It absolutely isn't accurate.

Spike went above and beyond for TNA particularly during the first half of the partnership (going so far as to help pay talent at various points). It was only when it became abundantly clear during the later stages of the deal that Spike weren't going to get any kind of return on that investment that they lost interest and rightfully so. Its amazing to me that after Spike supported TNA for a decade that fans would now suggest after a couple of weeks that Destination America has done more to support TNA than Spike did.

Oh don't get me started on this lol. It was said yesterday that they don't have the expertise, you don't have to be an expert to realise they having your company logo and name on what you do is probably a good way of promoting your company.

Wasn't it Spike who were paying Hogan?

Yes and Lashley (as Lashley was on loan from Bellator) I think they also paid for or at least helped pay towards Angle-Sting-Flair-Bischoff-Jeff Hardy.

That's why Lashley lost the title before TNA on Spike ended as they wasn't sure they could get him back.

He will be fine blue. You need to remember that DVD ratings are part of the BBFC and the BBFC are an old relic instution. Ratings mean nothing. There wont be anything on the show that he wouldnt see on TV so if youre fine with weapons and a little swearing it should be ok.

I've never seen the big deal with this. The company is called TNA. The show is called Impact Wrestling.

WWE is the company, Raw is the TV show. You still see the WWE logo on everything they do. Their website url is WWE not raw.com. Just consistent branding.

Especially when your merchandise store bears a totally different name to literally everything else you do.

Well, I agree that Spike invested money in TNA, but that was very much to turn it into their vision. The talent they (allegedly) funded suggests they basically wanted WCW-lite and cross promotion with Bellator. The latter in particular turned out horribly, well except for Lashley. I'm very pleased TNA managed to keep him.

What DA are doing for TNA is what they actually need. Promotion and more TV time.

Well, ShopImpactWrestling would sound silly

They're in a difficult position really. TNA is a rubbish name, but fans will always chant it, it's plastered all over their old footage. What little brand recognition they have is attached to it.

So they've placed more emphasis on the Impact Wrestling name and less on the TNA name, without actually abolishing the latter completely. It's a fudge, but I don't think it affects their bottom line. On the other hand, a wholesale change to Impact Wrestling did have the potential to actually damage their bottom line temporarily, so I can see why they decided against it.

They just had the perfect chance to do it they could have even said "New Channel New Year New Name" or something like that and even admitted the TNA name was attributed to mistakes of the past and Impact Wrestling is the future

Just so you know, I'm not just like this over TNA. Jesus you should have heard me when WWE changed their logo. Branding for some reason really gets to me when it's done badly.

As you said they decided against it, but after they had altered their website, removed TNA from their logo, changed their social media handles. That's why I think it's messy and inconsistent and I dislike it.

So are you suggesting that Spike didn't give TNA promotion or TV time?


But the brand recognition and value isn't worth anything.

And that's not hyperbole I genuinely believe at this point that whatever brand recognition or value “TNA” might have is worthless. If anything it has a negative sum value for the company at this point.

The casual audience don't appear to have connected with TNA at all. They've had a decade of television exposure and Pay-Per-View promotion and haven't made a dent. Or worse yet the product has been so bad in that period that they've actively alienated this audience and in this day and age in particular trying to win back and audience that has already left you is difficult to say the least. It becomes harder still when you move to a low profile network available in fewer homes than your previous home that doesn't have an inbuilt audience of its own, have less money to work with and fewer stars. Meanwhile hardcore wrestling fans are going to know its the same company anyway so what value does retaining a name that almost everyone seems to hate have with that audience?

As has been said with the move to Destination America they had a clear and perfect opportunity to do a complete rebrand of the entire company and at the same time really present the idea that this is a fresh start.

Paul E. told her that hiring Hogan/Uncle Eric was a mistake before she did it.

Promoting wrestling on TV is always an interesting one. Despite the product's decline over the past decade, both TNA and WWE have consistently been the top-rated shows on their respective networks. Even when wCw and ECW went out of business, they were the top-rated shows on their networks, quite comfortably as well. The problem has never been getting people who already watch your channel to watch wrestling - the problem is getting those who don't watch that channel to watch wrestling. TNA is the top-rated program on ChallengeTV pretty consistently, having shown a steady growth from its first week to its peak viewership, which it has stayed relatively close to throughout its tenure on the channel. That's because Challenge promoted the hell out of it on their own channel. But when did they ever promote it on other channels? Unless that happens, it's never going to go beyond that.

I think we in the UK sometimes forget just how big the network that WWE RAW is on is. It's been the top-rated cable channel for nearly a decade now. TNA were never going to get anywhere close to competing with that on Spike, and even less on Destination America. So DA can spend as much as they want promoting TNA, but if they only do it on their own channel, what good is that?

Sounds ok from here

Absolutely. When Dixie Carter was asked on both the Jim Ross Podcast and the PW Torch podcast about the name of the company she stated that TNA is the corporate name and IMPACT Wrestling is the brand of the flagship show. She also mentioned oytside of America the TNA name is promoted more. The EPG on Challenge reads "TNA: Impact 2015" and "TNA: Xplosion" as an example.

This distinction between TNA as the corporate name and IMPACT WRESTLING as the flagship show name is represeted more clearly now on air than it has in the past. The titles are referenced as TNA titles much more now as shown both in commentary and in the new title belts graphic preceeding matches. Previously "TNA" was shown on the belt graphic only and the "iMPACT WRESTLING" logo was in the corner. Now the TNA logo is clearly used preceding "X Division Championship" for example. Another example is the phrase "in the history of TNA" instead of "In ths history of this company" or impact wrestling as used previously. Also from time to time you will also hear "TNA IMPACT Wrestling".

However I do think the webiste should reference the TNA name when being plugged however they have stuck with impactwrestling.com even though TNAwrestling.com still directs to the site.

It should also be noted though, for fairness, that they lost a considerable number of viewers compared to the "boom" period where they were passing 200.000 viewers consistently. Last week's show did 142.000 viewers, which is very good, but they were like 4th or 5th in the Challenge Top 10 of the week.

Has velvet sky actually left the company? Or is this storyline?

There have always been fluctuations in the weekly viewership. Generally speaking, they still regularly surpass 200,000 viewers. They haven't touched the 300,000+ they got for BFG 2011 (I think), but then again the product hasn't been up to that same standard since then either.

Feast or Fired.

When you think about it whoever gets The Fired briefcase is the real winner.

They haven't regularly surpassed 200k viewers since April last year. In fact excluding +1 (and I'm excluding that just because I can't be bothered to check it right now) they haven't surpassed 200k viewers at all since April/May as far as I can see. And looking at a couple of their +1 figures there's only a couple of times since then that +1 might possibly have pushed them over 200k.

"Since coming together the BDC have not lost a match"

Sounds impressive unless you workout they only got together last week.

Woah major spoiler dude. Could you maybe spoiler tag that?

You should have spoiled that it's against the rules not to as it's not aired in the UK yet

So Josh Matthews can't feign even a little enthusiasm for what's coming up on the show? Not even a little tiny bit.