like they were earlier in the year. If they could keep a steady stream of DVDs hitting national retailers I could see them start to make money by the end of next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 True. They were losing their asses paying FSN for the spot. While Spike isn't charging them, they only have to worry about production costs which aren't bad because their facility isn't as big as the arenas WWE runs. I figure with ppv levels as low as they are, whatever money from that probrably goes right back in because of the cost of putting a ppv on. As you said Mad Dog, if they can get some money from DVD sales as well as the upcoming video game in 2007 to at least pay back a lot of the money the Carters have lost since the initial investment, I can see Panda staying with them for awhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Panda will probably hang around as long as they have a national tv deal. The DVDs they released did pretty good. The original 4 all found their way into the top 25 sports releases and the Styles and X Division ones were in the top 10 for a few weeks. I think a steady stream of 2-3 DVDs a month would do them a world of good. There's also foreign tv deals to take in. They're supposedly huge in India and did really good touring there in the fall. If they could do a tour there maybe twice a year and go to Australia on the way back they could make some huge gates. I think if they could consistenly draw 50k on buyrates they'd be set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 TNA is eventually going to need a staff the size of WWE's corporate headquarters if they are to survive. WWE is a very lean company, and every person's job is crucial or they wouldn't have it. This is a great opportunity to learn from WCW's mistakes -- have a production TEAM instead of just Sahadi. Instead of having some guy who took a marketing class in high school, have a legitimate marketing department. It would also be a smart investment to pay stations to air a second show in syndication, just so they have even more exposure. Of course, this takes lots of time and lots of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dangerous A Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 I'd agree with making moves like syndication, but not at this point because pro wrestling in general is cold. Also, syndication is a good way to lose a ton of money very quickly if it doesn't catch on. Sort of off the subject, but staying in the vein of tv. I think it was Terry Funk on WOL a few years ago where he said the next big thing would possibly be if a promotion lands on a premium cable channel like HBO or Showtime. I personally think pro wrestling would have to shake quite a bit of it's stigma to get one of those cable channels to buy into it. However, I could easily see it becoming a staple of one of the channels like HBO is to boxing and Showtime is trying to be to boxing. I could even see how wrestling is formatted and booked changing somewhat in that you would have seasons. Perhaps 2-3 seasons a year, with a theme for each season and the season culminating in whatever main event/big show you build up (perhaps a ppv). Also with the seasonal schedule, guys would get time off to heal up. It gets your creative team time to check out trends in pop culture outside the wrestling bubble as well as give them time to thoroughly think out storylines and angles as opposed to throwing shit to the wall to see if it sticks. Later on, you could sell season's worth of DVD sets like they do with television. ( Example: Seinfeld Season 1, Will and Grace Season 4, etc) You could have TNA or whatever promotion- Season 1, 2, and so on. Something to think about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 I think if you went back in time one year ago and told the Carters that TNA would have a national TV deal, DVDs in production, and Sting under contract all by the end of 2005 they would probably have thought you were high. I think TNA is doing exactly what it needs to do. Panda seems to have the patience to let the company get their legs under them instead of making the mistake others before them made to challenge WWE right out of the gate. In fact, I don't even recall them mentioning WWE until Christian debuted and I guess the temptation was too big to resist then. Panda's a big company, they can afford TNA to lose if they have faith it will eventually turn a profit in the long term for them. Sure, TNA still has a way to go, but people shouldn't overlook the impressive gains they've had in 2005. We have two wrestling companies on national TV for the first time in 5 years. We should take a second to remember how cool that is before we go after TNA with torches and pitchforks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 Zach Arnold interviewed Joe and he made it pretty clear that he's not terribly interested in going to the WWF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Cam Chaos Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 I have an interview with Joe from last month's Power Slam where he proclaimed Bastista to be a "punk" and explained why he chose TNA over WWE to begin with so I can't see him going there in a rush. Christian is in the new issue and explains why he left so if they are both in the same locker room, I can only see Joe being given more reasons why not to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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