Special "iMPACT!" On Spike On Aug. 12

[It's Damn Real!]

As Bischoff began to note last night before Abyss interrupted him (and subsequently tried to give him a lobotomy courtesy of Janice), August 12th, 2010 will mark a "special date" in TNA history, as they intend to telecast a special episode of iMPACT! featuring RVD v. Abyss for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship.

The "special" iMPACT! is going to feature a lineup of matches originally slated for the Hard(no core) Justice PPV.

As noted in their press release, Dixie Carter was quoted as saying "If you’ve never seen a TNA pay-per-view event before, this is your chance to see what you’ve been missing," and that "This will allow TNA fans a pay-per-view type experience on “TNA iMPACT!”."

Though most PPV events run for three hours (or more), this iMPACT! will run the same traditional two hours, and will feature two world title matches, as well as a possible fifth and final installment of the best-of-five series between Beer Money, Inc. and incumbent TNA World Tag Team champions the Motor City Machineguns.

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As of right now, the run-down for the card is as follow:

“THE WHOLE F’N SHOW” ROB VAN DAM vs. ABYSS (TNA WORLD TITLE MATCH)

OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST KURT ANGLE vs. “THE PHENOMENAL” AJ STYLES

ANGELINA LOVE vs. MADISON RAYNE (TNA KNOCKOUTS TITLE MATCH)

“THE CHARISMATIC ENGIMA” JEFF HARDY’S OPEN CHALLENGE

“THE POPE” D’ANGELO DINERO vs. “THE BLUEPRINT” MATT MORGAN
vs. MR. ANDERSON

BEER MONEY vs. MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS (IF NEEDED, TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES MATCH)

-OR-

INK INC. vs. GENERATION ME (#1 CONETENDER’S MATCH FOR TNA WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES)

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You can read the press release here: http://www.tnawrestling.com/news/item/2079-special-impact-on-spike-on-aug-12

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Thoughts on all of this?

 

[Optimist Prime]

I know it's probably the most unlikely thing to ever happen...but I would love it if Kevin Nash came out and accepted Jeff Hardy's open challenge and just climbed over the top rope the same way he always does...looks at Jeff Hardy for a mere second and gives him the biggest boot he's ever given in his career. Then he would pick Hardy up and give him the biggest Jacknife he's ever given onto the mat. Sting would then come down and pick him up and hit him with the bat a few times to then follow with a Scorpion Death Drop leaving Jeff Hardy beaten, battered, and helpless.

One can hope, right?

 

[Joe's Gonna Kill You]

I really like this idea and it makes up for the fact that Ecw is getting their own PPV. The card looks very good with Angle vs Styles, Most likely the 5th match of the best 5 with Beer Money and MCMG. I see Jeff's open challenge be accepted by Joe because of the match they had last week. Rvd vs Abyss could be good and also think that Pope vs Anderson Vs Morgan could be good. Overall I'm very much looking forward to this episode of Impact

 

[onemandynasty08]

I really think this is a good opportunity for TNA. They get the chance to broadcast good wrestling all night long, without all the extra segments. I just hope that it gets better ratings than the regular IMPACT! episodes so that maybe they could use this idea a couple times a year. It has been stated before that TNA was thinking about dropping some of it's ppvs and wanted to focus on Spike TV specials. This may be the beginning of this.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

Surely another example of why you never need to buy TNA Pay-Per-Views. That looks like it could be a really entertaining show. And it's on free TV.

Title changes happen more frequently on TV, feuds end more frequently on TV, big angles happen more frequently on TV. Yeah, there's pretty much no reason to buy a TNA PPV.

 

[Zeven_Zion]

So I guess the people who constantly whine about TNA having an ECW PPV can now stop doing it, because TNA's gonna have the PPV they were going to on the very next Thursday.

Gee, they actually listen to us. Sure, it's only two hours, but then agian it's quality over quantity.

So they renamed the Global Title, and they gave us the PPV everyone bitched about. Haters must feel dumb.

Plus they had an awesome iMPACT last night.

 

[Optimist Prime]

The thing about pay-per-views is that only the real established ones sell big for the WWE...and the lesser, former In Your House style pay-per-views are usually only ordered by the die hard fans of WWE or the individual die hard fans of certain wrestlers who may be main eventing, etc. They clearly don't sell nearly as much as the Wrestlemanias, Royal Rumbles, etc.

That being said, TNA doesn't really have a major established pay-per-view...so they're all pretty much of In Your House type pay-per-views...but without nearly as many die hard fans buying them.

That being said...this is a good idea for now. WCW did something similar with "Clash of the Champions" back in the day on TBS. They were usually pretty entertaining when I was younger. It may not be the answer to everything...but it's certainly a start in the right direction...to perhaps build up a major pay-per-view to an established or "Superbowl" type status like Starcade and (later) World War 3 was.

 

[UFOcalling]

In my opinion, I think Spike should have allowed TNA to do this "Special" Impact live on Monday, Aug 9 instead. To be honest, I had already skimmed through the spoilers before I watched the show last night. When it was announced that Bischoff had this "huge announcement" to make, my first thought was that Impact was going to have a one-time live Monday night deal.

Maybe having the show on Thursday (the 12th) will get them a bigger rating than it would on the previous Monday, but if TNA were to really hype this show I think they could steal some of the WWE's thunder that night. Hopefully Spike and TNA will get their heads out of their asses and advertise the hell out of the "Special" Impact...if they were smart, they'd run ads during a certain show on USA August 9th (like they did when they first switched to Mondays).

Looking forward to the show though, a lot of great matches!

 

[Kenny Powers]

This is a good idea considering that the Hardcore PPV takes place with the majority of former ECW talent. With this special Impact it can take care of the matches that we would of seen at Hard Justice. I don't believe this should be a live special on Mondays. Maybe if the ratings are good then TNA can transition from PPVs to live television specials. They will probably earn more money from then from Spike TV then from regular viewers.

 

[shattered dreams]

That card looks pretty awesome. I assumed this is what they were going to do all along, just shift what would have been the PPV to the next impact. So basically they are trying hard to pull in that former wrestling audience with this ECW story and PPV. Put on two above average impacts during the build and then one PPV quality impact right afterwards to see if they can get and keep people. Seems like a decent thing to try.

Looks like 6 matches with about 90 minutes of non-commercial time. So average of 15 minutes per segment should provide some matches of a solid length if they cut back on the pre match packages hopefully.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

The card looks really good..I see the angle/styles match as the show stealer...but I don't undertand why TNA keep doing this..Yes theya re giving ECW their reunion ppv, and this is their way of having their own 2 hour ppv on free tv.. I have to agree 100% with Y 2 Jake...its reasons like this why they get hardly any ppv buys...and also why iMPACT is also considered better than all their monthly ppv's...

 

[Find'er Woo'er Ryder]

wow thats awesome a free ppv....hmm i kinda hope abyss' "they" show up during this show i wanna know who hes talking about. morgan, pope, and anderson is gonna b a great match. angle vs styles....is this going to be for the tv title or no??? i dont understand how it works someone explain it to me. and the final in the best of 5 series i cant wait...that would b cool if it was a steel insylum match huh. and then a knockouts match that i cant wait for. i still hope they have ink ink vs gen. me 2 great tag teams and both deserve great title runs.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

According to what I've read, it's going to be a three hour episode of iMPACT!. You know, the length of your standard wrestling ppv. The match with AJ Styles and Kurt Angle will probably wind up being the one that steals the show, at least if TNA decides to book Styles as being a strong and capable wrestler again and not the weak pussyface we saw Rob Terry eat alive last week.

As far as a business decision goes, eh who knows. IF, and I'm only saying if, TNA's ppv buys are as low as have been reported for the past few months, then they might as well just have a free ppv type broadcase. IF, once again IF, they're ppv buys for the past few shows have only been around 8,000, then they're probably not really making much if any money at all after they pay for the costs of running a live ppv broadcast.

 

[X]

Definitely got a "Clash of the Champions" type of feel for this idea, which I really dig because I was a big fan of that series of specials. Through out their atrocious booking the wrestling still remains pretty damn good in TNA, and if they give the guys they have on that roster sufficient time to go out and work a "PPV-caliber" match for this special Impact, I guarantee the results will be great. Looking forward to the Angle/Styles match, and hopefully another MCMG/Beer Money match. RVD vs. Abyss could either be a fun spotfest or a fucking trainwreck, we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Dead-Angel]

one thing is missing where in the hell is desmond wolfe? after reading that tna dont want to push him, so he wont be in any match anymore i mean come on TNA on your poll hes is always a leader, fans like him and want him so bring him back! even if its hard for others to work with him? its bullshit i dont believe its true its sound more like russo or some guy from creative team dont like him

 

[mrbrownstone]

This looks like a really good card with Styles/Angle, Beer Money/MCMG and (probably) Hardy/Joe all of which are well capable of setaling the show if given the right time although I suspect that that honour will go to Angle/AJ. RVD/Abyss could either be a really good hardcore or a complete and utter clusterfu*k I guess we will just have to wait and see on that one. I wonder what stipulation they will add to the Beer Money/MCMG match Steel Asylum would be good, same goes for Full Metal Mayhem actually now that I think about it Full Metal Mayhem would be amazing and we havent seen it since BFG last year so its not like it is overused. I hope that TNA do these Free-Per-View type things more often they are a great way to boost ratings hell even show them on Mondays to compete with Raw and stick to having Impact on Thursdays come to think of it that could actually work if TNA promoted it right and put out good looking cards like this then they could definitely draw viewers away from Raw.

 

[psykohurricane]

i understand the idea, but what happen the next week when we go back to the same old stuff of too many backstage segment and interviews. Will the new fans that watch TNA just to see what a TNA PPV look like stay after a couple of weeks?

This is just another exemple of TNA trying to find a quick fix. If IMPACT was like this everyweek then yeah, i would be 100% behind the move, but to me it just show me that TNA knows that Hardcore justice will suck and they are giving the card that was suppose to be on PPV for free as a gift to people who will be dumb enough to order the ECW theme PPV.

The card for this special look really strong, too bad that it'S getting wasting for free TV.

 

[onemandynasty08]

Why is it that people like to argue about every single decision that TNA makes. It's like some people are not happy with anything and just find enjoyment in pushing the company to the ground. WWE has special shows with RAW and SmackDown! all the time. While they are not PPV type shows at all, people who watch will know it's just for one night only, and know that RAW is going to go back to the same way that it was the last week, so that won't be an issue. I am sure that throughout the show Mike Tenay will not hesitate to let the people watching know that this is a TNA one night special and that this is what fans get from a TNA PPV.

TNA just has to build this up to get more people to watch. They've been consistent in their ratings for the past few weeks. and I'm sure some of the WWE loyalist have heard about this and will watch the show just to find something that they have. Also this might not be the last show of this caliber as TNA knows they are not making much money from PPVs, and they may be switching to this model more often to account for that. In this case, Spike TV would probably be paying TNA to have the rights to air these air these free PPV-like specials.

 

[The Holy One]

TNA has been giving out PPV quality matches more on iMPACT than their PPVs for a while now, so I see no difference in the special than a regular iMPACT other than the the longer time period. I'm looking foward to it regardless though. If this works out right, the special could provide the big ratings that they have been looking for and maybe this could lead to better PPV buys. Right now the only way the special could hurt TNA if it doesn't increase the ratings at all.

 

[onemandynasty08]

One thing that may hurt the show however is the fact that it will be pre-taped, and people will know the results of the show before Thursday. While people may tune in to see matches that may be good, if outcomes happen which people don't like, they may not tune in, so that could be one downfall of the show. Other than that, the IMPACT! ratings have been consistent for the past few weeks, and this past week's rating may have rose, so who knows maybe TNA will score another January 4th rating or higher for this PPV like show.

 

[Porter1989]

this is good. ppv on tv. ufc is signed with spike and did a free ppv it was only a matter of time before tna did. the matches are great. im looking to see some big shockers in between matches like with sting and kevin. this should bump them up in rating like kids said about if advertised right. good job tna moving foward in the right direction with this.

 

[Vincent Michaels]

This is awesome and the card is very stacked considering this is only a 2 hour show. I don't know if it makes up for giving their PPV to EC......EV2.0, but for now it seems great! Although this would be great on a Monday since A: It would be live so no one would just read spiolers and watch Raw, B: They can suck some viewers away from WWE, and C: Achieve a good rating against Raw so they could return in the future.