I want to first start out by saying that I was never a huge
fan of the TNA product or its overall presentation but in light of recent
rumors and “news” surrounding the future of the company I wanted to share some
thought as to why its “best for business” if the company folds.
Since the debut on Destination America on January 7th
the company has had very little positive PR or much to celebrate. Their ratings are steady, albeit low. With a high of 525k in February and a low of
338k in March, now some of it can be attributed to Destination America being in
fewer homes than Spike TV (59 million compare to 93 million). However, the rating
in Spike was around the 1 million to 1.3 million mark, though in decline
leading up to the move to Destination America.
So looking more closely at the numbers you can see the company is dying
a slow death (Spike TV averaged 1.2% of potential viewers, Destination America
at highest viewership of 525k is only .88% of potential viewers).
Add in the recent news of Matt Hardy having to prove he is
getting paid, Taz leaving (not huge blow but indication of overall morale),
production crews speaking out on not being paid and articles questioning who is
actually calling the shots behind the scenes, does not speak well to the long
term prospects of the company.
But is would it be so bad for TNA to close its door for
good? Not at all, in fact it’s what needs to happen in order for someone to
challenge WWE and finally create some competition for what can be a new renaissance
for professional wrestling.
The issues with TNA go far beyond the talent of their
roster. As many others have discussed,
TNA is falling into many of the same trappings of WCW and WWE to a point. At the end of the day, wrestling works
because of characters that the fans can get behind and simple story telling
that builds to a payoff. Instead of
building on what they had as far as home grown talent that were developing in
front of the fans eyes, high priced talent from WWE was brought in and thrown
in the mix. Now, it is not a bad
strategy to supplement veteran talent with big stage experience into a roster
filled with younger, indie talent but it might be done with finesse and care. As can be seen with the rating and overall
feelings from inside and out, they have taken the bull in a china shop
approach.
From an outsider’s perspective, a quick review of their
roster does not point as to why there are so many problems with the product. I
know everyone has their own strong opinions as to who is “good” and who “sucks”
but the likes of Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, The Wolves, Magnus, EC3, Rockstar
Spud, Gunner and Eric Young represent a decent group of what I would consider
home grown talent as prior to TNA have not had significant exposure of national
TV. Add in the big stage veterans of the
Hardy’s, MVP, Mr. Anderson, Bobby Lashley and Kurt Angle and you have all of
the pieces for a decent product. Talent
is not the issue a broken company with too much baggage is and this group can
be put too much better use elsewhere.
Currently the hardcore wrestling fan has some much content
available on a weekly basis, it is a variable smorgasbord these days between
streaming content via WWE Network, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu and weekly TV
programming from Lucha Underground (El Rey), Ring of Honor (Syndicated in
various local markets), Pro Wrestling Syndicate (NYC Market syndication) and
NJPW (AXS TV) and recent news of Paragon Pro Wrestling getting a deal with Pop
TV, Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore’s deal with Fight Network and the what
I’m sure is coming announcement of Global Force Wrestling’s TV deal, there has
never been so much competition for wrestling viewers eyeballs.
The contract’s for most if not all of the TNA roster does
not prohibit the stars from wrestling for other indie promotions live events
but I am not certain that they would be allowed to appear on TV on a weekly
basis for another promotion. Either way,
these other promotions such as Lucha Underground and Ring of Honor are very
well received by the most hardcore of fans with Ring of Honor being arguably as
popular as it’s ever been. These other
promotions would benefit from signing TNA talent to exclusive TV deals to
develop talented rosters that can go toe to toe with that of the WWE. Putting the talent listed above in the hands
of Lucha, ROH and HOH will be to the benefit of all parties involved as it will
be a proper fresh start with companies heading in the right direction.
It makes sense from a high level perspective, give talented
wrestlers with built in fan bases a fresh start with a company that knows what it’s
doing and you are bound to see positive results. This was never more evident than witnessing
House of Hardcore 8 live back in March.
In a card that had 9 matches it included by my count 8 current and
former TNA talent. For a live event with
no story build up the crowd was more invested in these matches than the few
recent TNA matches I have caught. I understand this is due to many factors but
one would assume the same “type” of fan that is going to HOH is the same that
go to the TNA tapings but that same intensity is just not there. The event was great and far exceeded
expectations. I can understand why Tommy Dreamer was able to pull a TV deal as
I think he can put together a promotion that is on par with ROH (as far as
wrestling) and far superior to the current TNA product.
Quick note on the event, I brought a good buddy of mine that
is into WWE (watches Raw, comes over to watch WrestleMania) but is otherwise oblivious
to indie wrestling. He was blown away by
the event, the amount of interaction with the fans and overall quality of the
matches. On the way home he started asking me, why doesn’t WWE do that? Let the
wrestlers wrestle and not drone on for 20-30 minutes. To me this proved that there is at least a
portion of fans that just watch RAW and the occasional WWE PPV that would like
to see something different, fresh yet back to basics, something that WWE is
just not satisfying for both the hardcore and casual viewer.
Will any of these other promotions ever get major
distribution on the same level that TNA is currently or formerly were
getting? Can any of them compete with
WWE or even NXT for the hardcore, IWC fans?
Who knows, time will tell. What I do know is that TNA folding is our
best hope.
