"If you confuse them, you lose them"

[It's Damn Real!]

So said Jeff Jarrett now a few weeks ago upon the inarguably poorly handled rebranding 4.0 effort. Well, Jeff, consider me confused, though not quite lost.

I kind of get it — the name of the company is GFW and the name of the show is Impact Wrestling. He and others have said as much, which, despite the redundancy in wrestling terms (Global Force Wrestling: Impact Wrestling), is generally fine. It's really no different than the last time we heard this explanation when TNA was the acronym preceding Impact.

Here's my problem: this was poorly executed. The brand message is simply not being disseminated effectively to the most important product the company has — the weekly television show. And this isn't even accounting for the addition of Anthem, the owners of GFW and Impact Wrestling, who seem just as committed to branding both with their logo.

This thing is a three-headed nightmare. Nearly four, if not for the fact that at least all three can agree that the "TNA" acronym is effectively dead and buried. Worse yet, where was the announcement outside of the article that ran in the Tennessean that broke prior to Slammiversary?

I don't know who is handling PR at Anthem Sports & Entertainment presents GFW: Impact Wrestling, but take it from a decade-long fan. This shit is fuckin' confusing and is unnecessarily complicated by brand conflict. If you ask me, if the company was going to adopt the GFW brand, then the show should simply have been named Impact. Anthem may own them both, but in the same way that Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp, the latter don't adopt Facebook branding. They retain their own.

 

[klunderbunker]

Three things:

1. I still don't think it makes that much of a difference as the content far outweighs whatever the name is. You can call it whatever you want but if the show is boring and people aren't watching, it makes no difference.

2. People, myself included, are going to call it TNA anyway.

3. I'll put the over/under on a new name change at a year and a half.

What it comes down to for me is Impact seems to think that its fans are mainly internet smarks (which isn't that far from the truth). A few years back they had Grado debut with a story that Al Snow hated him for what happened on British Boot Camp. Save for a very quick explanation a few weeks into the story, we weren't told or shown what actually happened. You could probably find a recap but if you didn't live in the UK or watch British Boot Camp, all you knew was that something happened and it was playing out here.

I remember having this argument in the LDs a long time ago: I can find the information myself but I shouldn't have to. I'm giving up my time and entertainment choices for the night to Impact. I should be given all the information that I need (emphasis on need, which is different than all information available) during the show. This idea of "if you want to know what's going on, go look it up here" makes it feel like I didn't do a homework assignment, which shouldn't be the case during an entertainment program.

The same holds true for the naming situation. It seems that the company thinks either A, everyone knows the story (I've followed the story and write about this stuff for a living and I'm still not 100% sure how we got here), B, anyone curious enough will look it up or C, it's not important enough to explain. This is a bigger problem when it could be solved by JB saying the following:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for watching Total Nonstop Action for the past fifteen years. Times are changing though and we want to be the worldwide leader in our growing industry. Therefore, we're announcing the Global Force Era. From now on, we will be known as GFW Impact Wrestling as we embark on this new journey to the top of the wrestling world. Thank you for your loyalty and now let's get to the GFW action!"

That took me about 40 seconds to write and about half of that to read. Everything is covered and it throws in a pair of thank you's to the fans. Why is that so complicated to do on TV? Take the few seconds required to cover this stuff and these problems, which you created, go away just as fast.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

THe other problem that I saw with the rebranding was that it's still connected to TNA since the TNA logo is the first thing you see when you watch the show. Not the gfw logo which is barely visible anyway or even mention on the broadcast but the TNA logo so you're telling peoples the rebranding is not important and you're are still watching TNA.

Also the product hasn't change at all, you are still listening to the same commentary team, the product still feel the same. It's look the same as before so you're just watching the same old tired product with a new name.

With all these details that I mention, I'm understand why fans would be confuse because they tell you that your watching gfw but it still have the look feel and logo of tna wrestling.

If they wanted to do a real rebranding, they should have taken a 2 or 3 weeks break after slammiversary, rethink everything and bring back the product with a all new presentation completely detach from tna and it history.

 

[Starkist]

"Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for watching Total Nonstop Action for the past fifteen years. Times are changing though and we want to be the worldwide leader in our growing industry. Therefore, we're announcing the Global Force Era. From now on, we will be known as GFW Impact Wrestling as we embark on this new journey to the top of the wrestling world. Thank you for your loyalty and now let's get to the GFW action!" (Posted By KlunderBunker)

I think that when GFW goes live in August, this is something they should do for certain. During the live episode, it has been stated that GFW will bring out new title belts so maybe, just maybe, this will transpire and help inform newer/older/casual fans of what has been transpiring in TNA (GFW). Granted, it should have been done the Impact right after Slammiversary but what do us internet fans know?

The name GFW: Impact Wrestling has too much wrestling in it. The name needs to be simple and more modern such as Global Force Wrestling: Impact! The name Impact does not fit in well with the GFW brand so I can imagine that another name change will take place. More than likely once the One Night Only PPV for Amped, takes place GFW might become: GFW Amped instead of GFW Impact Wrestling.

I personally do not care about the name as I have no need to stress the name in any sense. I simply just want to watch and remain hopeful GFW can climb to 500K by this years end regardless of their name or not. To me it is TNA and I often still call it TNA. Maybe one day once they settle on a name for good, I can remember what they are called and what they are going with for the name of their weekly television program.

 

[Navi]

KB is right you can call it what you want, but longtime wrestling fans will always call it TNA. It's the name that most of us grew up watching it under.

I'll give you an example. The Rogers Centre here in Toronto used to be called Skydome, I still call it that to this day even though they changed the name years ago. A lot of people who live here still call it that. So yea as much as Jarrett and Anthem might want it called something else, as long as you have the same roster, same set and same fans every week, the TNA name will live on.

EDIT: Just look at the name of this forum to see what I mean.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

...and hey, look at that! Whatever this company is actually called is now no longer going by GFW.

https://411mania.com/wrestling/impact-wrestling-no-longer-using-gfw-name/

That's right, folks. Another reset.

So now what... back to the TNA belts, or is TNA dead, too? The Grand Championship is the only one with an Impact logo on it (the old one).

What a fucking mess.

 

[GhettoV1]

TNA/Impact Wrestling/GFW has changed their name three times this year that's a record.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

TNA/Impact Wrestling/GFW has changed their name three times this year that's a record.

By Bound For glory, they will go back to Impact wrestling so that going to be a four name change this year.

 

[GhettoV1]

And I bet after the four or five day taping marathon they will be called TNA again.

 

[ShinChan]

I didn't like it when it was renamed as GFW. Even Impact Wrestling is better than GFW. Now either think of a new better name or go back to Impact Wrestling.

But most importantly, stick with it for at least an year. And more if it's possible.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I didn't like it when it was renamed as GFW. Even Impact Wrestling is better than GFW. Now either think of a new better name or go back to Impact Wrestling.

But most importantly, stick with it for at least an year. And more if it's possible.

If you base yourself on the logo for bound for glory, they are going back to using Impact as the company name. i just hope this will be the last name change for a while because it's confusing as hell to figure out what to call them. For me, i still call them TNA

 

[johnbragg]

I think Impact Wrestling is the best name choice. But the process of cycling through 3-4 name changes in a year is that the TNA name stays associated with it. It's difficult but doable to retrain the public to say "Impact" instead of "TNA", "WWE" instead of "WWF", Wizards instead of Bullets, St Johns Red STorm instead of Redmen, etc.

But if you change the name constantly, you punish people for using the new name by changing it five minutes later. Heck, the wikipedia page is still "GFW"

 

[johnbragg]

If you base yourself on the logo for bound for glory, they are going back to using Impact as the company name. i just hope this will be the last name change for a while because it's confusing as hell to figure out what to call them. For me, i still call them TNA

.....my point exactly. If they had switched to "Impact Wrestling" at the start of the Anthem Era, instead of fiddling around with "ANthem Wrestling Exhibitions" and GFW, the Impact name would have at least some traction.