Ugh. These zombie PPVs are so depressing. I don't know how I'm going to sit through it. Last year's BFG was like if the rights to TNA were bought by a local community centre who tried to put it on using extras from a regional theatre group. It was like a school play. Weirdest, most depressing PPV ever. Like a fever dream.

I don't understand why they've gone down this route.

If you're not going to put on a full PPV, why bother? It feels like it's just there and whatever happens happens kind of thing? I feel like I do about WWE PPVs, certainly in 2015, where I'm sure the matches will be what makes it a good PPV rather than any actual work WWE/TNA creative have put into it.

I think too if they are going to do PPV, even once or twice a year, they really should attempt to get out of Orlando for them so that even if they don't get a high buyrate they at least get ticket sales for it.

It can't have been the most depressing PPV ever, December To Dismember has gotta be up there surely lol?

Okay, without trawling through loads of pages, I spoke directly about TNA's product on page 157 of this thread three times, once on page 156, and I'm not going back any further than that because I'm not getting paid for this, you know?

I guess the gang would be you and Alexi. Maybe there are other members too. It's all a bit of a blur. It's more obvious who *isn't* in the gang. So, hazy, myself, whedon, definitely.

I actually did a rebuttal to you about TNA being "badly run" years ago. I pointed out that all the "bad" decisions they're now pilloried for, like going on the road or going head to head with RAW, were all things which the internet was telling them to do at the time, and which made sense at the time. They've tried everything to grow the business. Yes, they've failed, but I honestly believe that's because the market isn't there. Put it this way: What would you have done differently?

You're entitled to hold shares in whatever you want. I feel uncomfortable bringing that up now to be honest. But it does show you're a pretty committed WWE fan, no? And that combined with all the little digs at TNA you do a lot over on the other thread, it suggests you're maybe not the most sympathetic commentator on their affairs. Fair?

More people watched Touched by an Angel than The Sopranos does this mean that Touched by an Angel is a more significant television series than The Sopranos? The list of shows that have more viewers than Mad Men is incredibly extensive does this mean all of those shows are more significant a television series than Mad Men was?


And we take a sharp turn onto strawman lane.

Absolutely nobody has made the argument that TNA won't be remembered but I understand its much easier to argue that assertion then what people have actually said. What has been said is that in the history books of professional wrestling Ring of Honor is likely to be viewed as the more significant and fondly remembered promotion of the two given the stars its contributed to the industry as a whole during the past decade and that the product itself has had a wider stylistic impact upon the industry.


What do you suppose the WWE or the wrestlers themselves would get out of acknowledging their runs in TNA (although actually its only a relatively small group of people to who this can be applied)? What does it add to the aura of Samoa Joe to explicitly say he worked in TNA? As much as it might wish otherwise TNA isn't WCW and it isn't ECW. Its name and branding doesn't add to the aura of a wrestling debuting on television. And I'd point out that WWE actually very rarely explicitly mentioned a wrestlers past in WCW or ECW anyway.


That's because its much easier to say nice things about WWE. Also if you bothered to actually engage with what people had said during this thread rather than simply writing it off as mindless WWE drones and smarks you might notice that they say several nice things about TNA but even if they didn't do that inventing nice things to say about TNA doesn't make anyone's opinion more valid.


Upon what are you basing the assertion that TNA has a larger fanbase than RoH? I only ask because of the two companies only one of them has proven capable of being able to consistently draw paying customers to events for a decade and it ain't the one you're claiming has a bigger fan base with more people attending shows and buying merchandise.


So what is TNA's historical significance?

Also can we use the metric of tickets sold during the past decade? How about profits made during the past decade? How about wrestlers that became major stars in the industry? Can you make the case that TNA comes out ahead in any of those?


They absolutely can help this if the reason the wider wrestling world hasn't hired their stars is because they book them into oblivion thus depleting them of any kind of value when they leave TNA. Additionally if the reason the wider wrestling world hasn't adopted their ideas is because those ideas aren't very good and have repeatedly proven incapable of building an audience that would be TNA's fault as well.


Because WWE has a a wide history of acknowledging other wrestling companies in general? Also just repeat my previous paragraph here.


It was (potentially) an objective fact when TNA was on Spike its certainly not an objective fact now.

And I say it was potentially an objective fact because it really depends how you're measuring this audience. Again if we look at paying customers attending events then this objective fact takes a hit at really any point during the past decade. I'd also be interested to look at the Pay-Per-View buys the two companies have posted over the years because I'm not convinced we'd be looking at TNA dwarfing RoH in that arena either.


You hide it well.


And yet your response to people discussing the historical significance of TNA is to write anyone who doesn't agree with you off as a WWE fan boy despite the fact that very specific issues have been raised and are being discussed. Very specific issues have also been raised in this thread previously about the way TNA is running and booking their shows and again its written off as WWE fan boys bitching about TNA and not engaged with.


Or perhaps people don't want to engage with you on TNA because negative comments are met with the same response every single time.

The PPV thing is just situational, isn't it? They had this show scheduled for ages but they Destination America cancellation issue has jumped up on them and forced them to focus all their energy in trying to boost TV ratings, hence the shifting of the Carter vs Angle title match. But hey, maybe a big angle will go down with Jarrett to make it all worthwhile.

Interesting that you don't mention that these weren't just spontaneous posts about the TNA product but were actually responses to on going discussions and posts made by other posts despite the fact that apparently none of us engage with the TNA product at all. Ever.

I don't get the impression that the plan was ever to make the Pay-Per-View a particularly big storyline driven event. In general, because they've dropped nearly all of their Pay-Per-View output, their shows are no longer really set up to accommodate a PPV event and they'd made no substantial changes to that set up to change that. Even with Carter/Angle I think this event was going to struggle to feel particularly worthwhile or interesting.

As I said previously I think its a shame they dropped the 'celebration of TNA' event that they were apparently kicking around. I think an event that was a mix of the current roster and a host of former stars and wrestlers returning for the night could have been packaged and sold a hell of a lot more effectively than this. It also could have given them 'moments' on television in the build up with former stars returning to promote the event away from the on going storylines driving the product.

Ok fair enough.


So two people is a gang now? Seems logical.


But going on the road obviously didn't make financial sense and they are a company who needs to make profit. It's not that they shouldn't have gone on the road, it's that they blatantly didn't look into the costs of doing it and because of that, they ended back in Orlando. If they had done the work to look at "Transporting the set is going to cost X, hiring the arena is going to cost X, the advertising locally is going to cost X" they would have known it wasn't viable to do. That is my issue with that particular point, the homework blatantly either wasn't done or wasn't done properly.

Going head to head with Raw, my issue is they went head to head with Raw but it didn't mean anything. There wasn't some special change in how TNA operated, how its talent worked. It just upped and moved into the single most competitive timeslot they could have moved into and it was business as usual. And business as usual doesn't work when you're going to air against Raw. Going head to head with Raw could have worked out, and in hindsight it's sad it didn't because it could have turned TNA around but they had to do something, it had to be different, it had to be TNA and not WWE-Lite that it was IMO.

What else would I have done differently:

- I would pay my staff on time. Panda Energy is a huge company and as the owner of TNA, it has a responsibility to pay its staff. And that's not just internet rumour, people leaving TNA as recently as Taz have said they weren't paid on time.

- I would have paid Victoria for the promotional material she did for the Chicago show. Those two things are about morale of the staff which is very important.

- I would never have put people out of work or sidelined people that made that company what it was to keep Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Ric Flair, Booker T, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall in any form of employment. People like AJ, Samoa Joe, Petey Williams.

- On Hulk Hogan, I would never have allowed Hulk Hogan to look bigger than everybody else who works in my promotion on his final night by clawing at his legs and getting dragged up the ramp by him. It looked sad and desperate and to me, came across as reminiscent of the internal workings of TNA. "I can't lose Hogan despite him point blank refusing to promote my promotion".

- I would never have decimated the best female division this industry has seen in a very very long time. They took the Knockouts from the best to a shadow of itself and that is very sad.

- I would never have employed Vince Russo when the network I air on explicitly told me not to because when that shit hits the fan, that ain't good.

- I would never have allowed every major name in my company with the exception of ONE (Sting) be intrinsically linked with WWE, especially when they clearly had zero impact on ratings or PPV buys.

- I wouldn't have relied on heel factions of ex-WWE stars be the focal point of my promotion, one after the other after the other after the other.

- I would have come out the second that rumour about Destination America cancelling my show came out and said it wasn't true if it wasn't true. The very second I heard that rumour, my team would be putting out a statement refuting it.

- I would have looked into the possibility of doing tapings in four markets to vary the look of the show and look like a company not in eternal meltdown. It would have been easy to film three months in Chicago, three months in LA, three in New York, three in Florida for example rather than running 12 months of shows in a venue you're never allowed to charge a dollar for.

They are just some of the things I would have done differently.


I am a committed fan of WWE, I was a committed fan of TNA even when I wasn't watching WWE. TNA lost me, WWE won me back. But I do criticise WWE a hell of a lot, I know it's popular to say I don't and I invite anybody to type the sentence out that I don't and I will relish, absolutely love, the opportunity to show just how much I've criticised.

I've also admitted in this thread today, I'm not the most sympathetic commentator on TNA's affairs because TNA lost me. I no longer care about brand TNA, I care about it's employees. I'm past caring because it comes across to me as TNA is past caring. And I've praised Dixie before on this thread to say she has been committed, she has gripped and she has clawed but I don't get that from her at all now. It feels like going through the motions so if I don't feel like TNA cares, why should I?

I know you don't say I shouldn't have shares in WWE, I know you've never said that. I have questioned the relevance it has.

Meanwhile good news everyone Vince Russo is offering to return to TNA (free of charge) and save the day. So everything is going to be fine.

It's Hard To Feel Sorry For TNA by Vince Russo

Its a staggering read of immense delusion.

I would have thought that the intuitive thing would have been to have built up this event particularly strongly as a can't miss event because of the rarity of PPV. They could really have done with a big angle that went through weeks of TV and culminated at the PPV, instead of just throwing it away like its nothing. The fact that they don't have loads of PPVs clustered together was surely an opportunity to give stories more breathing room and flesh them out properly before the blow-off.


That sounds like a good idea on paper, but the practicalities are more difficult. What big stars could they have actually brought back? Sting, Samoa Joe, Hogan, Christian, Rhino, Booker T, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair are contracted to WWE. AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and Kazarian are in ROH and seem to have burned their bridges. Bully Ray also seems to be out of favour. I don't know what the situation is with Sabin but he's not a top level star. Who could actually have been brought back that means anything?

Just read Low Ki has finished up with the company and James Storm has tweeted a cryptic/ish message:

"At the end of the day no matter what, I thank the fans for the last 18 yrs and No One can't say I didn't do my way. #CowboyWay #WorkHorse"

If the threat of Vince Russo coming back isn't an incentive to work your arse off, god knows what will.

So Storm potentially out the door? I don't really sees where a guy like that goes after TNA. Unless he's in with Jarrett in some way.

Maybe he's read Russo's threat, no wait I mean offer, and couldn't hack that

Maybe after 18 years, he's looking to retire?

Why was Spike TV so against Vince Russo?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying his booking stints do not often correlate with a hindrance for consistency, logic and general overall progression of a wrestling promotion. But his time with TNA did bring about the highest viewership Impact has ever seen. Of course, some of that can be attributed to the the large cast of famous performers they signed between 2006 and 2010. In addition to crazy booking leading to ratings pops if not actual paying customers in terms of PPV, live events etc.

I just don't buy the suits at Spike having enough insight into a wrestling promotion to be that against him...

Maybe they were watching the shows and hearing all those "fire Russo" chants and figured the fans were maybe onto something. Alternatively I suppose they may have just been watching the shows...

Its also possible that Russo's refusal to adapt his booking "style" despite repeated requests from Spike to change the focus, tone and style of the show because it wasn't what they wanted on their air are why they insisted he go and have nothing to do with creative. I believe Russo himself has told a story of him basically laughing in the face of Spike executives when they'd insist on more wrestling content on the show for example.

It may also be possible that he was just a sacrificial lamb offered up by Dixie Carter and others within TNA. Ratings had stalled with no real growth despite endless promises and a lot of cash being spent. Russo becomes an easy target to blame for that fairly or otherwise. (this is probably closest to the answer you'd get from Russo)

Or a combination of all the above.

Alexi as a favour to the forum's backend database I'm not going to quote your post.

There's nothing you've said there that really undermines what I'm saying. No amount of moving the goalposts makes RoH bigger than TNA.

I've never said everyone who disagrees with me is a WWE fanboy. But some are. You're more of an anti-TNA fanatic than a WWE fanboy, to be fair. I have a hard time figuring out what you actually like. It's NXT and RoH isn't it? So, fairly purist, fairly niche shows then? Fair enough. That has its place. But it's never going to create another Attitude Era.

The latter parr of your post is the weakest. There's no getting away from the fact that I do try and start conversations about the TNA product and the usual suspects never engage. Why is that? Do you actually watch TNA? I've never seen you constructively appriase one of their shows.

And there's no hiding the fact when TNA is good you're nowhere to be seen on this thread. First sign of trouble there you are gleefully reporting it in your trademark faux concern tone.

Hollie, those are good suggestions about how to run TNA better. Thanks for coming up with them.

I mostly agree. Although, some do benefit from hindsight quite a lot. Also, would any of them actually have saved the company?

Would many of them have saved the company? Probably not in fairness. But I think Dixie could hang up her boots knowing she ran her company the right way, she ran a company that staff were paid on time, respected the people that built her company from the ground up, and ultimately carved their own path in the wrestling industry. Did it work? No but then not paying staff on time, hiring Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, countless other ex-WWE stars didn't work either. I think TNA as a company could have bowed out with a level of respect that they tried to be TNA.

And I think ultimately, TNA stopped being TNA a long time ago. I've asked before, if I'm being asked to choose between WWE or TNA attempting to be WWE, why would I not just watch WWE? If I want to watch a female, heel bitch of an authority figure, why would I watch Dixie Carter attempting to play Stephanie McMahon rather than Stephanie herself? You have to be different, you have to have an identity and TNA lost that IMO.

I won't knock Dixie for trying, because I believe she did try. She just generally chose to try the wrong things because of advice from three men who had no interest (IMO) in TNA improving/growing because Hogan was always, always getting another legend's contract in WWE and Bischoff was getting paid regardless.

i thought the reason there was no belt type changes on the ppv was to keep the results "a guess" when between last nights live impact and sunday they are recording a load of impacts for the next 6 weeks or so and thus people might report the results of those which would give the game away...

at least it is a ppv shown "in time" - too many ppvs are 6 months past the recording point, and not only feature people who have left but have back stage interviews that specifically mention storylines long since shelved...

the other problem with tna is you can guess who is going to be "the next match" because the active roster is so small.... if in july they film the shows through to sept, that could be the last ones they do... and if in those shows they are only going to continue the current main stories that could explain why the JS rumours exist or l-k leaves... that then puts a real kayfabe feel to the idea they might leave to join the rival that then invades and takes over...

the best story is a kayfabe one... but knowing its kayfabe is more fun than it being real!

Please explain to me how I'm moving the goal posts.

Firstly this would assume that anyone, besides you, has set the exact terms by which this point should be measured and discussed. They haven't and your exact terms are skewed toward TNA given that it amounts to “look at the television ratings”.

More importantly though I'm curious as to how I can be moving the goal posts when (and this is a direct quote of you) the facts are that by any measurable metric it was / is a much bigger promotion than RoH. If those are the facts what would it matter if I were moving the goal posts?

I also can't help but notice that once again rather than actually engage with the points someone has made you've opted to try and discredit instead. But apparently pointing out that RoH, unlike TNA, has spent the past decade attracting paying fans to there shows and therefore by the metric of tickets sold they're a much bigger company than TNA is 'moving the goal posts'. Or maybe moving the goal posts is asking what, exactly, TNA's historical significance to the industry is. Several people have outlined RoH's but I've yet to see anyone do the same for TNA which seems incredibly relevant in a discussions on the significance of the company.


No, its just your token response to any opinion you happen to dislike or disagree with.


Firstly I'd point out that ECW was, in many respects, the root of the Attitude Era so the idea that a 'niche' product isn't going to result in another Attitude Era is fundamentally flawed. Secondly no that's not particularly close to describing what I like.


I definitely don't adopt a faux concern tone and I think you'd struggle to identify any kind of concern in my posts regarding TNA faux or otherwise.

With that said I'd also just point out that if you look in the WWE thread you'll notice that outside of on going discussion during live shows we don't actually spend a whole lot of time really discussing the shows. The primary topic of discussion in the WWE thread the last few days has been what the WWE product looks like in a post-Cena world and how/if WWE gets there. I'd suggest that if you're looking micro discussion on the product you're looking in the wrong place. Its not really what these forums do even for a product that the majority of posters are much more engaged in than they are with TNA.

Let me also say that for me to be here when TNA is good would require TNA to first be good.

I agree with you seibu but here's where I disagree with you. I'll admit there are those from the WWE thread that like to gloat about anytime TNA has problems or they might be "going out of business" but I've already made points in that thread about how only a handful of them, myself included actually go to live WWE shows when they tour here. The ones that criticise TNA? They don't even go to WWE house shows or TV tapings. I doubt they've even bought a WWE t shirt so while they may appear to be big WWE fans....they're not really. They just don't mind going to bed at 4.15am on a Tuesday morning lol. They don't put a penny into anything.


I like TNA and there's still a lot I like about their shows. I thought the shows from the tour in January were very well done. I'll always want them to stay in business because I think it's good to give wrestlers a place to work and earn a living. WWE is just abysmal. It's a kid show dressed up as a sports show on from 8pm-11pm on a Monday night with a PG rating where it's just boring match after boring match where nothing happens and there is no story or logic to anything so with the number of names leaving WWE in the last few years i'm glad there are other options out there. However....


The reason I think a lot of people aren't into TNA now and maybe the same way with WWE is when TNA was really doing well back in 2009 they were doing it in their own way, Cornette had left, it was just Russo and Dutch Mantel and then for a 8 week period Russo booked the shows on his own with help from Matt Conway and Ed Ferrara was brought in to help out. At this point Eric and Hulk were brought in and the famous story was Eric ripped the script that they had for that weeks Impact up in front of Russo and everyone in the meeting that first day they arrived. So within a very short space of time the creative team had changed 3 times. That's not including the 7 years prior to it where it changed. It changed since then, it's different now even but at that particular point in time, 2009/2010 you had people there who had been big players in the wrestling business. Even Jeff Hardy coming back, even Ric Flair coming back not long after his phony retirement in WWE, even Hulk and Eric to an extent, they all still had some of that spark that they had 10 years ago. In 2010, Hogan was only 5 years or so from his last stint in WWE. It's been 5 years since that stint in TNA. Time flies by but back then when this was happening I think a lot of fans got into it because the people they were seeing and even Russo behind the scenes writing, they didn't seem that old or past it. Everyone had aged but they were still young enough to do it and i say the same with Sting and Jarrett too. It had that feeling of the way wrestling used to be and you had the big names behind the scenes and in front of the camera and the shows all had great stories running through them, you had the legends out there wrestling and bleeding, you had the X division, you had the Knockouts, it was a fun 2 hour show that had a lot going on and you knew who everyone was and it was a blast.


I think with TNA now, time has moved on 5 years now and all those names are now pretty much retired and I think for many fans, there can't be a revival. You just can't recreate the way wrestling used to be. Look at Dusty dying. McMahon coming up for 70. Wrestling just isn't that good anymore and the people that made it good are getting on and you can't just create a star anymore. There's no life in it anymore. That's why you have these people doing one man shows and they tour everywhere and people pay good money to see them.

I think a lot of fans are now realising that wrestling just can't be the way it used to be and I think maybe Dixie Carter is looking around right now and she is seeing that there's no one left, no one can save the company, she never gave anyone cart blanche. She never stuck with one writer or one team for a prolonged period of time. It was always changing. What would the show have done had Russo been left on his own? What would it have done if Dutch was left on his own? What would it have done if the young Matt Conway was left on his own? Would any of them have made a difference? No one knows because they were never given the chance to go it alone. There was always someone there to stick their nose in and change things.

It's the reason why wrestling is so low on popularity. It's just not like it used to be. You can have Dixie Carter playing the heel or Stephanie playing the heel, you can have Jarrett in the ring wrestling or Triple H in the ring wrestling. You can have the high fliers but it's not the same. Even the whole authority figure/GM act is stale. It went stale in 2000 with Mr McMahon. It's just not believable anymore but they keep doing it because they don't know any better. I just don't think the people in wrestling know what to do with it. Just rehashing old stories and characters. The people that made a difference are either retired or dead. There's nothing to root for anymore. No one to root for. There's no life in it. No excitement.


Back in 2009-2011 we got a glimpse of that in TNA and I'm glad we got to see it.

Alexi, it does all beg the question why you post in a thread about a promotion you actively dislike, no?

Alexi is the type that will sit and complain about wrestling but the second you do it she will tell you to stop watching despite the fact you are probably many years older than her lol. She is one of those people that will never stop watching wrestling and wont stand to have anyone slag it off, especially if it's a WWE show you don't like. You will feel her wrath!

Or most likely she will quote you lol.

Hazy, I'm not sure where I disagree with you there because I agree with all of that!