So as rumored, TNA is going BACK to the Impact Zone 11/21 to tape a shitload of episodes and hopefully stave off death until after the new year as a result. Not the ideal situation, of course, but the road tapings were KILLING them and you do what you gotta do. I think when you're at the point where you're doing 6 weeks of TV at a time just to stay alive, it might be time to blow it up and start fresh with something else. Competition is good, but at this point they're just circling the drain and they might as well start fielding offers to buy the tape library.
Bound for Glory is gonna be one sad PPV.
Wasn't a big reason they left the IZ was due to the crowds being mostly dead? I don't see this working out well in terms of crowd response, and that's a big part of how well a wrestling show comes across on TV.
ReplyDeleteThey have got to spread the tapings out over a couple of days, doing one taping a day over the course of a week would make the most sense.
ReplyDeleteBut this is TNA, where sense goes to Die.
Incidentally, I was thinking about how the very last WCW PPV was called GREED, cue the jokes, the final ECW PPV was Guilty As Charged, which considering how the company was run was also unfortunately named. We could have the final TNA PPV being called Genesis, which doesn't lend itself to obvious jokes. They need to keep going until lockdown next year.
They pretty much have to spread it out over at least 2 days and even that's pushing it.
ReplyDeleteAs a fan of having an alternative to WWE, my ideal situation would be for the Carters to sell the company to someone. And then I think the new owner should keep the TV deal with Spike and that's it. Change the name, change the look, change everything. Go through the roster and cut everyone who can't deliver a great match or promo and go pillage the indies and ROH for hungry talent.
ReplyDeleteThen I'd do an angle where the new owner interrupts a Dixie promo at the end of the show and says "Shut it all down". Have crew dismantle everything, kill the mics, kill the lights. TNA dies live on the air. You can't tell me there wouldn't be interest to tune in the next week. The you start the show by revealing the new name, new ring, etc.
Probably shouldn't have cut out all of those PPV's. TNA was always cheap, but they weren't broke until they decided to cut their PPV's by two thirds.
ReplyDeleteOr am I wrong about that?
No offense but after ten years of 'tna is circling the drain', I'll wait till there is something different on spike before I get concerned.
ReplyDeleteyes, you are wrong.
ReplyDeleteeverything backstage can be taped somewhere else.
ReplyDeletebut it will be long. i expect one long match per ep, and a bunch of shorties to keep people on tv
what if its "pay per day"?
ReplyDeletewhen wcw was there they were taping 12 weeks.
you have to admit, it isnt looking well.
ReplyDeleteNo elaboration on that? Just going to leave that there?
ReplyDeleteThat's cool.
First, this comes up a couple of times a year, every year. They never die.
ReplyDeleteSecond, nobody actually knows their financial situation. At all. People look at what they're doing and assume. It's all conjecture.
Third, as long as spike is happy with the ratings, tna will continue to exist. By all reports, spike is happy with the ratings.
It's just silly to pronounce them dead every 4 months.
TNA is in desperate need of someone with new ideas at the top.
ReplyDeleteThe answer to their current woes is to go back to the model that was failing 12 months ago? Except now they're doing an insane amount of multiple takings as well?
This is clearly nothing more than a band-aid - they need a plan b and fast.
TNA needs to figure out why they could not draw people to their product, what is it in the creative direction and presentation that is keeping people away.
If WWE had Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle, Sting, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles Etc I do not believe for a second that they wouldn't be drawing.
TNA is managing to convert wrestlers that most fans would pay to see into a product that nobody wants to watch
my bad, im laying down man, i figured some of the midcarders would explain it further.
ReplyDeleteAll the things they did this year were things that fans were asking for-online fans at least. Going on the road, cutting the amount of PPVs down, etc.
ReplyDeleteYeah it blew up in their face but I was one of those people who thought these would be good things at the time so I'm gonna refrain from flip-flopping back and making "TNA are dying jokes." They took a chance by doing something most people I've seen online wanted and it bit them on the ass.
the ratings are usually the last to drop.
ReplyDeleteBut when they do, its a freefall.
The only thing midcarders explain to curtain jerkers is whose bag not to eat breaded chicken over.
ReplyDeleteExamples?
ReplyDeletelol... ok im sitting up.
ReplyDeleteMy estimation is that having 12 PPV dates a year was costing a pretty penny. But it was all good, because Daddy Carter was footing the bill.
Once he saw the books... Once he saw how much Live PPV cost vs how much they were bringing back, he made Dixie fiscally responsible and thats when te decision was made to cut PPV.
Live TV costs a lot. idk how much, but its enough that it took Vince 4 years and WCW Nitro to go live every week.
TNA doesnt have 1/100 of the WWFs budget so im sure they were taking a stripping every month.
TNA highest PPV was either Genesis 06, or Lockdown 08... Around 60K buys and that was 5 years ago. Its been in freefall since. They have to be taking a poker up the ass every month on PPV.
Nitro 1999.
ReplyDeleteGoing from 4.9 at the beginning of the year to a 2.9 at the end of the year.
That's almost half your audience.
"i figured some of the midcarders would explain it further.'
ReplyDeletesmart move. let the peeps who are higher on the card than you take over from here
;)
They existed for a year and a half after that.
ReplyDelete'Then I'd do an angle where the new owner interrupts a Dixie promo at the
ReplyDeleteend of the show and says "Shut it all down". Have crew dismantle
everything, kill the mics, kill the lights.'
and they could then call it...
CHIKARA!
but lol if lots of peeps are like 'oh, well i guess thats that' and then never check back
ReplyDeletestill real, dammit, etc.
and it kept freefalling.
ReplyDeleteThe earliest talks of WCW being bought out was mid 2000.
With ratings, you have to maintain a certain level to keep certain sponsors. They werent putting on a compelling enough product PLUS, getting their asses handed to them by Vince, and the sponsors started pulling out.
That's lost money.
It was only a matter of time before Kellner had enough ammo to say, cut it.
So once the ratings are cut in half, they only have a year and a half left.
ReplyDeleteRenewing Hogan's contract shows they have no interest in staying alive. I just want Joe, Aries, and Styles with WWE deals. Nothing more, nothing less. Forget this waste of space company.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember where I saw them, but the most recent numbers is saw said TNA was pulling about 20k in buys for every PPV. It's an assumption and therefore I might be wrong, but doesn't TNA get roughly half of the proceeds?
ReplyDeleteThat'd probably all the cuts they've been making.
That's an assumption, though. If their numbers fell by a huge amount from that, it would be useless.
No.
ReplyDeleteOnce the ratings start drastically freefalling as such, the lost revenue from sponsors are going to raise eyebrows.
Unless something or someone catches fire and turns the product around, its only a matter of time.
In TNAs case, the ratings have held steady since moving to spike. Thats really its only saving grace.
They dont make money from PPV, they only have 4.
They dont make money off house shows. They keep cancelling them.
THey dont make money off merch, its shitty (opinion)
So my question to the public and to you is, Where is the income? cuz all i see it out-go.
They are paying Universal to tape shows and they get no cut from them again.
A promotion has to make money somewhere. It cant keep as a vanity project.
(parallax... just letting you know. #1 draw at work. Take notes)
You can use the same arguments for the last ten years. They're still there.
ReplyDeleteTNA is that fucking terd that never flushes. As long as tbe have Spike, theyll continue to con dumb investors to fund them, continue to operate slightly in the red, continue to draw bad ratings, and continue to give us these kinds of threads. Just flush already!
ReplyDeleteDid they officially renew Hogan? I know they didn't, then they did, then they didn't.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, renewing his and Taz's contracts are pretty indicative of the problems.
See this is where you are failing... Im not arguing with you. Im just having a little tete a tete
ReplyDeleteLet you guard down bro.
Your grasp of the English language is tenuous at best.
ReplyDeleteEh, why not work out a deal with the WWE and do a talent exchange with NXT..not so much an invasion storyline, but maybe try and play up a sort of real sports rivalry between the two feds
ReplyDeleteThree guys that they could've signed but never did? Why do you think that would happen?
ReplyDeleteMeh... Im not trying to write a college paper. I have to write reports constantly everyday.
ReplyDeleteI had heard they were. Anything other than "Here's the door" to Hogan and Bischoff at the end of their contracts is just even further suicide from TNA.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why they picked up Taz in the first place. He was so irritating as a color commentator in WWE. "It's a rocketbusta!" "What a tomata!" - ugh, piss off Taz.
Most of their PPVs did between 4000-7000 buys. BFG will be lucky to get 20,000. The problem was not losing PPV revenue, because there was none. The problem was that cutting to 4 PPVs completely destroyed the booking focus they had built up over the past year and left them with meaningless TV shows flailing around the Aces angle and building to nothing.
ReplyDeleteBecause Daniel Bryan and CM Punk are the most over guys on the roster and came up from the same system as those three? The conditions weren't the same then.
ReplyDeleteThey could've signed ares like two years ago. And styles sucks. Of all the people wwe would interested in, it's not those 3.
ReplyDeleteWWE would never do that. They would have to portray TNA as equals or a threat to make it a credible and popular storyline and they did not do that with the much better known WCW. They also didn't hire the real talent until they could get their terms/get them cheaper for the initial invasion (Steiner, Flair, Goldberg, nWo) - and still never got Sting.
ReplyDelete"Styles sucks" - citation needed.
ReplyDeleteHe is one of the most talented workers ever; he's like Punk/Jericho/Macho level at working different styles and making all sorts of opponents look good.
You know it's a sad situation when Vince can't even be bothered to mock them on any WWE show, subtlly or otherwise
ReplyDeleteSpike TV is even a money mark for MMA. Bellator has sold like 1700 tickets to their debut PPV in a basketball arena that seats 13,000. Woof.
ReplyDeleteTheir perspective has been "not acknowledge" for a long time. They don't even consider themselves competing with directly competing sports like the UFC, the NFL, baseball, etc.. they see themselves like Dancing With The Stars and other Prime Time TV b.s.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at TNA I actually see that they follow a similar plan to WWE. Give a guy a push (Roode, Aries, Joe, Storm, etc,) and when business doesn't explode, de-push that guy and lather, rinse, repeat. A major problem with that is they don't have their established "top guys" like Cena, Orton or HHH (sorry) to put back in the top spot. TNA just never has the name brand like WWE which allowed them to make those mistakes over and over and stay afloat. It will always boggle my mind how Samoa Joe wasn't the biggest star and face of their company. I know opinions will vary as to who should be the star of TNA, but Joe is my fav.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Orton is very established. He's been around forever and draws tepid summer champion reactions after a decade long push. Randy Orton getting inserted in a storyline is just a bummer.
ReplyDeleteThat goes back even to the 1980s. Vince said similar things back then, except it was "the National Basketball Association, Walt Disney, and the Icecapades"
ReplyDeleteYou are insane. First, styles can't talk. At all. He is the worst promo of a main eventer in the last ten years. Hands down. Second, he isn't anywhere near the level of the three guys you mentioned. His matches do not resonate with the audience. At all. Third, he has been pushed and pushed and pushed and remains completely unover. The guy is fucking useless.
ReplyDeleteI feel genuinely sorry for Spike TV. They got in on the ground floor of the MMA boom. The UFC was basically willing to pay them to put the first season of TUF on. The early live UFC specials were huge for them in terms of ratings, revenues and exposures. They also had Monday Night Raw during that period.
ReplyDeleteAnd then it was all gone. So they went with the next best thing to WWE, TNA. And the next best thing to UFC in 2013, Bellator. And both are dysfunctional, fundamentally flawed entities but if you're Spike what else do you do? Just run Cops 24/7? They don't even have the rights to James Bond anymore.
The whole network has just gone downhill tremendously since 2005 and they keep throwing money at the problem to try to fix it and it just gets worse.
Come to think of it, TNA and Spike are a perfect fit for each other.
My gripe with how people handle TNA's pitfalls, which unfortunately are increasing in frequency in the last few months, is that it makes no sense. Fine, you don't enjoy the product; I do, but then again, I rooted for WCW, despite the "circling the bowl" PPV and television they were putting on in their last two years. Nobody is forcing people to watch the product (cue the predictable joke about nobody watching the product). And when it dies (which does look like a possibility), nothing will change. WWE will not be picking up many of the contracts, if any at all. The few wrestlers (sorry, entertainers) will be put through the typical WWE hazing, and maybe after a few years, somebody that was once promising and featured, like a Magnus, can be part of makeshift tag team with Curt Hawkings tearing up one of those practice rings in the WWE's new development/practice facility. As somebody that watches both companies, I would have liked TNA to ascend to some sort of competition for WWE, but it never did. Had it been more resonant, perhaps the prospect of competition would have made the WWE try harder, because let's face it; WWE hasn't been interesting in quite some time. Any sort of hot angles they have, they've squandered (Bryan, NEXUS, Punk leaving with the belt). And now, we have nothing that will move the WWE's creative needle. ROH is not going to happen. Those that think the possible death of TNA will result in a revitalization of ROH are not thinking realistically. They've made the same amount of mistakes as TNA, but because they are internet darlings, they catch a break. The last thing that bothers me about the bandwagon hate (and Scott's included in this because many were on the bandwagon for TNA two years ago) is that it's not just TNA that's failing. It's pro-wrestling. Business is down everywhere. WWE will always be around because it puts the best product out and has easily the most name recognition. That's why it will remain, but unless direction is changed, don't be surprised if you start seeing more WWE cost-cutting. I just liked (like) having more wrestling on television. I liked (like) being able to fast-forward through the dumb stuff on a two hour program easier than I have to fast-forward through a three hour program. I liked (like) watching wrestlers WWE (Aries, Joe, Daniels) have a 15 minute match on free TV, despite the fact that they wouldn't be given that opportunity in WWE because they don't fit a mold or wrestle a style, and in spite of all the arm chair bookers who are bitching about PPV quality matches being put on free TV. Sorry they tried to entertain you. I didn't mean for this to be long-winded rant, but I'm just apprehensive about the prospect of the wrestling climate (and my own interest in it) with one less option.
ReplyDelete