The difference between iMPACT! and TNA PPV's...

[It's Damn Real!]

Seems marginal, at best, no?

I know I'm one of TNA's "blindest marks" here, and I'm well aware that's earned me a number of monikers (since I also hate the WWE vehemently), but I've got to say that after spending $35 on what I felt was yet another TNA Pay-Per-View let-down, I'm growing quite tired of TNA's repeat failures to present their Pay-Per-View events as Pay-Per-View events which historically have featured big-time culminations, payoffs and match times instead of what they seem to come off like with TNA, which is more along the lines of a three-hour broadcast of iMPACT!

Perhaps it's the fact we're so privy to seeing Pay-Per-View quality matches given away for free on iMPACT! every week, or perhaps it's something else, but something's got to give here...

When I think back to the days of old when ordering a Pay-Per-View really meant something, the Pay-Per-View delivered more often than not, and it always felt like an entirely different animal from the weekly programming of that promotion – be it WCW or WWE/F. For one reason or another, I don't get the same feeling with TNA, and it's perplexing, because heading into some of these cards, on paper, they look to be outstanding programs that end up failing to meet their expectations.

What is it about TNA's Pay-Per-View events that don't allow them to come off as Pay-Per-View events, and more like a three-hour broadcast of iMPACT!? Is it the fact we're privy to so many Pay-Per-View quality matches on a weekly basis? Is it the talent itself? Is it the iMPACT! Zone?

Thoughts?

 

[boywithatoy]

I think it's pretty simple - there's no pay-off....to anything. When you order a ppv you do so because you don't want to miss out on something - yes, you want to see longer, higher quality matches but the main thing is that 'Water cooler' moment (as if people actually talk about wrestling the next day at work around the water cooler!).

What did we get from Victory Road? Some chick turned up up on a bike. That was it. No continuation of the "they" storyline. Nothing about "deception". Nothing about who might join Fourtune. Nothing about what happened to Samoa Joe. Abyss didn't even use his nail-stick thing - even in the match Taz kept saying Abyss couldn't use it (which I didn't get as fatal four ways are no DQ, but hey, it's TNA isn't it where all match rules go out the window!).

Basically, out of all the things they have been "building up" (or "dragging out") on Impact, nothing was resolved or even continued. It just "some chick turned up on a bike". And they didn't even show it was Tara so that's all it was, some chick on a bike.

 

[Bobby B]

Well, it appears your fears are justified:

Source: wrestleview.com

There is unofficial information circulating that the last couple of TNA pay-per-views generated less than 10,000 buys. We had heard awhile back that a TNA PPV did in the neighborhood of 7,500 PPV buys, which is an alarming number to say in the least.

That's less than 1% of the impact ratings....

 

[BigLuther]

If that last statistic is true, that is scary stuff for TNA. I think their biggest problem is that they give away so many big matches on free TV all the time, so no one cares enough to buy the PPV. Take Impact from last week for example. RVD vs. Samoa Joe. Um, really? I'd actually pay to see these guys go one on one for the first time ever, but since you just gave it to me for free, I probably won't be ordering any PPV with this match as a main selling point in the future.

The Victory Road PPV was a mixed bag of a whole mess of stuff. The two tag matches, Lethal/Flair, and Angle/Pope were all fantastic, but the rest of the show sucked. The main event ended very abruptly, and the show itself ended with a cliffhanger. What the hell? Ya know, chances are pretty damn good that if I bought a TNA PPV, I'm gonna tune in on Thursday night, regardless. No need to give me a "ooh, I wonder what's gonna happen on free TV" moment to end a PPV with. Do these things at the end of Impact to get me to want to buy the damn show.

 

[JackBurton]

Seems marginal, at best, no?

I know I'm one of TNA's "blindest marks" here, and I'm well aware that's earned me a number of monikers (since I also hate the WWE vehemently), but I've got to say that after spending $35 on what I felt was yet another TNA Pay-Per-View let-down, I'm growing quite tired of TNA's repeat failures to present their Pay-Per-View events as Pay-Per-View events which historically have featured big-time culminations, payoffs and match times instead of what they seem to come off like with TNA, which is more along the lines of a three-hour broadcast of iMPACT!

Perhaps it's the fact we're so privy to seeing Pay-Per-View quality matches given away for free on iMPACT! every week, or perhaps it's something else, but something's got to give here...

When I think back to the days of old when ordering a Pay-Per-View really meant something, the Pay-Per-View delivered more often than not, and it always felt like an entirely different animal from the weekly programming of that promotion – be it WCW or WWE/F. For one reason or another, I don't get the same feeling with TNA, and it's perplexing, because heading into some of these cards, on paper, they look to be outstanding programs that end up failing to meet their expectations.

What is it about TNA's Pay-Per-View events that don't allow them to come off as Pay-Per-View events, and more like a three-hour broadcast of iMPACT!? Is it the fact we're privy to so many Pay-Per-View quality matches on a weekly basis? Is it the talent itself? Is it the iMPACT! Zone?

Thoughts?

Pretty much answered your own thread my good man. We, the wrestling fans, are spoiled to a large degree. What you describe has generally been the norm since the start of the Monday night wars in '96/7. I urge you to go back and take a look at the match cards of RAW and Nitro week to week, circa '98. Its star vs star every week 90% of the time. Before the wars you never got star vs star on TV and even when/if a star did have a match it was against a job guy. The fans can moan about it all we want - but we have to take some of the blame also. Would you accept RAW or IMAPCT! going back to the pre '96 TV format? I don't think so, simply because of the sheer amount of posts or threads complaining about certain episodes having a lack of wrestling matches.

 

[Unsold Bacon]

Originally Posted by klunderbunker

Victory Road 2010
Rating: F. This was false advertising if nothing else. This was a one on one match with two run-ins. What was the point to this? Just do 3D vs. Ink Inc like you want to do. No one cares about this feud and no one wants to see Bubba vs. D-Von, so of course that’s what we’re going to get.

That was in the Victory road thread

Shannon is injured right now so he can't wrestle. This ppv was ughhh.. I don't know but I give it a C. But hey at least it wasn't as bad as last year's Shitvory Road. It felt very,very weird when Flair tapped to the Figure Four leg lock applied by Lethal. Never saw that coming.

EDIT: After calculating the match time on wiki, I found out we had 91 minutes and 13 seconds of ring time. We had an hour of other stuff? Really?

 

[DiscipleofWrestling]

I think there is definitely a problem with TNA in terms of giving us too many PPV matches for free. Joe vs. RVD was a good example in my opinion. With the proper build, the match could have been a decent seller for a PPV. Now, there will be a certain "been there, done that" feeling with the match. One could argue that the match they had on iMPACT could actually help produce PPV buys, but the match won't be necessarily fresh if it happens anytime soon while it's still in the public perception.

I also have to put some of the blame on the iMPACT Zone itself for this feeling. There's a different vibe for TNA PPVs that are in another arena than the ones emanating from the iMPACT Zone. I bought my first live TNA PPV in Lockdown in April. The arena and atmosphere helped make the event feel special. However, I also recently bought the recent Cross the Line 3-Pack, and as good as the PPVs were, they still felt like glorified TNA iMPACTs. The sad thing is I don't know if TNA can economically change this since they can shoot PPVs at the iMPACT Zone at a much cheaper rate than they could at another venue.

If TNA needs to continue doing PPVs at the iMPACT Zone, they should look into changing up the way things look within the iMPACT Zone specifically for the PPV: different ramp style, props around the entrance way, and other superficial changes to help viewers not see iMPACT Zone PPVs as just longer editions of iMPACT. Also, as mentioned earlier, they need to save big PPV matches for PPV unless they have a master plan to gain more heat by having a match on TV.

I look at the buildup for Rock vs. Chris Benoit from Fully Loaded 2000 as an example. During that build, if memory serves me correctly, The Rock never got a one on one match against Benoit until the PPV, even though Benoit was beating the crap out of The Rock during matches, in the locker room, or during an interview. That made me want to buy the PPV: to see The Rock finally face off against Benoit one on one on PPV. This is the way a PPV match should be built and if TNA adopted this type of build for a PPV, it might help their buyrates.

 

[TheBWO]

Of course we don't wanna see squashes either on free tv---and it's hard to have a "secondary" plot line (i.e. just a match to pass the time) in order to further a primary storyline (the heel or face doing a run in, just to touch the bases of the story to peak peoples interest for the upcoming PPV). I think it's a fine line.....and what killed WCW in the beginning was the night Goldberg beat Hogan in the Georgia dome....that match would have killed on PPV, except Bishoff gave it to us for free. I see the meaning here....I mean...you want to promote the show like what WCW did in the day,---by having a huge main event for free, so that people will have that "I can't wait to see on Sunday what will happen if they're doing this now" moment....but it doesn't work that way....it's a very fine line. As much as I like TNA, --and I really do (I'm not a fanatic about it, but I like it as an alternative more so than anything else, and rarely now watch WWE), I think creative needs to spend an entire WEEK meeting every day.....having meetings of what matches will work and what won't for the TV and then for the PPV. I'm no rocket scientist, but I wouldn't think it would really be THAT hard to have a dry erase board and map this mother out. I once read that Russo plans out storylines (or did) for the whole year......maybe that's the problem. I think for one, they sometimes need to be done on the fly---and maybe not stick with the program that has been written and rehashed over and over---or write the story down for three months. I think that is a good starting point. Start the story, do it, wrap it up in a quarter, and then move on to another story. One good decent wrestler could be involved in at least three stories for the year, instead of dragging something on for about six months.

 

[Mike Gonzo]

There is no difference. Both their PPV's and regular tv shows suck!!! None of their "Main Eventers" could make it it the WWE. Seriously, when your world champs are A.J. Styles and an out of shape Samoa Joe, how can anyone take this organization seriously. RVD still has it but he can't wrestle every match can he? And some please tell Ric Flair to keep his shirt on. All due respect to his legacy but please dude you look like a shriveled up prune. I am so not looking forward to getting old.

 

[Kenny Powers]

At this point TNA should cut their loses and go from PPVs to 3 hour specials on Spike TV like they were planning to. The last few PPVs have been letdowns because you are more then likely to see a better match on Impact then on a TNA PPV. You are also less then likely to see any huge surprises on PPV. The last good PPV I could remember TNA putting on was Lockdown this past April. Before and after that there hasn't been any PPVs that have been exceptional besides maybe Bound For Glory or No Surrender in 2009.

I have noticed a problem not only in TNA but WWE as well. Every PPV needs to be special, we shouldn't have to wait till Wrestlemania or for Bound For Glory to see a good show.

 

[showstoppaa]

I think impact is good most weeks, and I watch it regularely, But TNA, for some reason have decided to stop showing the PPV's in england, so I dont get to see them, so whether the card is good or not, people like me are not going to be ordering it becuase we dont have the option to.

 

[harrythem]

I think TNA is suffering from what WWF was back in the early part of 1998. Back then Fully Loaded pulled a piss-poor buy-rate bang in the middle of the Monday Night Wars because WWF was headlining it with something they'd given away on free TV many times already. TNA has so many money matches they could save for PPV but, as has been said, they give them away for free on Impact. Hell, they've had a feud for the Global Title and, instead of ending it at Victory Road, they're finish it on Xplosion! What the hell? Was Rob Terry being a surprise in a tag match to help someone else's storyline more important then a title match?

Hopefully these low numbers will tell TNA that creative is failing them and they need to get a new house in order asap!!

 

[plagiuss]

I lot of it is the build up. The last weeks we have seen all for men (RVD, ABYSS etc) in the ring at the same time...fighting each other...well that is the same as the pay perview. Now more like the Hernandez/Morgan...Morgan always avoided him, so you wanted to see what would happen when Morgan couldn't run. So Yeah you see payperview matches every week but what else is there? Angle-MainEv? Yes Style and so on...anyone really with in the so called "top ten" most would consider mainevent (depending on what wrestlers you like) so what do you do 3d vs RVD/Hardy w/ run ins or Hardy vs Anderson? A mix of both is probably best. But your really damned if you do damned if you don't. Its really more the build up not really there prior to the ppv so it seem like a cluster....the build up for the World Title match was terrible. But like IT'S DAMN REAL...i hope and pray for TNA (its better than RAW for me) because I HATE WWE

 

[Poop Master Flex]

There's a difference? Really the only difference I see between a typical TNA PPV and iMPACT is that every PPV they build a few matches throughout the weeks (which accounts for about 30 minutes of the PPV), other than that there really aren't any differences between iMPACT and their PPV's because a good chunk of their PPV matches are just thrown together at the last minute, much like most iMPACT episodes. That doesn't necessarily mean that the PPV will be bad (because a decent chunk of the throwaway matches are quite good), but it doesn't really help with buyrates because alot of the time their isn't alot of buildup to their PPV's (with the exception of maybe 3 a year) which is an issue. Its hard to cough up $40 for a PPV each month when they are so similar to iMPACT which airs on free TV (assuming you have spikeTV). Not only that TNA has a bad habit of giving away PPV quality matches on free TV, thats OK once in a while, but most of the time they should make people pay for the top quality matches (like RVD vs AJ Styles for the world title, THAT should have been saved for a PPV).

 

[Joe's Gonna Kill You]

There's a difference? Really the only difference I see between a typical TNA PPV and iMPACT is that every PPV they build a few matches throughout the weeks (which accounts for about 30 minutes of the PPV), other than that there really aren't any differences between iMPACT and their PPV's because a good chunk of their PPV matches are just thrown together at the last minute, much like most iMPACT episodes. That doesn't necessarily mean that the PPV will be bad (because a decent chunk of the throwaway matches are quite good), but it doesn't really help with buyrates because alot of the time their isn't alot of buildup to their PPV's (with the exception of maybe 3 a year) which is an issue. Its hard to cough up $40 for a PPV each month when they are so similar to iMPACT which airs on free TV (assuming you have spikeTV). Not only that TNA has a bad habit of giving away PPV quality matches on free TV, thats OK once in a while, but most of the time they should make people pay for the top quality matches (like RVD vs AJ Styles for the world title, THAT should have been saved for a PPV).

Tell me one match at Sunday's PPV that had no build and that was just thrown together. Back to the OP the biggest problem that makes it fell the same is the Impact Zone. To me its no coincidence that probably the Best PPV of the year was Lockdown and that PPV was held outside the Impact Zone

 

[Poop Master Flex]

Tell me one match at Sunday's PPV that had no build and that was just thrown together. Back to the OP the biggest problem that makes it fell the same is the Impact Zone. To me its no coincidence that probably the Best PPV of the year was Lockdown and that PPV was held outside the Impact Zone

I understand that, but thats why I said there are SOME exceptions to the rule (I believe I said there are about 3 PPV's a year with plenty of buildup, THIS WAS ONE OF THEM). In general, most PPV's have alot of throwaway matches with ZERO buildup. There will always be a few matches every PPV with buildup, but there has been ALOT of PPV's where only 2 or 3 matches had a decent buildup, where the rest of the matches had little to no buildup (BTW, building a match takes more than a week if you actually want people to actually CARE about it unless the match has the potential to be stellar. You can build AJ vs Wolfe in a weeks time, but those matches are few and far between. So in closing I don't count matches that are built for 10 days, YOU NEED MORE TIME THAN THAT).

Seriously dude, read more than 2 lines from a post if you're going to rebuttal against it.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Tell me one match at Sunday's PPV that had no build and that was just thrown together.

AJ Styles & Kazarian vs. Samoa Joe & Rob Terry. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything. But, you asked the question and that's an obvious answer. This particular match had no particular build up whatsoever and felt like it was haphazardly thrown together. We hear on Thursday night that Kazarian & Styles are going to wrestle as a team against a mystery tag team and that's it.

However, as to the topic at hand, I don't know that there's one singular answer to this. On one hand, it does seem that TNA iMPACT! does give away too many "ppv matches" on the show. However, a problem with these "dream matches" that we've seen on iMPACT! is that they've almost always fallen far short of the hype and expectations. There's always a chance that some people are turned off by the lackluster attempts despite a lot of hype.

However, if TNA doesn't put on a lot of matches on the show that could be considered ppv quality, they'll wind up getting just as much criticism for lackluster wrestling content on TNA iMPACT!. To some degree, TNA is stuck between a rock and a hard place as they have a fanbase that can be notoriously difficult to please. For many of them, all they want is everything and they complain when they don't get it.

If TNA's ppv buys are dwindling to less than 10,000 a month, then maybe they should possibly consider scrapping the monthly ppv option and going with the live 3 hour specials instead. However, a problem is that we don't know if that's accurate info or not as TNA is a privately owned company. I know that ppvs can mean revenue but I wonder how much money TNA can be making from ppvs if, and I'm saying IF, their ppv buys are as low as being reported.

For me, I don't necessarily have to have anything "epic" take place at every ppv. I think that a lot of fans expect that every month and do feel let down if it doesn't happen. When "epic" takes place on a regular basis, it stops being epic and becomes par for the course. I think that TNA's "surprises" that've been advertised for ppvs has also left a lot of people with a sour taste in their mouths.

For the past month, the TNA product has gotten better and I think a lot of that is due to them trying to lay off the grand stunts and surprises and all that. Having Hulk Hogan not as the centerpiece of iMPACT! has gone a long way as well.

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

Another problem with TNA...

They give us great matches on TV for free..and then like a month later, repeat it on ppv where we have to pay...and they don't even get better...

TNA has to understand that iMPACT is like a build up show to ppv's...ppv's is what forwards a feud to another level or ends a feud...unfortunately we see feuds end on iMPACT!!

I remember back like a year ago, when some sites used to compare iMPACT to WWECW of syfy...and it stated that in the 1 hour of WWECW, they had 32 mins of wrestling and in the 2 hour show of iMPACT, they had 40 mins of wrestling!! what do they waste their time on???
I no that was like last year, but also looking at Victory rd ppv, we could have seen another 1 hour of good wrestling matches!! Why didn't they let angle/pope match go for at least 20-25 mins???
And next thing you know, the next time they have a match on iMPACT, it will be for like 20 mins...

You know what else I think it is...TNA always want to put on the best iMPACT every week, because they worry about their viewers!! IMO this i shouldn't really be an issue, because according to someones post above..1% of those who watch iMPACT for free, order a TNA ppv!! thats worrying!!

 

[KennedyKennedy]

AJ Styles & Kazarian vs. Samoa Joe & Rob Terry. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything. But, you asked the question and that's an obvious answer. This particular match had no particular build up whatsoever and felt like it was haphazardly thrown together. We hear on Thursday night that Kazarian & Styles are going to wrestle as a team against a mystery tag team and that's it.

I gotta disagree with you here. There was plenty of build up to this match, only it was all Kaz/Styles, whilst Terry/Joe were just used to further the storyline. Over the past few weeks with the announcement of Fortune and the following friction between AJ and Kaz added to that the efforts by Wolfe to get in the group (which led to the finish of the match). Lastly, they even had AJ vs Joe on Impact recently so you can't call this match just something they threw together and neither can you call any other match on the Victory Road card "thrown together".

Anyway, to get onto the overall topic, there's obviously a variety of reasons TNA can't make their PPVs stand out from their weekly shows. One of them is venue. They have used the Impact zone for Impact and most of their PPVs and it just doesn't give their big shows the look they need to be taken more seriously by the audience. It's not huge but it's very bad for a company that wants to compete with the WWE juggernaut. Another issue with TNA PPVs is that most of the time they give poor payoff to feuds and that is simply unacceptable. Fans tune into Impact weekly to watch these feuds progress and to give lacklustre finishes to feuds pisses them off and puts them off buying future PPVs. Lastly, TNA give away far too much away for free on Impact. Ever since I began watching Impact (around March), I've seen matches like RVD/Joe, AJ/Joe, Wolfe/Angle, RVD/AJ, RVD/Hardy and Angle/Anderson, all PPV quality matches, hell even PPV main event quality matches on Impact. Sure it's great to give people a reason to tune into Impact but I feel they are trying to cram too much into Impact and the fans don't see much reason to buy the PPVs.

 

[Vintage]

TNA does not have enough TV time to properly develop feuds for monthly ppv's. Everything is compressed and so we have to skip certain important steps like backstage beat downs and the infamous 'We're in a feud so lets have a tag match' match. Here's what they do right and wrong

Not to mention, Impact seems to be booked like weekly PPV's. I like it, but the overall product suffers because of it.

 

[shattered dreams]

I think most of this comes back to TNA being different than the traditional wrestling company. How so? The big way is that television is their moneymaker not the PPVs. They need the ratings, not necessarily the PPV buys right now. This is why they have been having the big culminations on impact instead of PPV. At least that is my guess. The PPVs do have better and longer matches than impact but that is about it. I think they will either continue to build the impact/explosion audiences and work on PPVs later or try something different eventually like the specials rumors. To answer IDR's main question it is because right now the PPVs are being used to encourage people to tune into next months storylines on impact instead of end storylines like most companies have always done. In a way it is a smart thing to do at last short term. People might be disappointed when big things do not happen on the PPV but they will excite many more people when surprisingly big things happen on impact. They did have MCMG win the belts in a very good match on the most recent PPV. So it is not like they give nothing on the PPVs.

 

[goodlay]

Man if those numbers are true, that is terrible news for TNA. I think it's a combination of the fact that: 1. TNA PPV's don't have a unique feel to them 2. They almost feel like 3 hour iMPACT shows 3. The PPV quality matches constantly given away on free TV.

I think with this news, TNA would really benefit from moving from monthly PPV's to 3 hour specials on Spike. But still have the major PPV's, like Lockdown and BFG. They would only have 3-4 PPVs a year at most, so when they did have a PPV, they could go to a different location and a bigger arena to make each PPV feel unique and important. Plus not to mention, the 3 hour specials could potentially be a big ratings draw, if they are marketed right.

Overall though, TNA has to do something about this. I can't see how they can be making hardly any money off these PPV's if those poor numbers are really true.

 

[Tha Wolfpac]

Hey Yo!

The main problem is TNA's focus right now is on TNA iMPACT and nothing else i assure you, TNA managment is striving so hard to put on a solid weekly show, that will draw audiences that they almost forget about doing the little important things for PPV's what my evidence for this argument while like somebody said above they were going to ditch PPV's and put on TV specials. So that goes to show right now and in this point in time TNA iMPACT is priority number 1 and i can settle for that. That is why my friends. by the way im starting to like you more and more "It's Damn Real" you fight for TNA and i like that.

 

[sam_k7]

we r hella spoiled
i was watching AJ vs Kaz and RVD vs Joe the other day and was like "SHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT THA SHITS BALLIN' RIGHT THERE!!"

but being over indulged in good/amazing wrestling is better than a pissin kiss cam or dance offs and stupid shit like tha.

 

[shattered dreams]

I am not sure why everyone keeps saying something like "this is bad news." Maybe if they used to do huge numbers then it would be but this is more a reality they likely have been dealing with for some time. If they keep working on putting out a good product consistently and grow the impact audience then the PPVs will eventually trend up. Then even 10,000 buys would be more money than they used to have which can't necessarily be a bad thing even if it sounds alarmingly low.