WWE changed because WCW died. The lack of competition changed the industry forever. You said it yourself, times change. The Attitude Era was of it's time, and it was brilliant at the time, but it was bred out of necessity, they had to shock and be out there because WCW were winning a war.

The AE is never going to return, TV and the industry has changed too much for that type of entertainment to be there.

it may have been born out of competition but the basic forumula of how to write a tv show would still work today.

hhh is improving wwe but its still got handbrake on

tna is in reverse

They have been hinting over the past couple of weeks that we might see Bully put Dixie through a table.
Is it actually possible that this will happen?

I don’t know anything about wrestling, except for watching it on TV.
So I was wondering if a non-wrestling business woman could do such a thing safely - or is it totally out of the question?

I think it would be an advantage for TNA to drop the Impact Wrestling name, and revert to the name TNA.
It seems there is no sense of identity with the company. An example of this was the last PPV, where one ref (the new one, sorry don't know his name) was wearing the "red" TNA logo on his shirt and Stifler and Hebner were wearing the "blue" logo.
Also the website domain needs changed back to "www.tnawrestling.com" especially since they seemed to have dropped the "Impact Wrestling" logo from the home page header.
Oh, and one more thing, they seriously need more tag teams, the belt change between The Wolves and The Bromans has got old and tired, and makes the belt seem irrelevant.
Ok, one final thing. They need to have Abyss defend his belt, especially as he appears in the display of champs on the website home page, or they should drop it all together.
Finally frustration vented, although knowing TNA, of which I am a BIG fan, I willl have more to frustrate me before long.
Oh, it's real.....It's damn real!

Angle goes into surgery on Friday, expected to be out for 4 and a half months, which takes him past his contract expiry

Audiences change, society changes and tastes change.

That sort of thinking would have killed WWE in the 1990s because they would have just continued the Hulkamania formula. Trying to keep that corny cartoon style (because it was the most successful approach in their history at that point) is part of what get them into serious trouble and deflated the hell out of the wrestling business.

so what new formula is killing it right now?

PG era is done to keep steady income, not because its what's in this decade.

you have bought into the "cycles" BS, it isn't true.

There isn't one. But WWE doesn't really want there to be one. They're making an absolute ton of money with their current formula and doing so in a way that means that the WWE brand dominates without any star becoming bigger than the company itself.

I agree that some edgier and unique stories would help TNA but only if they are booked well and make sense. The trash tv formula isn't the right way imo. Take elements from it but the endless swerves, massive plotholes and endless, depressing misogyny should not be a part of that. You seemed to be down on the idea of X-division stuff but that's hardly the reason that TNA is down in the dumps. In fact, they've really killed off that division. They should strengthen it again because it was one of their unique selling points.

Ultimately, I don't think TNA is going to grow beyond where they are now anyway. They've blown too many chances. They have hit their ceiling.

plot holes? ironic you pull up attitude era on that when in todays world as soon as someone turns face they forget their past with their new friends etc.

it wasnt patronising booking back then

tnas booking is jsut boring, i fast fwd the promos now there are boring and whats with the dumb recap videos every single week?

I agree with you there at least.

Have you seen the newest set of spoilers?

Whedon doesn't think TNA need to be alternative/unique, they just need to do what WWE was doing 15/20 years ago with the attitude era

The rebranding thing was so stupid. You don't build a brand for that long and then just decide to change it. And if you do make the decision to rebrand, you actually see it through to the end and not half arsed like they do now. It's a subtle thing but changing the colour from red to blue was stupid because in the two biggest companies there have been, red represents the A show and B represents the B show, so in my opinion (and it's only an opinion) they were calling themselves the B promotion. But the branding was the least of their worries.

I do think TNA can grow, but it isn't through ex-WWE/WCW stars. And that has been proved time and time again. They need to realise they've had Kurt Angle, The Dudleys, Jeff Hardy, Sting, Steiner, Eric Bischoff, Flair, Foley and so many more, hell they even had the biggest star in Hulk Hogan the industry has ever produced and they grew nowhere. And Hogan's most recent WWE run has proved something, he was taking his paycheck and not giving a damn about bringing TNA up to a level because he promoted brand Hogan through his TNA run, running up to Mania he promoted brand WWE probably because he was told to. How can you have Hulk Hogan standing on the American Idol stage and not have him wear a TNA t-shirt or even mention TNA?

They have so much work to do, but they have so much going against them right now. I worry for the future, the Carter's aren't going to keep throwing money down the drain.

Just saw a video clip of the main event segment for this week's Impact. I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that the crowd reacted pretty well. However, Tenay's commentary was so horrible that I was pinning for Michael Cole!

Maybe TNA should hire the mini commentary team from WeeLC.

just seen that myself actually. i can't see them renewing. he most likely would never agree to a reduced schedule to protect himself and they won't want to re-sign someone of his age who keeps going down with long term injuries.

he's apparently been angling (pardon the pun...) to go back to the WWF for ages though so i suppose a legends deal might be possible.

About the crowd reaction.

Really? I'll have to listen again.

In general, the Impact Zone crowds are awful. They used to be sickeningly smarky and now they're just dead. Even if they were to find another studio with a less jaded crowd it would help. Hopefully the tapings in New York give them a boost.

Not just that, the Impact Zone was half empty for the tv show, there was FAR more people for the ppv and they were dead too. In the past they had their aficionados, people who were there for every TNA show (and probably people who had the Season Pass for Universal Studios), now those fans are gone (probably travelling about 10-15 miles to have a much better time watching WWE developmental at Full Sail).

I can't see any way Spike will renew the deal. The ratings are abysmal and have completely halved since Russo left.

Jesus this thread is getting a bit smarkey. It's like 90% spoiler tags. Can't you guys just watch the show at the UK pace? This thread is called "TNA Wrestling on Challenge TV".

I think this is a big part of why you guys can't enjoy TNA. If you go ahead and read taping spoilers, how are you ever going to be surprised by anything? You make up your mind what you think of the show before you've even seen it! How can you claim you're giving it a fair shake?

They aren't taping spoilers and as I've said before, shit is shit and brilliant is brilliant whether I know before hand what is happening

Thread should really be retitled the Anti-TNA Wresting on Challenge TV thread shouldn't it?

I'm not Anti-TNA, I'm Anti-Piss Poor TNA

I don't buy that I'm afraid. A huge amount of wrestling's appeal has always been the unexpected. That's why companies *do* swerves.

Are you seriously telling me, to take an obvious example, that if you'd known before the Brock / Taker match at 'Mania that Brock was going to win, it wouldn't have affected your enjoyment of the moment at all? That you'd have felt exactly the same things and felt exactly the same way? Sorry, but that's just crazy.