Impact Support Club House

[Cereal Killer]

Update on the BFG in Japan thing: it will NOT be live in the USA. Thoughts on this?

 

[Lowdown]

Update on the BFG in Japan thing: it will NOT be live in the USA. Thoughts on this?

Not surprised by this at all, considering the time difference. For it to be live in the states won't they have to tape at nine in the morning or something closer to that?

 

[Dirk]

Watching that Wrestling World Cup now. So team captains are two Canadians and two 'Muricans?

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Update on the BFG in Japan thing: it will NOT be live in the USA. Thoughts on this?

Shouldn't be a big deal, honestly. I know it sucks knowing the spoilers will be out early, but generally, I think the allure behind it being in Japan should still allow them to sell it well enough. Not to mention it'll be a Sunday — a day a lot of people really don't sit around on the 'net as much as they are out and enjoying the day. The key would be trying to limit the exposure of what happened toward the evening, prior to the event start.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Anyone else read the Grantland article on TNA this morning?

Fantastic write-up.

http://grantland.com/features/tna-professional-wrestling-dixie-carter-jeff-jarrett-wwe/

 

[Rayne]

Anyone else read the Grantland article on TNA this morning?

Fantastic write-up.

http://grantland.com/features/tna-professional-wrestling-dixie-carter-jeff-jarrett-wwe/

Pretty spot-on analysis of the professional wrestling industry right now.

Also, apparently Dixie Carter has completely lost touch with reality. You don't make a dream happen without someone believing in it, but hearing her talk about how TNA can't succeed if they continue with just one two-hour block is.... painful.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Pretty spot-on analysis of the professional wrestling industry right now.

Also, apparently Dixie Carter has completely lost touch with reality. You don't make a dream happen without someone believing in it, but hearing her talk about how TNA can't succeed if they continue with just one two-hour block is.... painful.

Kinda scary when you realize that despite the figures, with even the WWE — and I quote — "struggling", the business itself is in a seriously concerning hole right now. While the TNA fan in me is most directly concerned with TNA's future, the wrestling fan in me is more concerned with the business model of the industry itself, and how sustainable it is to wrestling remaining a televised product. Not that TNA going under is going to have me running back to WWE any time soon, but you get my point.

You and I read the Carter insight on completely different wave lengths, though. I didn't get the sense of someone who has lost touch with reality as much as I did someone who refuses to give up on their dreams, even if the reality of them coming to fruition is against the odds. That's admirable, and you can see why she's got the attention of her roster who are backing her despite all this negative talk of them losing their television deal and potentially going under.

“A couple of guys came up to me afterward and said, ‘We believe in you. We believe in this company.’” really resonated.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

I don't mean to come across like a mark or anything - I will anyways, and am a self admitted one at that - but that was pretty much everything Dave Meltzer has been saying all year but with quotes and some more statistics and description, but hes said it and I'll say it, in 2014 while WWE's not been doing stellar (not having a bad year but seem content just floating on by) and TNA are falling further and further into the Abyss (not the crap wrestler with the ugly ass mask), one promotion and one scene has been having quite a good year, and that's Ring of Honor and the independents.

I don't want to come across like a conspiracist or anything, but maybe WWE and TNA woes has been a gain to others. For example, ROH's attendance for this year is now greater then TNA's both with and minus their house show numbers, as per F4WOnline. That's a pretty good example.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

How many TNA and WWE stars are trapped in Canada Saga?

 

[The Dragon Saga]

Has nothing to do with ROH or the discussion. Bad News wasn't allowed back into America last year and took over 3 months off because of it, it was why it took him so long to return if you will recall. It also happened to Drew McIntyre a year or so ago. They're independent contractors, their employers can sign off on their VISA's and help speed up the process but they can't physically hand them a VISA and say, "you can work in America now you poor foreign bastard". Michael Elgin had to do the paperwork, him not doing it doesn't change that ROH's first live PPV this year which took a lot less to produce then a TNA PPV sold almost exactly what a TNA PPV would, and one brand has been on PPV for over 12 years and so on.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Oh, boy!

Somebody call my momma.

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/511...m_campaign=Feed:+Wrestlezonecom+(WRESTLEZONE)

--

To be honest, I kinda love this already. I can't say I've seen a ton of Clay (no pun intended), but what I did see looked great. He's got an imposing look, too.

I think it was JR who said months ago on his Podcast that he saw Clay as a monster who was being asked to play ridiculous roles that under cut his power.

 

[A11oftheLights]

To be honest, I kinda love this already. I can't say I've seen a ton of Clay (no pun intended), but what I did see looked great. He's got an imposing look, too.

I think it was JR who said months ago on his Podcast that he saw Clay as a monster who was being asked to play ridiculous roles that under cut his power.

The problem is he still wont be taken seriously because too many will say "this guy was a dancing dinosaur i cant take him seriously" even though if he was booked right he could be a monster heel, even in the wwe

 

[It's Damn Real!]

I mean, maybe? I guess it depends on how they book him, and how they handle his actual debut. He'll have to shake off the WWE stink and re-invent himself. TNA is known for offering that opportunity to a lot of guys coming in, especially young ones, so it shouldn't be terribly difficult. EC3 (Bateman) and Bram (Kenneth Cameron) both did it just fine, though neither spent much time (if any) on the main roster, from what I've been told. I don't think Clay spent long enough in WWE to really crush his chances either. Wasn't he only really around about a year? Maybe two? This isn't like bringing in Santino Marella, for example, or Hornswoggle — guys who spent years and years and years as jokes.

Then again, Chavo Guerrero did, and he actually rebounded just fine with TNA.

 

[ABMorales787]

Yeah but Chavo is from a famous family and good in his own right. Brodus isn't either of each.

I've also come to the conclusion that for wrestling to keep going, it needs to go back simple basics. NXT the best thing in wrestling right now, ROH is ROH, WWE is poss poor and TNA, while half-hearted with no direction, has become a far easier pill to swallow than when a faction war raged. If they get a network deal rolling, its smoother sailing from there regardless of how their roster looks.

Wrestling is going nowhere by doing the old high profile angles of before and its crippling the core fanbase with new guard in sight. They need to retain a core audience steadily and keep a steady before they can attract new viewers.

 

[WBL]

How many TNA and WWE stars are trapped in Canada Saga?

I just wanted to say that Canada SaGa was the worst of the SaGa series.

Well, second worst. Unlimited SaGa was total shit.

I'm sticking with the Romancing SaGa series.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

Just in-case anyone wants to read it, here's Dave Meltzer's response to the Grantland article from todays Observer:

The web site Grantland.com had an interesting story on TNA by Thomas Golianopoulos, questioning if this is the end of the company and will pro wrestling ever support two major promotions again.

Of course the reality is that pro wrestling hasn’t supported two major promotions since WCW fell off a cliff in 1999 and 2000. Perhaps if TNA had a better battle plan, things would have been different. There were definitely times TNA showed signs of life. The company was profitable at one point, although never competitive. And no matter what, they were never able to turn the corner. For all the excuses people want to say, it may simply be nothing more than the reality of supply and demand. The casual audience, the masses, are only going to devote so many hours per week to pro wrestling. With WWE having four, five, up to seven hours per week, there’s not a big market for something else. In the WCW days, you could say you had a similar dynamic and WCW flourished, but Smackdown wasn’t around in those days. WCW also had a different fan base that had been run off.

Dixie Carter is someone who in person, is very charming, and always has an answer. The company is always profitable, even when they are behind on paying people and it’s very clear they’re not. TNA is always growing, slowly, but growing, even when the numbers indicate the opposite. And there’s always the excuse. There’s video games, or computers, or DVRs, or some reason why the audience was declining and people wouldn’t buy tickets. It was never the product. Except, in the end, it largely was.

Even though the TNA office has been described as a skeleton crew, since so many people have left in recent months, Carter described it that they were overstaffed.

The story was largely good, well, except for the total lack of understanding the business with the description of Bruce Prichard, Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan and Vince Russo as all “men with historically successful track records.”

Prichard had a couple of long runs as a key management figure in WWE, but he was never a guy steering the ship. Bischoff was, in the terms of being a wrestling promoter, the ultimate hotshot flash in the pan. He had three good years, 1996 to 1998, and it collapsed from there. Hogan absolutely had an incredible long-term track record as one of the biggest drawing stars in history, but his days as the guy who could count on the build around were over in 1998. As a special attraction who could come off the bench, sure, you could use him as long as his body held up. In theory, you could use him as a commissioner, except you couldn’t. There are lessons about making top guys, and you can’t make them easily when you’ve got the overriding personality there every week. If Bruno Sammartino was on TV regularly, Bob Backlund would have likely always been considered secondary, belt or not. Steve Austin would have had trouble as a top babyface with an incumbent Hogan still there all the time. John Cena would have never had a chance with Austin as a weekly character, even as a General Manager.

But the story had a number of quotes that need closer examination.

From Carter: “TMZ asked me, `Hey, is this story real, should we run with it?’ I was watching a movie and didn’t see it until some little wrestling site ran it. Then I gave TMZ a quote which said we’re still negotiating. That never made it to print.”

As it turned out, I’ve had a long discussion with the TMZ writer, at a party a few weeks later. I knew what I knew and I know what they knew. They knew. They had the story from the Spike side that it wasn’t being renewed. I knew from the TNA side that Spike told Dixie Carter they weren’t being renewed, that they’d probably be extended with a little breathing room to allow them to make a deal, and Carter had told people in the company that she didn’t want to stay on the station anyway. Both sides, for the public, gave the “we’re still negotiating,” story, but they both knew the relationship was ending. Hey, even to this day, if you ask either side, they’ll still give the same line publicly. But no, TMZ didn’t ask Dixie if the story was real. I didn’t either. I wrote her that night and said the story was going to break and did she have a comment. She did get back to me and her quote was put in the story.

The story all but said that TNA was losing its TV deal and said the industry was slumping. Actually, WWE is pretty stable as far as popularity goes. Business-wise, yeah, WWE is losing money like crazy, but that’s due to changing the way it does its business. The jury is still out on if it’ll pay off, but as far as popularity levels go, WWE is pretty much where it has been for the last several years. WWE has also had to make cuts, but if the network were to hit it big, WWE will be more profitable than it was during the Austin/Rock heyday.

Still, Carter admitted something she’s never said before:

“We will die a slow death on the vine if we just stay as one two-hour show in the U.S. I have big decisions to make. I want this to be a big play. I don’t want this to be a status quo play.”

In a wrestling environment with so many hours of WWE television, is there a market for TNA adding a second show when the first show is declining and many weeks, people don’t even stick with it through the main event.

Carter talked about her pep talk at the Manhattan Center in August, saying, “I may have let a cuss word or two slip. A couple of guys came up to me afterward and said, `We believe in you. We believe in this company.’”

One person there said that in fact, she didn’t curse at the meeting, and the person said he didn’t believe anyone went to her and said what she said. Aside from the producers or Bully Ray (who doubles as an agent), they didn’t think anyone would talk to her at that level. That quote was the one talked about backstage at the tapings.

The biggest issue with the article is the description of Russo. Russo in his own mind believes hardcore fans only want to see four-star matches and the casual fan wants something else. He’s right. It’s all about storylines and dynamic personalities. It always has been. Great matches don’t build business unless framed with great storylines. That’s true of wrestling, boxing, MMA, or tennis for that matter. Russo’s problem, and it’s been the case for 15 years, is that his storylines don’t resonate and his personalities don’t connect.

“The Internet wrestling community thinks in-ring wrestling action should take up every minute of every show,” said Russo. “That’s what they believe the business is. That’s what they are fans of. I mean, they rate fake wrestling matches on a star system. The matches are fake. They are not real.”

Carter, on Russo, said, “He’s a lighting rod. People hate him. But sometimes people love what he does but they don’t realize he does it. He’s a really talented guy.”

I don’t want to say nobody hates Russo. Some people do. But in reality that’s a crutch. He’s never been good with the big picture. The fan base doesn’t care about Russo with very few exceptions. They just want to be entertained. Russo, and whoever was in charge of TNA creative, failed because they did not grow the television audience, and worse, could not convert that audience into being customers. Those are facts. Russo does have some talent for scripting certain characters, but certainly not women characters because his verbiage and stories have made them turnoffs when at one point they were the closest thing TNA had to ratings deliverers.

I hate to say this, but there are certain terms that whenever I read them, 95 times out of 100 they are going to follow with ignorance. Among those are Internet Wrestling Community, a laughable term which gives the impression there is some kind of a unanimity of opinion that is different from the masses. And in every entertainment form, the hardcore base is very different from what appeals to the masses. But there is always such a great divergence of opinion than any kind of blanket statement about an IWC is always going to lead you to a conclusion that puts you out to lunch. The job of the writers is to reach and grab the masses, and the numbers don’t lie. It’s right up there with people who use terms like mark and smark, when everyone gets it and everyone knows what it is, people just have divergent opinions of what they like. The key is, it doesn’t matter what any one individual likes. Some people have good instincts about what will and won’t work, but everyone is wrong a lot, and the numbers tell you the truth if you look at them objectively. The idea is to do what grows the business. There are certain principles and things that work that are somewhat timeless, and many others that change based on a varying and changing world, ones ability to sell their concepts to the public. Coming up with excuses as to why people are tuning out, nor not buying tickets or PPVs, is an attitude that will kill you, especially in a quickly changing world and industry where it’s so easy to be left behind.

Seriously, who has ever insinuated that in-ring wrestling should take up every minute of a show. The idea that in-ring wrestling should even always be a certain percentage of a show is silly. It’s all about entertainment and what the public wants and what you need to correctly tell your big stories.

ROH is having a very good year, they're benefiting from the misfortune of others. Their fans ride SBG's back for not investing enough or giving them massive arenas with lighting grids and a weekly national TV show. Fact is, SBG don't do it because they don't have to. If ROH can put more people into an arena then one of the two weekly televised national wrestling promotions, what's the point? ROH is a wrestling heavy product but not even it can give you nothing but wrestling and prosper. They tried that in years past, which is why they have to do promos and have to do build up and have to do advertising because they know that the business they're in is the entertainment business, they're just a promotion that prides itself on good, innovative wrestling.

There have been one hour shows that featured one match that were great shows that people talked about for years and drew ratings. There have been very rare one hour shows that had no matches and all talking and were every bit if not more effective. But you can only do either of them on very rare occasions, and with two and three hour shows, you simply can’t do either.

Right now, for WWE and TNA, matches generally do stronger in garnering an audience than talking, but you need both. But far more than match vs. talking is appealing personality and star quality, whether they are wrestling or talking, that is going to generally do better. ROH can do an hour of wrestling and people will eat it up, as can NXT, but they still need things to break up the wrestling and build people as special.

The key is you want good matches and good talking, as opposed to bad matches and good talking, or bad talking and good matches. The idea is that it all works together to build characters. Talking does better than wrestling at making you want to see a match. But unless you’ve got really awesome talkers, long talking segments burn people out, and too many talking segments on a show usually weaken the effectiveness of the talking segments you need people to remember when the show is over.

Perhaps there are people who believe that it should all be wrestling, but they’d be such a tiny percentage that even bringing it up is a strawman argument. And the silliness of the idea that it’s weird to rate fake matches on a star system would only be valid if the same wasn’t done for music, movies, plays, television shows and even food on a daily basis. Just as there is more to marketing movies than their star ratings, and more to marketing a restaurant than star ratings on food and the service, there is far more to producing wrestling than just good matches. But there is no victim card. If the creative is clicking, everyone will know because the numbers are there. When it’s not, the answers are there as well.

WWF did turn around when Russo was on the creative team. Jim Cornette was there at the same time, and neither was really fully responsible for the turnaround, because when Cornette was gone, and Russo was gone, business continued to build. You could say Vince McMahon, and of course the buck stopped with him before they were there and long after they were gone, but Vince was in charge when the company was struggling and when it was kicking ass.

When it turned around, it was Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley, DX, and to a degree Sable, and everyone else that made up the part of the show that carried things. It slowed down when Austin went heel, and eventually his body betrayed him, and Rock went Hollywood. Vince and the rest of the roster were still there.

Russo claimed the secrecy about hiring him wasn’t about Spike TV. The panic about the Mike Johnson story getting out was completely about Spike TV, there would have been no panic in TNA otherwise. The word from Spike that they weren’t renewing came days later. It wasn’t the prime reason, but two people very close to the situation confirmed that it was a reason. But realistically, the reasons for the decision were about Spike wanting to add new original programming in prime time that they are developing, hoping that such programming could draw better ad dollars and more female viewers. If TNA was drawing what it used to be drawing, Russo or not, the likelihood is there would have been a renewal. The moving of Bellator to Friday also hurt, because TNA did help drive viewers to Bellator on Thursday and that was a great reason to keep the programming. On Friday, Bellator proved it could draw without TNA’s lead-in. It doesn’t draw as well as it did on Thursday, but with the NFL on Thursday, Bellator wasn’t staying there.

The story also didn’t understand the business as it was in 2002, saying TNA’s business plan at the start was , “Instead of banking on cable rights fees, the largest revenue stream for most national wrestling promotions then and now, TNA sidestepped a television deal in favor of weekly PPVs.”

While cable rights were TNA’s main revenue stream, and are WWE’s largest today, the largest revenue stream in 2002 was PPV revenue, by leaps and bounds. The TNA business model was to avoid the costs of producing television, and go right to PPV. It was completely flawed, because without television exposure, you can’t draw people to your product to get them to buy your PPVs. Weekly PPV was a risk. Weekly PPV with no television was insanity. That version of TNA was about to go down, and land Jeff and Jerry Jarrett into bankruptcy, until Carter bailed them out and saved the company.

 

[Skairipa Matrix]

Just looked at some spoilers for upcoming episodes and...

Spoiler

The end of EC3 and Spud together is heartbreaking. They were usually gold together.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

tl;dr translation of Meltzer's write-up is basically that scene from My Cousin Vinny, early on when he's expected to make his opening remarks and tells the jury "Everything that guy just said is bullshit."

 

[George Steele's Barber]

I hate when Meltzer steals my stuff

 

[Rayne]

I hate when Meltzer steals my stuff

Yeah, I know. I've been saying that Eric Bischoff is the greatest con man in professional wrestling for years now (which I mean with no small degree of admiration), and now I'm going to have to deal with idiots saying I'm just copying Meltzer should I say it again.

Seriously. I'm amazed at how a guy with a track record consisting of two good years of WCW and a bunch of Scott Baio reality TV shows has done so well for himself. His house in Cody is fucking gorgeous.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Yeah, I know. I've been saying that Eric Bischoff is the greatest con man in professional wrestling for years now (which I mean with no small degree of admiration), and now I'm going to have to deal with idiots saying I'm just copying Meltzer should I say it again.

Seriously. I'm amazed at how a guy with a track record consisting of two good years of WCW and a bunch of Scott Baio reality TV shows has done so well for himself. His house in Cody is fucking gorgeous.

Meltzer just sits there refreshing all new posts on this forum just waiting for us to give him something to write. I may have to threaten legal action.

Anyone have Lionel Hutz's number?

 

[Dirk]

I was sad to se Brodus go and whetever his new name is, I'll support it. Maybe Snoop Lion performs at BFG '16?

If they make it to 2016, of course. But here's hoping! XxX

 

[klunderbunker]

Major spoiler from the tapings.

Spoiler

Probably airing October 29:

(5) TNA World Heavyweight Championship: Bobby Roode def. Bobby Lashley (c) to become the new champion. Kurt Angle was the special guest referee, and there were a lot of nearfalls, false finishes, ref bumps and other shenanigans.

Because Bound For Glory just doesn't matter anymore.

 

[Cereal Killer]

Spoiler

What? Why would they tape an event which is meant to air AFTER BFG?

 

[klunderbunker]

Because they're taping the episodes for the two weeks before BFG and the next few (four I think) after BFG. Yeah it's annoying, but if it's the only thing they can do then so be it. WCW had to do this back in the early 90s.