A war? Not quite

[Arkham Noir]

Alright, I will be the one to say it. There is no Monday Night wars II.

A war involves to sides with at least a similar chance to defeat the other side. WCW vs WWE was a war because they both pushed each other to limit competing for viewers.

What is occuring right now is less of a war and more of a skinny kid trying to fight Fedor. TNA is trying to call a monday night war so that they can somehow attract viewers, yet the ratings have shown no gain. TNA is no more competition right now than ROH is , the only difference is that TNA has Hogan and a bunch of other big names. Yet they are still going nowhere.

So I am trying to appeal to some of you to use logic and realize that there is no war occuring, no matter how desperatly you all seem to be seeking one.

 

[Mr-excitement]

Glad to hear someone else sees this - this is not a war, its not even a skirmish. Its the little kid trying to hang with the big kid on the block and being shooed away without a second thought.

Nitro and Raw were at war and it was a war because Nitro won many battles including the first head-to-head encounter, until TNA fires a real shot across the bow, th eonly war going on is the one fans are dreaming of.

 

[jmt225]

I agree that it's not a "war" and that some people make a bigger deal out of the situation than it actually is; HOWEVER, you absolutely cannot deny the fact that TNA moving to Monday nights is much better for the business as a whole.

For both Monday shows they've had so far, TNA has pulled out all the stops, and are definitely improving from the shit they usually air on Thursdays. Meanwhile, while WWE isn't 'threatened' parse by TNA, they still don't appreciate the fact that TNA has moved to Monday nights, which has made them turn up their programming a notch. They bring back Bret Hart for example, and then of course next week Steve Austin will host Raw, which I believe is supposed to bring the end to the Celebrity Guest Host deal on the program.

Is it a war? No, but it still brings out the best in both companies, so TNA moving to Monday night is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Don't let over-excited fans ruin it for you with their exaggerations.

 

[Arkham Noir]

Glad to hear someone else sees this - this is not a war, its not even a skirmish. Its the little kid trying to hang with the big kid on the block and being shooed away without a second thought.

That is a much better way to describe it.

The poster that mentioned that is better for the buisnnes as whole (the move to monday nights) I'm just curoius as to wether or not your reffering to Pro Wrestling as a whole or TNA. Because I agree if your refering to Pro wrestling as a whole, but not if your reffering to TNA.TNA could potentially do much worse.

 

[jmt225]

The poster that mentioned that is better for the buisnnes as whole (the move to monday nights) I'm just curoius as to wether or not your reffering to Pro Wrestling as a whole or TNA. Because I agree if your refering to Pro wrestling as a whole, but not if your reffering to TNA.TNA could potentially do much worse.

Pro Wrestling.

Whether it's better for TNA or not, well... only time will tell. No one knows for sure (just like I'm sure no one knew whether or not Nitro would last over a month when it debuted on Monday nights). But I love the risk either way. It's not cool to play it safe in pro wrestling. You have to take risk if you really want to accomplish something, so even if TNA fails, they'll have nothing to be ashamed of. Not many in the business have had the balls to step up and challenge McMahon, so anyone who does it gets respect from my end no matter what.

 

[Mr-excitement]

Sorry but right now TNA plays like a bad episode of Thunder - The booking means nothing i.e. Sting's turn, you waste RVD so Sting can hit Hogan with a bat again.

As soon as Bischoff and Russo realize the numbers are not going up, then angles will suddenly be dropped for no reason just like they did on Nitro.

And of course now that Hall and Waltman's segment got good "TNA" numbers, I am sure Bischoff will connect himself to them and they will appear in every segment.

As far as not playing it cool, in business - this is incorrect, Business is about MINIMAL risk and making the right moves, the right way. This is the wrong way, paying big dollars to over the hill guys and people that have been poison in the past is not taking a chance, it is self-destructive.

In 10 years or so when the WWE puts out "The rise and fall of TNA" I am sure Dixie Carter will have learned it by then.

 

[Mr. TM]

I don't think I have called it a war yet, I call it the Monday Night Rebellion, because that is how I see it. I see WWE doing what they do weekly, putting on the biggest 3 shows right now in professional wrestling in 80 countries around the world, and I see another entity rebellion against that. TNA does not have the right stuff to defeat WWE, so I call them the rebels. They see what WWE has, and like a parasite (hmm, that is probably not what I want to say), they want to suck off some of the wrestling world in to their product.

 

[Baller]

TNA has personally gotten worse, throughout the months, as I feel they are trying way too hard to produce a monster each week, and it ends up backfiring. The WWE is still on cruise control, and when they make an attempt at a monster show they don't overkill it with so many things happening at one time.

This is not a war, and won't be for a long time, but if TNA doesn't produce better productions this could be a sad attempt to try and overtake the WWE, and it could take a long time to find another chance at a war.

 

[Mr-excitement]

The sad thing is they don't have to go head-to-head to beat McMahon. They could have stayed on Thursdays marketed their show just as hard as they did this past week and tried to overcome McMahon's 3.5 - right now TNA should have about 6 PPVs a year and work on building its fanbase.

When you enter a cage against a tiger, you become caged also.

Vince beat the NWA without ever booking his show against their TBS show. He went about his business and acted as if they did not exist. TNA talks about the WWE far too much and works too hard to be like them. I don't even think Hogan or Bischoff care about TNA. They just want to beat Vince, that will be their downfall.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

As I finished writing in a post just a few minutes ago, calling this the second coming of the Monday Night Wars at this point in time is wishful thinking. It's pure hyperbole right now. You cannot consider WWE and TNA to be in a ratings war when Raw's audience is, on average, more than 3.5 times that of TNA's in the United States.

I do admire TNA's ambition and guts. They want to be #1 and nobody can really blame them for that. The only problem is that TNA's focus has been on competing against the WWE rather than building a product that's reliably solid and high quality. TNA seems to be of the mind set that they can pull in ratings by bringing in wrestlers that are former WWE and/or WCW stars. For the most part, it's a strategy that hasn't worked and, even when it has worked, it's only been a temporary fix.

On one hand, those established wrestlers being part of TNA could be seen by some as giving TNA some real legitimacy. I can definitely see that. On the other, I've also read comments and talked with friends that see TNA importing all these wrestlers that the WWE fires or has no interest in bringing back into the company makes TNA look second rate. You know, the whole "WWE Rejects" thing. And, I can definitely see that side of the argument as well.

If TNA can't get the job done with Jeff Hardy, then I don't think it's going to happen. Jeff Hardy is young, still in his prime, is one of the most over babyfaces in wrestling right now and is very popular with your average wrestling fan. Your average wrestling fan is who TNA needs to attract.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

You know TNA's problem? Instead of saying 'Here's a wrestling promotion, with something a little bit different.' they're basically saying, 'This is our wrestling promotion, isn't it better than Vince's?'

And flicking through "Cash Creates Controversy" isn't going to suddenly make your promotion the new juggernaut in the world of pro-wrestling. Taking all the great talents that are making a name for themselves and making them the supporting cast is also stupid, because people are going to tune into TNA and then go on mad missions to create 21 gigawatts of electricity for their flux capacitor, so they can get back to 2010 and not 1997.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

Is it a War yet? No. NOt even close. But understand, just because it isn't a war RIGHT NOW, doesn't mean it won't be in a year or two. People are so impatient, it makes me physically ill. Did any of you ACTUALLY expect TNA to draw more than a 1.2 or 1.3 this week? If you did, YOU have issues, not TNA.

TNA is going to need time. They need to build a fan base, and that can't be one over night. TNA has been around for a lot less time than WCW was when they first beat WWF. WCW had guys that were WELL known all around the world. They had more than one or two big names (TNA has Jeff Hardy and RVD, big names, and Kennedy, kind of a big name) from the rival promotion. TNA will need to build up their own guys, but that's not going to be enough. They need more exposure.

Some people say TNA can't afford a second show. Well, if they don't do something soon to get additional exposure, three years from now they won't have the money for ONE show. This is going to take a lot of time, and money. TNA needs to put up money to make money. If they go conservative, they will drown. Pumping themselves up to be a rival for WWE isn't enough. They need to eventually show signs of improvement, and I hope they do. Wrestling is much, much better when there is COMPETITION among more than one company splitting it's brand.

Just be patient. I hate to break it to all of you impatient, super-marks, but it's not going to happen in weeks or even months. This will take years. I hope that people have the patience to wait, I know I do.

 

[psykohurricane]

To say that this is a war is really stupid because the ratings don't lie, TNA got crush by WWE this week. I was expecting them to do a little bit better 1.0 this. At less capitilize on the fans that didn'T watch raw this week. But i guess that the fans that the WWE lost this week went on and watch 24 or another show that was playing at the same time as Raw and IMPACT.

The funny thing about all this is that i think this war isn't even about TNA and WWE, it'S about Spike TV still being made at Vince McMahon for taking all is programming and giving them to USA Network after Spîke TV give the ECW time slot to WWE.

TNA isn't ready for a war, there programming since january 4th as been painful to watch espicially the last 2 thursdays and it doesn'T look like it'S going to change anytime soon. If you read the spoiler for next week's show, you probably understand what i'm talking about.

The reason why WCW nitro vs WWE Raw was such a war was because WCW had a great marketing machine behind them. Sure Nitro was unpredictable but without the proper marketing, they would have been the success it was at the time. TNA doesn'T promote anything. They hope that the casual wrestling fan who probably hasn'T watch wrestling in quite a while will go on the internet and read the dirt sheet and other wrestling websites to find out what going on in wrestling. It doesn'T work that way, the casual fan isn't interested in read wrestling news on the internet and i'm pretty sure they don'T even know that all theses former wwe rejects are in TNA.

TNA made a couple of mistake last monday but the biggest one was to not promote jeff hardy's return. You promote that and the ratings would have been higher then it was because people would have stayed tune in to see when would Hardy show up.

Unless, TNA learns from their mistakes, and over the years their as been plenty of mistake made by them, the will go bankrupt like WCW and ECW did and after Vince buys the TNA video library, you will have a rise and fall of TNA DVD produce by the WWE because booking a show like WCW did in the dying years isn'T the way to make an Impact and beat The WWE.

 

[psykohurricane]

i forgot one point i wanted to make about this subject, why would you put a replay of your monday show on thursday. By doing that, TNA is pretty saying that is not a big deal if you watch the competition on monday, you can always watch us on thursday. This is another reason why TNA will fail in the end, because they are giving away too much leeway to the WWE. If Raw is playing only one time a week and IMPACT is playing twice a week, which show do you think people are going to watch on Monday. Most of them are going to watch raw and wait for the replay of IMPACT on Thursday.

 

[ZeroVX]

PATIENCE.

I have said this in so many posts I've made concerning WWE VS TNA, but it needs to be said again. The people making these threads saying that TNA is losing or that this will just kill them annoy me to no end. They look at what happened one week and assume it'll be like that forever.

Is it a war yet? No. But in case you people forgot, there have only been TWO Monday episodes of TNA so far. And one of them was over two months ago. How can you judge how a company will do based on that? They got low ratings, but they actually put some effort into their show. WWE just droned on as usual. It may not be a war YET, but it will sooner or later.

FUCKING. WAIT.

 

[hatehabsforever]

PATIENCE.

I have said this in so many posts I've made concerning WWE VS TNA, but it needs to be said again. The people making these threads saying that TNA is losing or that this will just kill them annoy me to no end. They look at what happened one week and assume it'll be like that forever.

Is it a war yet? No. But in case you people forgot, there have only been TWO Monday episodes of TNA so far. And one of them was over two months ago. How can you judge how a company will do based on that? They got low ratings, but they actually put some effort into their show. WWE just droned on as usual. It may not be a war YET, but it will sooner or later.

FUCKING. WAIT.

Sure, patience is what is required for TNA to mount a challenge to the WWE. I mean let's not rush them, it's only been eight years, they just need some more time to hit their stride.

And the guys featured most prominently on the last episode of iMPACT, namely Hogan, Flair, and Sting, are just spring chickens, they'll still be around and relevant for some time to come.

All sarcasm aside, TNA has brought this lack of patience on themselves. They are the ones talking trash, getting on with the false bravado and aggressive talk of bringing the battle to the WWE. They are the ones going on and on about becoming the top pro wrestling organization in the world. They are the ones constantly referencing the WWE during their shows, in interviews, etc.,

WWE has quietly been going about their business, and kicking TNA's ass in the process. No talk, no hype, just quiet confidence and controlled domination. You cannot fault the IWC fans for getting a little excited and impatient, when these sentiments have been caused by the brass of TNA themselves.

 

[ZeroVX]

Sure, patience is what is required for TNA to mount a challenge to the WWE. I mean let's not rush them, it's only been eight years, they just need some more time to hit their stride.

And the guys featured most prominently on the last episode of iMPACT, namely Hogan, Flair, and Sting, are just spring chickens, they'll still be around and relevant for some time to come.

All sarcasm aside, TNA has brought this lack of patience on themselves. They are the ones talking trash, getting on with the false bravado and aggressive talk of bringing the battle to the WWE. They are the ones going on and on about becoming the top pro wrestling organization in the world. They are the ones constantly referencing the WWE during their shows, in interviews, etc.,

WWE has quietly been going about their business, and kicking TNA's ass in the process. No talk, no hype, just quiet confidence and controlled domination. You cannot fault the IWC fans for getting a little excited and impatient, when these sentiments have been caused by the brass of TNA themselves.

Sure I can fault them. The IWC in general has no clue what it wants. Before Hogan showed up, there were a lot of people who wanted TNA to move to Monday and take on WWE directly. The exact second it was announced that Hogan signed with TNA, everyone freaked out. They were worried he was going to do exactly what they wanted TNA to do, and in doing so, ruin the company. So they can't make up their minds on anything.

As for the pot-shot argument, here's a bit of history. In the original war, WCW did the exact same thing to the WWE. They referenced them when they could, gave away tapings results, berated their stars and praised their own. Their catchphrase was, after all, "where the big boys play". The whole NWO angle was originally believed to be an "invasion" by the WWE, until Hall and Nash came out and said it wasn't. So WCW was doing the exact same thing TNA is doing now, and WWE was ignoring them then as they are now.

WCW eventually pushed WWE off of the top and became the better promotion. Nitro was watched more than RAW, and WCW PPVs were getting more buys. And the ironic thing is that, after that happened, the situation reversed. WCW started ignoring WWE and continuing with their product, while WWE was taking pot-shots at any chance they could. Go on YouTube and try to find a "Billionaire Ted" skit. You'll be surprised. So that's a poor argument to make, as any company takes potshots when they feel it's needed. Hell, ROH does it every now and then, saying that their product is "real wrestling" and insulting "sports entertainment". No one's innocent in this situation.

 

[Tums]

I am not lying when I say I expected TNA to pull something better than the rating of 0.98 they did for their debut monday move. To be honest I expected something closer to the first Hogan appearence on Jan 4th a 1.4 up to maybe a 1.7. So yes as a TNA fan, performer, Hogan, Bischoff and Dixie and ofcourse Spike you have to feel sort of dissapointed that you didnt do alot better shit it was worst than their previous shows and NXT. TNA has a lot of growing and progress to make before they can even be considered a real threat to the WWE. Do they have the potential? sure they do but turning that potential into something of significance is always challenging and def no easy. I believe with Mondays show and tv results TNA got a real taste of that and a lesson in humility. Now focus on trying to make your product better instead of smack talking across the radio circut maybe then things will go alot better.

 

[Coco]

It's not a war, but it is a sort of conflict. I'm not sure what I'm saying though, so just let me roll with it here.

TNA is going balls to the wall, but they aren't going to get WWE-like numbers in their first few weeks in that time slot. They simply aren't branded as well as the WWE and don't have the recognition at this point to really dent the WWE's domination on the wrestling market. However, when people change from Raw now, there is another wrestling show on the air. So in that way, it's a conflict. Both sides aren't laying it all on the line to win, but there is a chance for some change to come from this and we've already seen WWE do a few mild things to counter TNA on these nights (Bret, Vince vs. Cena, the cold open with Taker to suck people right in).

If ya catch my drift.

TM put it better, now that I scroll up. "Rebellion."

 

[psykohurricane]

Sure I can fault them. The IWC in general has no clue what it wants. Before Hogan showed up, there were a lot of people who wanted TNA to move to Monday and take on WWE directly. The exact second it was announced that Hogan signed with TNA, everyone freaked out. They were worried he was going to do exactly what they wanted TNA to do, and in doing so, ruin the company. So they can't make up their minds on anything.

As for the pot-shot argument, here's a bit of history. In the original war, WCW did the exact same thing to the WWE. They referenced them when they could, gave away tapings results, berated their stars and praised their own. Their catchphrase was, after all, "where the big boys play". The whole NWO angle was originally believed to be an "invasion" by the WWE, until Hall and Nash came out and said it wasn't. So WCW was doing the exact same thing TNA is doing now, and WWE was ignoring them then as they are now.

WCW eventually pushed WWE off of the top and became the better promotion. Nitro was watched more than RAW, and WCW PPVs were getting more buys. And the ironic thing is that, after that happened, the situation reversed. WCW started ignoring WWE and continuing with their product, while WWE was taking pot-shots at any chance they could. Go on YouTube and try to find a "Billionaire Ted" skit. You'll be surprised. So that's a poor argument to make, as any company takes potshots when they feel it's needed. Hell, ROH does it every now and then, saying that their product is "real wrestling" and insulting "sports entertainment". No one's innocent in this situation.

Sorry, but you can't compare TNA to WCW simply because they were 2 different entity. First of all WCW was own by Turner Broadcasting and with all of Ted Turner'S money behind them they could pretty do whatever they wanted to get an advantage and they did plus the whole NWO stuff was the reason WCW was sold the WWE. WWE had a lawsuit against WCW for the way they brought in Hall and Nash and WWE won the lawsuit which pretty gave them the right to be the first one to try and buy WCW if WCW went bankrupt.

TNA doesn't that much money behind them, i don'T even know if they are turning a profit yet. But i'm guessing that if they were, they would have been out of the IMPACT Zone and be live every week, so i guess they are still in the red. So they pretty much got nothing to lose right now but what make TNA different form WCW is the marketing behind the 2 companies. WCW even with all the dirty tactics and the surprises and the great wrestling, you had a great marketing team behind them. They were using every media possible to promote Monday nitro. TNA doesn'T do that, if you don't listen to Spike TV, who by the way doesn'T advertise IMPACT that much, or go on wrestling sites or on their facebook or twitter page, you wouldn't know that TNA exist.

That why, TNA look stupid when they call out WWE because compare to WCW, TNA isn'T even on par with WWE, heck it'S barely higher then ROH and at less ROH have their taping in an actual arena.

On a side note, if you want to revisit history, the beginning of the end for WCW came when they spoil the fact that Mick Foley was winning the world title on RAw. Everybody stop watching nitro and watch Raw instead because Mick Foley was going to win the belt and since the time, they almost never won another rating war.

 

[WWE Manster03]

Sure I can fault them. The IWC in general has no clue what it wants. Before Hogan showed up, there were a lot of people who wanted TNA to move to Monday and take on WWE directly. The exact second it was announced that Hogan signed with TNA, everyone freaked out. They were worried he was going to do exactly what they wanted TNA to do, and in doing so, ruin the company. So they can't make up their minds on anything.

As for the pot-shot argument, here's a bit of history. In the original war, WCW did the exact same thing to the WWE. They referenced them when they could, gave away tapings results, berated their stars and praised their own. Their catchphrase was, after all, "where the big boys play". The whole NWO angle was originally believed to be an "invasion" by the WWE, until Hall and Nash came out and said it wasn't. So WCW was doing the exact same thing TNA is doing now, and WWE was ignoring them then as they are now.

WCW eventually pushed WWE off of the top and became the better promotion. Nitro was watched more than RAW, and WCW PPVs were getting more buys. And the ironic thing is that, after that happened, the situation reversed. WCW started ignoring WWE and continuing with their product, while WWE was taking pot-shots at any chance they could. Go on YouTube and try to find a "Billionaire Ted" skit. You'll be surprised. So that's a poor argument to make, as any company takes potshots when they feel it's needed. Hell, ROH does it every now and then, saying that their product is "real wrestling" and insulting "sports entertainment". No one's innocent in this situation.

I agree with you that the IWC has no idea what they want. They want WWE to put new guys in the main event. Great. Kofi/Sheamus get put in matches against top guys on the card and people bitch. They want TNA to compete with WWE on Mondays. Great. They go there and people bitch. The IWC, I hate to say it, is made up of people that no matter what happens think that they can book/run/manage/produce/etc a wrestling show better than the person currently doing it.
Now, what I don't agree with you on is your comparison of WCW to TNA. When WCW went live on that Monday Night, they had their typical Saturday broadcast, and outside of that there was no real tv time for them, and certainly not in primetime. TNA has been in primetime now for at least 3 years, and probably more. WCW came in and kicked WWE right in the nuts on that first night. I remember watching it and Lex Luger came out and me and my dad were both like, Wow I thought he was with WWE? Holy Shit. I like this....What did TNA do on EITHER of their first 2 Monday shows to get that reaction from people? Jeff Hardy debuts and clotheslines Homicide and then climbs an awkward ass cage for a minute then sits down? RVD debuting for 10 seconds before getting beaten with a baseball bat for 4 minutes? 2 things that could of been done PERFECTLY, yet they fucked them up. The way you build a return/debut nowdays with the IWC running rampant is 1.DO NOT go on a radio show that happens to have video and say someone big just signed as you do the RVD hand signal. 2..Remember when Y2J came back to WWE? the save_us videos, while obvious, were extremely effective. It makes you keep tuning in to see what/when the messages will pop up again. Then on a show like Monday's Impact they could of had someone in the ring cutting a promo and the package hits and BOOM....here comes RVD/Jeff Hardy/whichever established star you decide to debut at that time.
I think the WWE doing the Billionaire Ted/Nacho Man/Huckster skits were done because WWE had no use for those guys anymore and Ted threw a shitload of money at them and by that time you had already had some mention of WWE's name on the part of WCW during their Saturday shows/Hogans press conference/interviews after Savage and himself debuted. I think they were in poor taste and made WWE look bad, but neither company went out of there way to take shots at the other all that often(until Bischoff started doing it live on Nitro. lol)