Is TNA the worst wrestling promotion in history?

[Guest Staples]

Is there an actual, stated reason why TNA keeps going back to the "faction tries to take over company" angle over and over again? There's the obvious nWo connection, but for a company only 11 years old, it's been done a staggering amount of times. You had S.E.X. in 2002-2003 and Planet Jarrett 2005-2006. After that, there was generic faction warfare before the Main Event Mafia came in, then World Elite. After Hogan came in, there was the Band and then we got Immortal followed by Aces and Eights.

 

I don't think I missed any. All of them were/are terrible (does anyone actually care about the Aces nonsense going on right now?) yet keep coming back.

[Death From Above]

The problem with (most of) their stables is that they don't build individual characters enough that seeing them unite is an event.

 

The nWo worked because people cared about Hogan, Hall, and Nash. The idea of them uniting to destroy WCW was compelling. Not because the nWo itself is this amazing idea that works out of context. Even WCW missed this point when they added like 4000 people to the nWo because they decided the brand would stand on its own, and it didn't.

 

TNA treats stables like the new tag team: just package people together and hope it works out for the best. Too many variables for this to be a reliable method. This is not an exclusive TNA problem, but it is one they do repeat with alarming regularity. It's a common flaw in wrestling booking: most of them seem to think you can have a "good stable" brand, and just attach Dude X to it, and Dude X will thus improve his overness. But there's very little evidence to suggest successful stables can pull this off in any sustainable way. You might get a short term hit but if the worker doesn't interest the fans, it is gone very quickly. Instead it tends to dilute the value of the stable name.

 

People don't really reminisce about the Paul Roma version of the Four Horsemen. People don't really reminisce about Mideon's time in the Ministry of Darkness. And I'm not sure TNA has ever had a stable as compelling as even the Ministry of Darkness, because they have never had an ace to build around that people care about as much as Undertaker.

[Ditch]

The nWo also had an initial theme: WWF guys. Hogan was never REALLY accepted by the WCW crowd, and now you have two more WWF headliners talking about starting a war. They were a rival promotion within a promotion with WWF talent as the core. TNA stables, as DFA says, are just thrown-together excuses for turns.

[Jimmy Redman]

And to add to that, TNA seem to make a point of having whatever newly-created faction constantly beat the crap out of the guys that TNA fans actually care about or could care about, rendering them progressively more and more useless while they try to push a faction full of jabronis down their throats.

 

The Main Event Mafia basically reached the point of self-parody, where the entire angle consisted of nothing but old, tired WCW main eventers beating the AJ Styleses of the world over and over and over again ad nauseum.

[goc]

The Main Event Mafia basically reached the point of self-parody, where the entire angle consisted of nothing but old, tired WCW main eventers beating the AJ Styleses of the world over and over and over again ad nauseum.

Were the fans really supposed to buy some young punk like AJ Styles beating real stars like Sting and Kevin Nash? It just wasn't his time yet, he wasn't even 35 then!

[rovert]

Growing pains, cash flow issues and maybe more:

 

PWInsider:

 

TNA is cleaning up the roster this week by releasing several stars. The first wave of cuts, as confirmed by their profiles being removed from TNA's website, include Gut Check winners Christian York and Taeler Hendrix, Crimson, and Joey Ryan, who worked an angle with Al Snow to "get on the roster" after being voted off Gut Check.

 

Also, former Knockouts champion Madison Rayne announced on Twitter that her contract with TNA has ended.

 

 

The ongoing TNA releases are due to budget cuts within the company, something that has been ongoing.

The talents released were being paid a monthly guarantee with an additional fee when they were booked for TNA events. The feeling was that with the talents not being used regularly by the promotion, there was no need to keep them held under contract.

 

There's been a lot of talk of cost-cutting of late in the company with the added expenses of producing Impact on the road, including the departures of different executives, including execs in the marketing and public relations end of the company.

 

There has also been increased grumbling among some wrestlers about pay coming late, with one talent claiming he has heard stories of talents being two months behind and others confirming they are behind but not wanting to confirm how far behind they are.

prowrestling.net:

TNA talent have claimed that the company was roughly a month behind on payroll at one point last month and may still be late in some cases. One source noted that it was widespread enough that even a prominent former TNA Champion was telling colleagues that the company was six weeks behind on his pay.

[goc]

TNA is never going to get it's shit together and the decision to leave the "Impact Zone" is going to be what finally kills them off. I think WWE made their plans to have a physical HoF at Universal Studios was done in large part to block TNA from being able to go back.

[NintendoLogic]

I wonder if Samoa Joe is one of the guys getting stiffed on pay.

[Bix]

I wonder if Samoa Joe is one of the guys getting stiffed on pay.

That poor fucker.

[rovert]

The former WWE talent Luke Gallows and Victoria are gone:

Drew "DOC" Hankinson just posted the following on his Twitter page: "My contract with TNA Wrestling expired July 12th, as of this evening we have officially parted ways. #SUNTANBIKERMAN tours again!!"

DOC was the odd man out recently as he didn't get the spot as the new VP of Aces and Eights.

 

Both DOC and Tara's names have been taken off of the TNA Wrestler page.

 

The company continues to restructure as they move forward. Sources in the company are saying things will keep changing.

 

According to Pro Wrestling Dot Net is that D'Lo Brown was recently fired after agreeing to re-structure his deal into a per night agreement. D'Lo could not be reached for comment

Pro Wrestling Dot Net is reporting that Bruce Prichard was asked to restructure his deal (much like the many other TNA personnel) but he rejected the deal. It is believed that his days in TNA are numbered barring an unexpected twist.

 

MORE ON TODAY'S TNA DEPARTURES

by Mike Johnson @ 10:53 PM on 7/16/2013

 

The situations surrounding the departures of Tara and Doc were each a completely different series of circumstances, according to TNA sources.

 

While Tara was a release planned by TNA as a cost-cutting move, sources indicate that the company lost Doc because his contract negotiations went on too long and finally his deal expired. He had been figured into creative plans going forward with an eventual babyface turn, something that had been teased.

 

The blame on Doc's exit was placed on Bruce Prichard, head of Creative and Talent Relations by some. There were several different sources this evening that contacted PWInsider, claiming that this was just the latest example of contract negotiations going down to the wire or resulting in talents exiting this year under Prichard's watch.

 

The most noteworthy of those exits were Rob Van Dam. On his Twitter, Van Dam explained his departure from TNA as, " Contract expired. So did professionalism, courtesy and respect." One source claimed that Van Dam stopped getting his calls returned by the company.

 

It should be noted that is in the case of Doc, it is entirely possible the two sides could still come to terms of a new deal (as happened with Devon in the past), but as of now, he is gone and free to go anywhere he pleases.

 

In the case of Tara, sources claim she was far and away the highest paid female wrestler on the roster and the decision was made to shift that money elsewhere. The belief is that there could be more releases to come as well down the line.

 

Other recent TNA departures have been Matt Morgan (release request granted), Madison Rayne (contract expired), Doug Williams (released), Taeler Hendrix (released), Christian York (released), Crimson (released), and Joey Ryan (released).

 

All getting very Game of Thrones here.

[Marty]

I'm guessing the Victoria release was amicable. Her restaurant in Chicago is getting strong reviews and she's spending a lot of time there. Sounds like she's finally found a post-wrestling source of income (she's had a much-longer than average run compared to other recent women in wrestling). Good for her for bringing in that sort of salary when she was able to.

[rovert]

TNA seemingly went on the road with no Plan B.

 

Good job, Hogan and Bischoff. Even Dixie knew it was a bad idea.

 

Wrestling Observer:

Tons of issues going on regarding money stemming from the decision to tape Impact on the road at the cost of $600,000 per taping, with no increase in ratings or revenue. A lot of things are breaking at press time and this is what we know. It’s the cost of the tapings that have made the financial situation so bad. Dixie Carter had noted before that had she done it earlier she would be risking the future of the company. Many in the company, notably Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff, had pushed for getting out of Universal Studios and taping on the road as the needed game changer. But there has been no increase in revenue to offset the expense, and ratings have actually declined.

 

They can't even go back to the Impact Zone if they wanted to or even find a new permanent home on short notice

 

Wrestling Observer:

TNA has made commitments to where it will be very difficult to change from the road tapings until the end of this year. But the big problem is what happens even if they decide they have to go back. Universal has changed the sound stage and it apparently has a tenant, so going back to the old Impact Zone, even if they wanted to do it, appears not to be an option. So they would have to find a new permanent home if that’s the direction they want to go, but being able to get that with the kind of deal they had in Orlando would be difficult. Plus, what was good about Orlando is that as an attraction at the park, where people could get in free with park admission, there were always hundreds of people who could help fill in and make it look presentable for television. In a new permanent location, whether they’d be able to maintain a crowd every week would be difficult. Bellator runs weekly and they mostly sell their shows to casinos and let the casinos try and sell the tickets or fill the place. But that’s a lot easier with an MMA product. TNA has been able to do this for very few shows, although Impact tapings are more attractive in that regard than just house shows. The problem is the belief that wrestling crowds don’t spend money at the casinos as compared to MMA crowds, so the idea is even if they have to paper the tickets for a Bellator, a lot of those people will hang around the casinos to meet the fighters and gamble or spend money at the restaurants and the like.

Apparently, even Hogan wasn't safe from getting paid late either.

[goc]

I don't know how they expected ratings to go up for iMPACT SOLELY because the show went on the road. Maybe if they spent some of that $600,000 per taping on marketing they could find a way to grow their audience. Plus the fact that they've been focusing on such a lame stable for so long has killed any of the momentum they had a year ago around the time they put the title on Austin Aries.

[Marty]

Hogan's losing it. I'm not surprised Bischoff would've thought revenues would increase simply from going on the road for TV, but I never expected Hogan to be that much of a money mark.

[Dooley]

Hogan's losing it. I'm not surprised Bischoff would've thought revenues would increase simply from going on the road for TV, but I never expected Hogan to be that much of a money mark.

How is Hogan a money mark? He doesn't have anything invested. He's just collecting a cheque watching the promotion continue to circle the drain.

[kjh]

Hogan never had it. He knows how to promote his own brand, but his run in WCW already proved that he would do that at the expense of the promotion he had creative control of. I don't blame Dixie Carter for bringing him in, but she really should have woke up and smelt the coffee when the Bischoff/Hogan inspired Monday Night Wars Part Deux cost TNA millions in dollars and led to her company being so publicly humiliated.

 

I really think the move to taping on the road was a last Hail Mary call by Dixie Carter, given that the company is tens of millions of dollars in the whole and the only ways for Panda Energy to quickly recoup some of that money is:

 

a) Listen to Bischoff & Hogan and hope that their pie in the sky turnaround fantasies come true.

Sell TNA to Viacom or WWE.

[Bix]

I think it's fairly obvious they're hoping Viacom does what they did with Bellator and buys out the Carters. But with five and a half months of arena bookings they have to stick to while they're bleeding so much money? Eek.

[Death From Above]

It was a strange decision from the beginning. Having very limited travel costs and a fairly sweetheart deal with the Impact Zone was a nice edge for them, all things considered. Never really understood the reasoning behind walking away from that.

[Loss]

It would be a somewhat understandable risk if they had a few house show runs where they drew bigger crowds than expected. I do agree that the TV would seem more major league if they were running an arena. But that type of move is more something that promotions do in response to an increase in interest instead of as an act to generate additional interest. Nitro wasn't booking domes in 1995 like they were in 1998, so you'd think Eric Bischoff might understand that.

[Death From Above]

TNA have failed as the #2 company. If there is to be one though at any point in the next generation though, I actually think the "have a studio that cuts our travel costs down" might be part of the way it happens. If wrestling wasn't so stigmatized in the TV industry I actually think that sort of thing would have been tried more, but it is hard to get your foot in the door.

 

But that type of move is more something that promotions do in response to an increase in interest instead of as an act to generate additional interest.

It's really amazing how often in all forms of promotion (not just wrestling related) that people who should know better get this totally backwards. People try and generate interest by overextending themselves, hurting the bottom line, when it is supposed to go the other way. Generate demand then move up when it's (relatively) less risky.

[vicious&delicious]

The problem with TNA is that they cannot accept that they are a small wrestling federation. Instead of focusing on putting together a simple, coherent product with great wrestling they are forever searching for the secret recipe which will take them to the big time.

 

Bringing in old timers is not going to do it. Going live is not going to do it. Taking Impact on the road is not going to do it.

 

There only chance to move the needle has always been to develop a truly hot act. And given the age of the federation, it is sad and embarrassing that you can count on one hand how many acts had any buzz whatsoever let alone actually drew. Hell, even ROH in its prime had acts which you could argue drew, even if it was in the 100s. Can you say the same for TNA?

[Ricky Jackson]

The "Death of TNA" book should be an interesting/funny read if nothing else.

[Mini Bennett]

If the death of TNA leads to a comprehensive Kurt Angle dvd and the 2 or 3 guys on their roster who have upside learn how to work in developmental then I'm cool with never seeing that show ever again.

[Mini Bennett]

Double-post.

[Ditch]

I wonder how cheaply WWE can buy their library when it finally collapses.