2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

If I was running TNA ...

-- Get rid of everyone with ties to the WCW, No Sting, no Hogan, no Bischoff, no Russo, no Jarrett, no Flair. All of them, gone. Time to hang em up for good, fellas.

-- Make someone like Austin Aries or Joe or A.J. the face of the company, instead of a washed-up, past-his-prime anyone like Sting or Hogan.

-- Bring back the six-sided ring. It's what made TNA unique, and made the X Division worth watching.

-- Get out of the Thursday night, tape-delay slot on Spike (or whichever station it's airing on now). Try and land on some other channel on some other night (thinking Tuesday or Wednesday).

-- Get rid of Dixie Carter.

-- Hype up the Knockouts Division even more. It's much better than the Divas in WWE, though they might not be as easy on the eyes as the Divas.

-- Create new belts for every title, no matter the cost.

I could go on, but that's all I can think of right now.

 

It is 2011. Do they honestly think people are going to want to watch Hogan, Sting, and Bischoff as anything more than a nostalgia thing? Yeesh.

 

Who knows with these guys?

On the other hand, SPOILER:



James Storm beats Kurt Angle for the TNA title. I'd call it odd booking, but it's TNA so that's understood. On the other hand, Storm has a lot of potential as a face, and you wonder why he didn't get the big push into BFG. You'd assume this sets up the Beer Money split with a jealous Robert Roode turning heel to challenge Storm. Also, Gail Kim attacked Velvet Sky and is aligned with the Jarretts. And Sting is the "authority figure" for TNA, which I guess is as good a use as any for a guy who shouldn't be wrestling regularly anymore. Not sure if this means he's dropping the insane icon thing; the spoilers didn't say.

 

Apparently Kim really likes TNA (tee hee). She said in an interview last week that she wants to retire there. I guess some people must be reasonably content there, all things considered. Hell, Samoa Joe's been there five years or so and they've done nothing good for him in the last three.

Cornette hasn't been there in a while, and I don't think he was ever the lead booker. He was the on-camera authority figure, and I'm sure he did stuff in the back, but I don't believe he ever was the main guy. I think Heyman wanted too much to make it work, and Jim Ross has this Stockholm Syndrome thing going with WWE where he'll never leave no matter how many times they yank him from the broadcast booth and make him look like an ass in front of home-state fans. Bruce Pritchard is a step up from Russo and the last few shows have been better -- still TNA, but not as horrible as before. That said, if Hogan still has massive influence, there's only so much overhauling you can do. And since Hogan just re-signed, he's not going away any time soon.

 

In order:

* I don't think you have to get rid of everyone with WCW ties. Jarrett has his uses, plus he started TNA so he's not going anywher. Sting too. Technically AJ Styles and Daniels worked in WCW, but obviously that's not what you meant. Really, they don't have THAT many WCW guys right now: Hogan, Bischoff, Flair and Sting are the obvious ones, and they're constantly in the spotlight so it's obvious. After that you have Jarrett, Steiner, who doesn't get used much anymore, and Russo, who got demoted. The rest are homegrown or WWE retreads.

* I sorta understand why they think Hogan should be the face of the company because his name carries the most weight, but there's no payoff. Joe's given up, so not him. Aries isn't there yet. Styles and the Beer Money guys would be the best bet -- they've been in TNA from the get go.

* Six-sided ring doesn't really matter. Nobody watched it because of the ring, and nobody didn't watch it because of the ring. Some people complained that it messed with the psychology in tag matches, but honestly I never cared either way.

* Tuesday or Wednesday doesn't bring them new viewers. Monday obviously was a complete fail. Friday runs them into Smackdown, and the weekend is death for TV viewing. No need to switch days. Spike isn't the problem either; WWE was just fine there a few years ago. Plus where would they go that would boost numbers? That said, it may be a decision out of their hands if Spike follows through on plans to move away from the young guy demographic (they'll be losing UFC soon).

* Dixie Carter as a TV personality needs to go. But without Dixie Carter period, TNA closed years ago because nobody is willing to put in the money her dad has into TNA.

* I don't think the Knockouts can carry TNA, but they do need to give some of the women new personalities. Too much screeching.

* New belts would be nice. Unfortunately, TNA would make them look like TNA belts. Still better than WWE's Steroid Penny tag team belts.

 

Ross has value behind the scenes, so while they treat him like a mountain lion stuck in Ohio, he's probably not going anywhere.

What happens to TNA if/when Spike decides to change direction, which I assume would be early next year? I can't think of a network that would pick them up, which leaves them either groveling back to Fox Sports Net (a longshot) or a PPV market that is far worse and less receptive to wrestling than when TNA began. Does WGN make a foray back into wrestling or (gasp!) TBS and/or TNT?

Picture this: TNA gives Heyman a blank check, they buy out Hogan and start fresh back on TBS in the 6:05 p.m. Eastern spot on Saturday nights. Not only would the return be a spark and nod nostalgically, but by going live on a weekly basis, it would be a spot that would give them breathing room while they retooled in a different direction.

 

I thought about TNT/TBS, but both channels have distinct personalities (comedy on TBS, dramas on TNT) that it'd be hard to imagine Impact fitting on either. Plus, they had wrestling because Ted Turner liked it, and once he left and his influence waned, wrestling had fewer and fewer supporters in the important places.

Versus would be a possibility, I'd think. Obviously the NBC properties are out. The weekly PPV model didn't work. WGN America got rid of WWE Superstars for poor ratings, so I'm not sure they're interested in getting back into wrestling. MTV dabbles into wrestling occasionally (Lucha Libre USA, the late Wrestling Society X and the Cyndi Lauper-Lou Albano feud from way back), so they may not be a bad option.

Heyman has said he needs absolute control of the product, and that's not likely to happen in a TNA that has Hogan, Bischoff, Prichard, Jarrett, Dixie, Russo and who knows who else trying to run shop.

 

Versus is owned by NBC, I believe, so that's probably out. If Spike bails on TNA, I don't really think they have any options. How are they any more attractive than Ring of Honor, which is much cheaper and syndicated on a dozen stations or so? They have some brand news if you're into wrestling, but no crossover stars, and they'd probably have to start immediately cutting talent.

I also think the WWE is disappointed in TNA - They haven't ever actively done anything to fight them, except when they moved right to Mondays. More competition generally is good.

 

That's right, I forgot Versus was an NBC product. That WWE programming is on SyFy but not Versus is pretty telling too.

They have more of a name than Ring of Honor, for better or worse. Hogan does still get national attention, and every so often he even mentions TNA. Someone selling TNA to a network executive can point to Hogan, Sting, Angle, RVD, Jeff Hardy and to a lesser degree Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner and Bully Ray as wrestlers people have heard of, while also pointing to the homegrown talen. ROH's most familiar wrestlers to non-indy hardcore fans are Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. Their most familiar face is probably Cornette. That's a hard sell. Plus TNA's production values are well ahead of ROH's.

If Spike dumps the TV For Men marketing, something else will fill that gap. Either a poor performing network does a format change, or one gets created out of whole cloth.

Longshot, but funny as hell if it happened: You point out that WWE is disappointed that TNA never gave them a challenge or concern. What if Spike dumps TNA, which gets picked up by ... the WWE Network? If WWE intends on a 24/7 network, there's only so many WWE matches, retrospectives and showings of The Marine II and Knuckleheads they can count on to fill airtime. They could pick up Impact, Ring of Honor and maybe some Mexican/Japan shows and treat them as secondary or tertiary to WWE programming. It'd give them the "home of wrestling" moniker and put a post-Spike TNA and ROH in front of more eyeballs. It'd be the ultimate sign of showing TNA that it's no threat. And if the other options are going to online TV or syndicating, TNA wouldn't have much choice.

 

Oh, I definitely think the end game for TNA is that they get scooped up for a very, very low price, like what the WWE did with WCW. (Rumored cost: $1 million for everything, which included the tape library, which alone was worth millions upon millions.) I doubt the WWE would ever run them as a "minor league" org though, not when they have their own territories (FCW), or they could just create more.

 

Honestly, they don't even need to buy TNA if it gets to that point. They can sign the guys they want to sign and that's that. The brand has minimal value for them and the tape library would be much cheaper than WCW/NWA's, plus its only use for them would be filling out a Kurt Angle retrospective set and doing The Fall and Further Fall of TNA documentary. But running TNA as is wouldn't require any investment of their own in the product. Hell, they wouldn't have to pay much if anything for the rights to run it. They may even sell airtime.

 

I enjoy the taste of bacon.