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Is TNA the worst wrestling promotion in history?


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I think they could if they completely stopped running PPV, stopped traveling and running house shows and tried to live off of DVD sales and the international rights to Impact. They'd need to dump dead weight talent too. Rob Van Dam, Hogan, Bischoff and guys like that can go. I would keep Sting and Angle out of that highly paid crowd though.

 

They were making a profit around 2007-2008 range from what I remember. But then, people were still buying the PPV and they didn't go crazy and bring in a bunch of high priced guys either.

 

But I think they need to operate more like a tv show than a real wrestling promotion. Run one date a month, tape 4-6 episodes of Impact at a time. Run with a tighter crew of 30 guys. Sell advertising on the ring. Maybe develop a secondary show to bundle with Impact so you can charge a little more in the international markets. Try to get in with more markets.

 

I think if they had anyone that could remotely think outside of the box and go away from what they think a wrestling promotion needs to do they could survive. They just need to stop dumping on money that a wrestling promotion is supposed to do.

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They also started off with Jerry Jarrett thinking they could take the WCW audience that just stopped watching wrestling. That was their target audience. Now, I have no idea what their goals are even. I don't even know how they define success. But I do know that their wrestling philosophy has always been so incredibly far removed from what WCW fans seemed to like in their wrestling (maybe not so much what the remaining ones were willing to tolerate at the end) that I don't know where to begin.

 

I think too much time has passed for that to be the target audience now, so I have no idea who TNA wants watching their shows. I know what Dixie Carter told Congress is their target audience, but I take that with a grain of salt. :)

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They've never had a clue on who their target audience was. Jerry wanted it to be family wrestling when it started and show 1 had the Johnsons wandering around. So yeah, they've always been counter-productive with that. Honestly, it seems like they're more popular overseas at this point.

 

I think RoH is even more clueless about their target demo though. It should be interesting to see who goes under first. TNA is in bad shape but they seem a little more stable than RoH at the moment.

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TNA's probably has always been that's it's a Vanity Promotion. First Jeff's, then Dixie's. Under Dixie it's run the line of Jeff's Vanity, Kurt's Vanity, Spike's Vanity, and Eric & Hulk's Vanity. It's a masturbatory promotion: more interested in getting itself off than getting involved in a mutally satisfactory relationship with a fan base.

 

As was long ago said about ECW, I have no problem with folks jerking off. It's just that they need to understand that their own personal fantasy doesn't always play to me, or a mass of fans.

 

John

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Seriously whenever I've watched TNA, there's so much back office stuff in the actual show that it's impossible to care about. It's insular and inward looking.

 

I can't remember when it was but the last one I saw had Foley in it and it was just a series of meetings at the GM's office interspersed with several crappy 3-minute matches. Just woeful.

 

Actually, I caught one after that with Flair and Hogan in it. I couldn't work out who was face and who was heel. Hogan could barely walk.

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John's right about it being a vanity promotion from the get go. As Dave mentioned in the thread I alluded to, Jerry Jarrett deep down knew TNA was a long shot, but he was willing to take the risk to shore up his relationship with his son. Of course, that backfired spectacularly in the end. But that's why Russo was brought in, against Jerry's better instincts, because ultimately this was about keeping his son happy than doing what was best for business.

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TNA is in bad shape but they seem a little more stable than RoH at the moment.

???? What are you basing that on? ROH is less then a yr into being purchased by a big multi media company that recently gave them a semi national tv deal. No solid #'s are out but all indications so far are that they're happy with the ratings they're drawing and they're being given more & more tv clearences into new markets each month.

 

I get not being a fan of the current product but from a purely business point of view there's not much to suggest they're in any danger what so ever.

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John's right about it being a vanity promotion from the get go. As Dave mentioned in the thread I alluded to, Jerry Jarrett deep down knew TNA was a long shot, but he was willing to take the risk to shore up his relationship with his son. Of course, that backfired spectacularly in the end. But that's why Russo was brought in, against Jerry's better instincts, because ultimately this was about keeping his son happy than doing what was best for business.

I think we were pointing out it was a vanity promotion damn near from the start as it became clear that it was all about Jeffey. Suspect Bruce was as well... don't know if Dave was really explicit about it early on.

 

I'm trying to remember when Dave got all sad about the possibility of the company going out of business because it would mean few jobs for the boys in the US. It's kind of ironic over the long run just how much of that money got sucked up by old washed up wrestlers. It would be amazing to have the real books of the company and figure out what % of the salaries were paid out to:

 

* Jeffey

* Washed up stars from the past

* WWE Cast Offs

* sycophants

 

Suspect it's well over 80% over the years.

 

John

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TNA is in bad shape but they seem a little more stable than RoH at the moment.

???? What are you basing that on? ROH is less then a yr into being purchased by a big multi media company that recently gave them a semi national tv deal. No solid #'s are out but all indications so far are that they're happy with the ratings they're drawing and they're being given more & more tv clearences into new markets each month.

 

I get not being a fan of the current product but from a purely business point of view there's not much to suggest they're in any danger what so ever.

The house shows in new markets like the Carolinas have, by and large, been significant money losers, drawing about half what they need to break even. iPPV doesn't seem to have been boosted by their new TV show either. I wouldn't say they're at more risk than TNA, but Sinclair's investment hasn't got off to a great start from a profit loss standpoint.

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The house shows in new markets like the Carolinas have, by and large, been significant money losers, drawing about half what they need to break even.

Well yeah but I consider that more of a stupid "run before you can walk" decesion that hopefully they'll learn from. The numbers in their usual markets still seem to be decent or better, they just need to realise going into a new place after only a few months of tv isn't a recipee for huge success. So long as they avoid stuff like that I don't see why they won't slowly grow.

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I think they could if they completely stopped running PPV, stopped traveling and running house shows and tried to live off of DVD sales and the international rights to Impact. They'd need to dump dead weight talent too. Rob Van Dam, Hogan, Bischoff and guys like that can go. I would keep Sting and Angle out of that highly paid crowd though.

 

They were making a profit around 2007-2008 range from what I remember. But then, people were still buying the PPV and they didn't go crazy and bring in a bunch of high priced guys either.

 

But I think they need to operate more like a tv show than a real wrestling promotion. Run one date a month, tape 4-6 episodes of Impact at a time. Run with a tighter crew of 30 guys. Sell advertising on the ring. Maybe develop a secondary show to bundle with Impact so you can charge a little more in the international markets. Try to get in with more markets.

 

I think if they had anyone that could remotely think outside of the box and go away from what they think a wrestling promotion needs to do they could survive. They just need to stop dumping on money that a wrestling promotion is supposed to do.

By all accounts house shows are the most successful part of their business model, and had them at more or less a break even point overall a few years ago. Apparently they do great with merchandise and photos and gimmick tables at most of the shows as well.

 

Their mistake is in shit like booking 8000-10,000 seat arenas for PPVs when they can't even half fill that heavily papering. They can get 1,000-2,000 paying customers in most big markets, so those are the venues they should book.

 

They absolutely should keep touring, and keep taping TV outside of the Impact Zone, because that place has really become death for their product.

 

I don't think relying on the DVD market is a good idea at all either. That market is dying, if not already dead. TNA practically gives their DVDs away.

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The house shows in new markets like the Carolinas have, by and large, been significant money losers, drawing about half what they need to break even.

Well yeah but I consider that more of a stupid "run before you can walk" decesion that hopefully they'll learn from. The numbers in their usual markets still seem to be decent or better, they just need to realise going into a new place after only a few months of tv isn't a recipee for huge success. So long as they avoid stuff like that I don't see why they won't slowly grow.

 

They still haven't learned their lesson. They're trying to go to markets like Cincinnati instead of Columbus. They're not showing a desire to learn from their mistakes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

*spoilers* (obviously)

 

 

So just got back from the London TNA show. Some thoughts:

 

- Crowd was pretty hot, and Hogan got a big reaction every time he came out, easily the most over guy. Surprisingly hot for Sting too -- surprising because WCW was never that big here and a lot of my friends don't even know who Sting is. But there was a lot of TNA fans there, obviously. He got a few "Legend" chants.

 

- No one else on the entire roster stood out really apart from, a tiny bit, Austin Aries (he seems to have bit of charisma). Eric Bischoff was decent on the mic. Everyone else might as well have been the same guy. "Bully Ray" shouted too much and got constant chants of "We want Devon" and then the classic "You fat bastard" football chant that I suspect they'll have to edit out.

 

- Given that I am a wrestling fan switched off by the current product and I was there with my wife -- a total non-wrestling fan -- they had a CHANCE tonight of converting some people to watch the show at least. It was obvious that a decent chunk of the people there were the for Hogan, a lot of casual fans who wouldn't usually be a wrestling show. The had an opportunity of making us care about something or someone other than Hulk. In that endeavour they pretty much failed SPECTACULARLY. The only thing on the show I remotely gave a shit about was the Garret Bischoff angle. I saw Cowboy James Storm wrestle THREE matches and still totally don't give shit about him, two matches from Bobby Roode, the same. Couldn't care less. In fact, Roode and Storm might as well be the same guy for all the character either of them showed me.

 

- There was a lot of stuff that made no sense at all. I'm fairly sure stuff was filmed out of sequence because we saw Samoa Joe and Magnus beat Crimson and Matt Morgan first match and then LATER cut a promo about how they are going to beat them. Made no sense.

 

- Also, although they beat them, the belts didn't seem to change hands. This was not explained. There were some weird "Buckingham" rules in place to give one team 2 vs. 1 advantage. I'm assuming from the boos they got that Morgan and Crimson are heels, right, but they worked that entire match with the disadvantage and then lost. Against all booking logic. So I've already seen the tag champs beaten and then I'm meant to care about a promo where the face team who has just beaten them claim they are going to take their belts? WTF is going on?

 

- There was some X-division triple threat match with Austin Aries, Doug Williams, and Alex Shelley and Aries was pinned. Again, no title change. I've already seen Gail Kim (another champ) pinned. And by the end of the night would see the World Champ tap out to Sting. So I've seen more or less every champ beaten tonight, but no title changes. Way to make those titles seem special.

 

- The matches were mostly nondescript, but AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels was pretty good. It got a "This is awesome" chant, which I didn't fully understand. It was easily match of the night though. Only other worker who impressed me in any way was Austin Aires. He seems to be a heel, but he got a few babyface pops from the crowd. I was very unimpressed with both Storm and Roode. The female wrestlers were also fucking awful.

 

- No one in the entire promotion apart from Hogan, Sting and Bischoff can actually talk on the mic. The promos from everyone else were uniformly awful.

 

- Despite Hogan's best efforts to get Garrett Bischoff over, the crowd weren't having any of it, and he was solidly booed. They'd give Hogan a massive pop, then boo Garrett in the next breath, then cheer Hogan again.

 

- The appearance of Angle was utterly pointless.

 

I don't regret going because seeing Hogan was awesome, but most of the show was totally fucking shit. I've never been to a live show before, so it was fun, but I was really unimpressed with what I saw.

 

EDIT: Oh and one thing more, I don't know what normal TNA crowds are like, but they seemed SO grateful to have a hot crowd. Almost embarrassing it was. You could tell they weren't used to it and the announcer kept thanking us.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Before folks jump up and down about Russo being fired, Wade had this:

 

-The latest information is that Eric Bischoff would have been part of the decision to shift Vince Russo out of a position of power within the TNA Creative Structure. Our sources are guessing he's out, but details are being worked out. Nothing is confirmed, but the latest feeling is that he won't be retained in any capacity with TNA and details are being worked out.

 

-A Russo exit would mean more power and influence from Eric Bischoff, who has had an up and down relationship with Russo over the years, but consistently disagreed with him philosophically on how to approach booking and storytelling.

Russo sucks, but Eric hasn't done anything positive since coming on.

 

John

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Honestly I hear the show has been better in recent weeks but I hear about Hogan, Eric, and Garret "my dad is in wrestling, you know" Bischoff being one of the big storylines and I just roll my eyes. It feels like an exchange of one brand of bad wrestling trope for another. I hope the show improves, really, but I keep wanting to make a "Where is David Flair when you need him" joke about where they seem to be going.

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