They had a very clear identity at first. The X-Division, the six-sided ring and the emphasis on wrestling action over WWE's more storytelling orientated product at the time, helped to grow it.

I watched ECW One Night Stand 2006 recently. There are TNA chants during the main event. It had that old ECW vibe to it for a while, but predictably that was lost the larger the company grew.

Why does it cost so much to make a tv wrestling show? WCPW seem to do a pretty good job of filming and editing their shows and that just goes out for free on YouTube.

Obviously wwe's production values are far more advanced and costly but other promotions could take a leaf out of WCPWs book.

It's obviously much cheaper and easier than it used to be.
When the only outlet was conventional broadcast TV, everything had to be done to very high technical standards with professional equipment which cost a fortune, and editing cost a fortune too, not just cutting the pictures but adding captions etc.
All of that changed with editing on computers, where you can produce a professional result much more easily and cheaply, and you only have to shoot on domestic camcorders which nowadays are really good quality. Obviously you can't transmit live without a proper rig, but you don't actually need to do that to get your product out there and people talking about it, something that is also a huge amount easier with the advent of things like YouTube and Vimeo.
At one end of the scale is WWE, which has always had the very highest production values, whatever you may think of the quality of the actual product, and at the other end there's things like the wrestling shows being shown on the BEN channel on Saturday nights at the moment, which is just one single locked-off camera looking at the ring, and not very well placed either!
There's any level in between, and it really now costs a fraction of what it used to, as long as you're not expecting to be on a big conventional broadcast network, or transmit shows live.

Well TBF WCPW have now got WC Extra for about £5 a month for that you get Loaded 24 hours before Youtube and the IPPV's like Refuse To Lose which will not be shown on Youtube with the exception of the Internet Title Match.

Not complaning about that I've already signed up and find it worth the money .

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The TNA of Spike TV days is many moons ago from the can't fund themselves TNA of today. They were the number two promotion in North America then. There not now.

The only argument appears to be centred around their UK and India TV deals of which one is rumoured to be finishing shortly and the other is dependent on TNA touring India, which given the financial issues would appear to be unlikely at the minute.

Sinclair has wanted ROH to grow naturally off their own back. Much to the frustration of some ROH personnel if reports are to be believed. TNA's creative sucked, so rather than changing that they continued to claim other issues as the reason they could not get to the next level.

TNA has almost folded a number of times. Back when they were doing weekly PPVs until Panda Energy got involved and then a number of times in recent years when Bob Carter stopped blindly funding them as Dixie's play thing.

ROH are touring every week all across North America and in partnership with UK and Japan promotions. TNA doesn't. ROH make money off a number of different revenue streams which TNA have killed off themselves.

The branding has always been a bit muddled at best. Whether that's tying themselves to the NWA for 5 years, which ECW had already buried in 1994. The TNA name, which seemed a bit gimmicky and late 90's esque. Finally the Impact Wrestling name, better but like you say tagged in alongside the TNA name.

I'm not sure that this was ever the case given the Jarrett shit in the main events for ages. They were almost a continuation of WCW in that sense. Crusierweights in the undercard and shitty old guys in the mains.

There was that period around the midpoint of the decade when they did have genuine buzz though, that's true. To me that was almost entirely centred around the awesome run of Samoa Joe, but that was squandered.

EDIT: I agree with your overarching point though that if they stayed in the Impact Zone and toured relatively locally they would have been more sustainable but that thing is, they weren't really making money compared to what they were spending on contracts then from what I can tell. Besides, Dixie was a mark who was easily worked by the likes of Russo and Hogan into believing that they were always just one silver bullet away from competing with WWE.

tna was cheap in the spike years...

when they did a parking lot fight, most of the cars had clearly been sourced from a scrap yard - old models and smashed up sides... so you knew which car they were going to fight on top of...

No one is ever going to be able to compete with the WWE on a worldwide stage but what can happen is providing a platform for wrestlers to work and earn a living in the wrestling business and have a company which keeps its doors open and making a profit, maybe not a large profit but enough to keep everything ticking over.


As Russo has said many times, with the WWE it's all about show, it's a big show or at least it used to be for many years, now it's just non stop wrestling matches but even in the 1980s it was a show and before that. Guys like the Iron Sheik and George "The Animal" Steele in their time were little glimpses of show business in wrestling and it kept changing and evolving as the years went on and the business grew and as the business grew so do the superstars we saw, so did the events we saw. The WWE always spent the money making their shows look great and people ended up expecting that from every wrestling company. I think that is one reason why in this country TNA did well for a few years but never really took off, it didn't matter how good the creatiive was, this country was built on British Wrestling which stopped being on TV in the 80's and WWF American Wrestling. And TNA didn't look like that, neither did WCW or ECW. There's many people in this country right now that if TNA put on an amazing wrestling show, they still wouldn't watch because in their mind if it's not in a huge arena with huge video screens and multiple camera setups then it's inferior. They literally wont watch it because they percieve it to be inferior just based on how it looks on TV and I guess if it looks small time then they assume nothing big is going to happen and what happens will be small time.

Russo says fans will never know the thousands of dollars Vince spent on that hospital room he and Austin tore up. It was never an issue. Filming into the small hours and doing the thing where they throw the belt off a bridge and then throwing Austin off it? Fans have no idea how much money was spent on doing that and hiring professional people to do that. Buying a Corvette to literally destroy it, that wasn't a used car or a car someone was using, they literally bought it just for that segment and that's what TNA is up against and so is ROH and anyone else. When you have a company that can do all that and spend that kind of money, no questions asked, even though it shouldn't matter....it does. It matters to fans because they get this image in their head of what wrestling should be and everyone else has to play catch up and they can never really top that. Fans love big moments. I think that's why the Hardys and Decay stuff is so well praised, people can see the effort gone into it, it's a big show, it's a show, that's what wrestling should be about and in some ways they've hit the nail on the head with it. Maybe the days of wrestling shows being in wrestling rings in arenas and LED boards and big screens is a bit passe. Maybe this could be the future in wrestling. Big shows. Big setups. Maybe doing the whole show outside. Filming it like a movie.

Dixie held a meeting with talent last night. Reportedly:

•Acknowledged WWE interest but told talent she wouldn't let it happen.

• Confirmed tape library still under their ownership.

• Confirmed infighting and power struggle amongst owners but she remains majority owner.

• Admitted company "scrambled" to get BFG to happen but it wasn't ever in doubt (not what Corgan was saying)

• Didn't understand why people were upset about lack of information or the status of the company but apologised regardless.

They have done the TV Tapings and will have enough to get them to end of the year.

So any buy out now could be put off until Jan.

You have to question the logic of keeping it going until January when, unless Daddy Carter wrote another cheque, you potentially have to pay back the money for these tapings and get money for January tapings and adding to the debt that will put off potential buyers.

Seen some suggestion that despite Dixie posturing, a WWE sale isn't off the table and that Vince isn't all that bothered anyway and will pick it up for much less when the company is in liquidation.

Amazed by the suggestion, and as with all my posts over the past week there is skepticism about its truth, that Dixie couldn't understand the annoyance from talent and crew about the whole situation. But to be fair, they got more wrestling news attention this past week than in the past 10 months so possibly not all bad.

Also don't understand why Dixie admitted there was a scramble to get BFG on the air but then say there wasn't any doubt when Corgan cast doubt on it more than once last week.

But TNA lives on for another couple of months, she's pulled it off again. I think you have to question whether it would be kinder to put it out of its misery but it seems at least Dixie has a grasp on TNA until at least December.

As for assuring them she won't sell to WWE TBH I doubt most of them will care.

Best case scenario WWE picks up their contract.

Worse case scenario WWE shuts down TNA doesn't pick them up and they carry on working the indies not really any worse off than they are now.

Some news coming out that a deal has been reached. Corgan to become majority owner of a rebranded TNA. WWE to pick up the tape library and I presume brand name/trademarks.

If that is true it's the best case scenario.

TNA "dies" and Corgan can build up a new company without the baggage of TNA pulling it down.

WWE gets the tape libary so can show TNA (Classic) on The Network and have almost the complate taped matches of a lot of stars plus can show really good AJ-Joe-Roode matches to show fans who don't know them just why they are seen as great.

And best of all Dippy is gone.

Definitely the best outcome IMO

I'd love to see WWE have a stab at Ultimate X. As weakened as WWE is, they still do the PPVs and featured gimmick matches proud.

Then again, we're still waiting for War Games so I won't hold my breath.

I don't watch wrestling any more, save for the odd match here or there, but i do keep up with what's going on and I have do agree that this does seem like the best solution.,

I suppose, ideally, Corgan would have, or could have, bought the company as a whole himself and then sold the tape library and branding to the WWE to offset some of the cost maybe ?

I guess with their TV deal still being intact and all of their talent still under contract, they have the best chance to hit the ground running and start to rebuild.

I wonder if WWE will actually reference TNA and wrestlers' careers there, once they own the brand? Or are they still petty and butthurt that another promotion even dared to challenge them?

Also, regardless of what some people say, Impact was a great show 2011 - 2013. It'll be nice for people to be able to discover that via the WWE Network.

TNA 2011 - 2013 was my favourite wrestling show since the late '90s / early '00s. I'm glad passionate people like Dixie and Corgan were prepared to make big personal losses to keep non-WWE wrestling going a little longer in the US.

Goodbye TNA. There wont be a replacement alternative promotion. Wrestling will continue to stagnate and decline until WWE itself meets a similar fate.

I guess they'll have the rights to the Joe/Styles/Daniels triple threat match which is still one of the best matches i've ever seen. With Joe and Styles in the promotion, there's nothing stopping them showing it and getting those two to talk about it.

They mention TNA on some of their shows already. WCW was a much bigger competitor than TNA is/was and they mention them.

There's a number of promotions out there already for your tastes. Might not be as big as WWE, but plenty options that are easily accessible thanks to the internet.

That is good news

Being denied.

Latest regarding the TNA tape library from Meltzer:

While no deal is done, no matter what TNA says, talks are still open about selling the library to WWE.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
TNA are sitting on a valuable library of significant wrestling shows featuring major stars, but they haven't the means to get it out to people.
WWE have that means, the WWE Network, so why not allow them to use it?
Write into the contract that WWE can only promote those shows as TNA shows, not Impact Wrestling shows (although some Impact branding will inevitably still be there on the later content), drop the TNA name for the current product completely, re-brand totally as Impact Wrestling, which is already a familiar (and good) name.
Job done. Perhaps......