I think the World Cup is big time. You have the biggest stars, the top players, people are going crazy in the stands. There are big presentations with music and so forth.
Big time means you are the Top of your profession. It means you're gonna pull all the stop to create the biggest show and be the talk of the town. WCW didn't have the polished look of the WWF for instance, they didn't have big sets and screens like them but their matches felt big time, they hired Michael Buffer and more importantly they did everything to get the biggest stars, to stole them all from the WWF.
People don't just like wrestling for the craft, they watch it cause they want to see special people that they can't be like. They want to see them as superstars, as heroes and villains. That is why back in the day, they pimped Bruno Samartino and Hulk Hogan, they wanted to create larger-than-life characters that people would like to see and spend money on.
Take a sports team. You can have this little team with no money that is dedicated and try but they'll never win any championships. After a while as a fan, you'll lose interest in them. While take another team where every year they compete and every year they'll try spending money on getting the best athletes. Maybe they won't succeed, but as a fan of these guys, you'll be stimulated by seeing them TRY. Trying to be the best.
That is Big Time Wrestling. To be the Greatest Show on Earth. That is wrestling. Well maybe in the past the pyros were not there, maybe there was less promotion, maybe the arenas were less lite, but for people say in 1955, when Killer Kowalsky came to town, it was worth the price of admition. This was Big Time Wrestling cause he was the biggest star on the planet.
You cannot say this about TNA now. There's not any reasons for people to go see them, they don't hire guys that people would want to see. And the big problem is perception. The lost Sting, Hogan, AJ, Joe and so forth, it feels like they are giving up. They are not trying to be the Greatest Show on Earth. They are not even trying to get the best wrestlers on the Indy scene. They are just...there.
I watched last Friday and I saw Magnus vs Bram, Roode vs EY and I have the impression I've seen these wrestlers a thousand times. This company needs new blood. I see zero elements in them that make me excited. Roode was so bland, a shadow of his glorious 2012 self. Angle vs Lashley was good but I didn't care who win or lose. The storyline didn't seem that exciting. And it's always the same wrestlers. They hired Drew Galloway and that's good but it seems like they got him cause he had nowhere else to go.
They need to do something that would make people go "OMG shit is going down!". Also being on DA doesn't help either. They cannot compete with the WWE but show me that you TRY giving me the best show that you can do.
Again I don't see your focus being on what matters. You care about seeming big-time, the network they're on (as if that makes your viewing experience worse), fresh new faces. For one thing, they have fresh new faces so please pluck yourself out of 2009 and plop yourself in 2015.
Besides, I get the wanting to live vicariously through these majestic individuals but again - that's not up to presentation, it's up to the stories they're in. If it was that simple, WWE'd be shooting out legends on cue. C'mon now ... if WWE can't build these amazing characters anymore, with even more opportunities to seem grand, that tells you the whole story. It's
about the story. WWE can put together the greatest promo package on the planet, present the characters as grandiose as they want and it still falls flat. You've seen it happen. Wake up and smell the script.
Moreover, that whole "we want to be inspired by heroes" crap is so 80's. Kids are into that, and kids are inspired by a keychain. I'm a damn grown up, I don't want to live vicariously through RockStar Spud, I wanna see good matches, nice writing and storylines that outsmart me. We used to want to live through these people when we were younger, just like we wanted to be Superman and Batman. Now when I watch a Batman movie I don't wanna be him, I just want a solid movie with a nice story, cool visuals and awesome writing. My preferences have evolved, are yours the same as you were when you were 12? I don't need to see "larger than life characters". I'd rather see AJ Styles knock someone's teeth down their throat, or Austin Aries cut a great promo and wrestle a great match.
Once more, wrestling doesn't have to LOOK big time in order to be big time. What makes wrestling good are the characters, in-ring competition and storylines. That's it. Whether that's painted as big time extravaganza or small time edgy rough show is irrelevant, that's just the framing. What's in the frame is what defines the rest.
Wrestling has been good with very modest presentation, and it's been good with bombastic presentation. It's also been bad with either. You have your preferences as a viewer and I respect that, but I think a lot of it is very cockeyed. Presentation is a factor, indeed, but that much? C'mon man, they're not shooting it with a flip phone.
TNA has a LOT of things to work on. Things more important than presentation. It's hardly a top to bottom amazing show, but some people expect it to be damn near flawless before they bless it with their attention again. It's not, it won't be. But it's safe to say that right now TNA is enjoying its best wrestling, storylines, consistency, fresh talent and character development since 2008-2009. TNA has come a LONG way from the show that used to hotshot ex-WWE wrestlers, drop storylines sporadically, overload the show with long promos, shock-ridden moments and all the issues people have been unhappy with. That's a huge 180 in just a few short years. They deserve a solid shot and getting caught up on something as small as "they don't seem big time" and "they're on Destination America" is not valid in my eyes. At one point some fans have to tap out and give the damn show a damn chance because the days of denying TNA's quality are either gone or numbered.
TNA's good. It's getting even better. End of story.