The State of TNA Wrestling

[DRock99]

I don't think TNA should be worried about WWE. WWE is gonna be alright becuz they have their core audience of fair-weather fans and 10 year olds who don't know shit about wrestling anyway. I really could careless about storylines and character development but that seems to be what WWE is stuck on.Getting back to TNA I actually liked them BEFORE Hogan came along. When they had the 6 sided ring (which they stole from the luchadors) and they focused more on the younger talent. They were cool with being the "underdog" but now that Hogan and Bischoff are involved it's turning into WCW 2.0. It's really sad since TNA had so much potential and they haven't even been out for a whole decade.

 

[philbrooks]

I don't think TNA should be worried about WWE. WWE is gonna be alright becuz they have their core audience of fair-weather fans and 10 year olds who don't know shit about wrestling anyway.

Thats simply not true if you look at the demographics for their television shows. The average viewing age is like 35.

 

[VencomHardcore]

Thats simply not true if you look at the demographics for their television shows. The average viewing age is like 35.

NO WWE'S core market are pre-teens and kids ! Hence the pg rating and no blood. And if you have ever gone to a WWE taping there are more kids in some cities than adults. Baltimore is a perfect example.

Parents taking kids to see DX and Cena. WWE gears its products to that demographic not 35 year old adults or it would be a more ECW Original focus.

WWE even has a kids magazine. That should tell you something. WWE is smart because they took a page from Mc Donalds and do it for the kids because the parents will won't say no when they want a doll, cena tshirt, arm band or glow sticks.

Question: What 35 year old have you seen with DX Glow Sticks at a WWE event ? And for the record they sold about 2000 of them in Baltimore for $10 a pop !

 

[philbrooks]

NO WWE'S core market are pre-teens and kids ! Hence the pg rating and no blood. And if you have ever gone to a WWE taping there are more kids in some cities than adults. Baltimore is a perfect example.

Parents taking kids to see DX and Cena. WWE gears its products to that demographic not 35 year old adults or it would be a more ECW Original focus.

WWE even has a kids magazine. That should tell you something. WWE is smart because they took a page from Mc Donalds and do it for the kids because the parents will won't say no when they want a doll, cena tshirt, arm band or glow sticks.

Question: What 35 year old have you seen with DX Glow Sticks at a WWE event ? And for the record they sold about 2000 of them in Baltimore for $10 a pop !

You are confusing core audience with target audience here.

 

[DRock99]

Thats simply not true if you look at the demographics for their television shows. The average viewing age is like 35.

That's the amount of viewers who watch the show but I'm talking about the people who show up at the events. Granted most of the fans are old school WWF fans who take their kids to the shows.

 

[BWEEZY2009]

My only beef wiith TNA at the moment is why oh why aren't they booking and selling out 20,000 seat arenas. They have Jeff Hardy, RVD, AJ, Hogan. etc... Biggest superstars in the world.

that's like 2 million dollars in one night. Why do they persist on staying in the impact zone.

You do realize they let people into the Impact zone for free and sometimes its still not full....

Like someone earlier posted, Lockdown will be a great test.... I don't think they'll get close to selling the building out.

They had teens posting out pamphlets out at Elimination Chamber to get a chance to get free tickets and get on TNA's website. My guess is ticket sales aren't going good.

I hope they are though, because competition brings out the best.

 

[BWEEZY2009]

wwe this wwe that, blah blah, blah, FUCK WWE!!!!!!!!! hell!!! if you all love it so DAMN much then see if you all can get a fucking job there in the front office of titan towers, how can you compare a company that's been around 50 years, to company that's only been around for eight years? instead of all the negative BULLSHIT!! this site and others like it (411 mania.com) put's out why not give them credit and be appreciative that there's an alternative to wwe instead having to watch cena flop his way into every damn main event.

Wow

What do you even say to this..

Don't even think WWE has been mentioned much in this thread... the only time i think the name got brought up was when we compared roster sizes.. That is called CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM... TNA could do so much better if they show wasn't rushed and didn't have to fit in 30-50 talents within two hours. They can't afford another show so they need to downsize in talent.. It's common sense spud.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I sincerely doubt that the state of TNA has improved to any degree with last night's iMPACT!. TNA resorted to extremely low brow sleaze in the hopes of popping a rating last night. I can't help but wonder if the honchos at Spike are pressuring TNA to pull up its numbers. TNA has some of the biggest and most well known wrestlers in the world signed to their roster. Instead of focusing on them and using them during these tough times, they've resorted to using a gimmicks and game show stupidity that were innovative and legitimately controversial back in 1998. Even if the T & A stunts that TNA pulled last night does help produce a healthier set of numbers than they've been getting, it'll only be for the short term.

 

[bretfan316]

I don't think TNA should be worried about WWE. WWE is gonna be alright becuz they have their core audience of fair-weather fans and 10 year olds who don't know shit about wrestling anyway. I really could careless about storylines and character development but that seems to be what WWE is stuck on.Getting back to TNA I actually liked them BEFORE Hogan came along. When they had the 6 sided ring (which they stole from the luchadors) and they focused more on the younger talent. They were cool with being the "underdog" but now that Hogan and Bischoff are involved it's turning into WCW 2.0. It's really sad since TNA had so much potential and they haven't even been out for a whole decade.

Why shouldn't they be stuck on that, that is what makes me a wrestling fan in the first place, the storylines and the character development. You can have all these awsome 5-star matches, but if there is no storylines behind them or any knowledge of the characters of the wrestlers, I don't care about the match. Storylines and the character of the wrestlers is what makes the matches, because it brings out the emotion of the viewers and the fans who are invested into the wrestlers they watched and learned about and the storylines that they are interested in and how it plays out or ends. I have always been a believer that the storyline behind a match is what is most important, and the workrate of the match is second. If you look at most of top matches in history, they all had great storyline developments with characters that you became fans of. Wwe is the best at doing that, while tna doesn't seem to know how to do it. TNA doesn't know how to develop a character or make simple logical storylines. Making aj styles into a ric flair clone is kinda stupid to me, making abyss getting powers from a wwe hall of fame ring (which by the way makes no sense, because hogan never wore the ring when he was wrestling for the wwe, so how is the hulkamania power coming from the ring?) and becoming a hogan clone is freaking ******ed, and winning a championship belt by opening a DAMN BOX is one of the dumbest thing I have ever seen. All of these storylines and these wrestlers are bad. Only thing good is angle and anderson, thats it to me. Simple storyline, good character development, which leads to a good series of matches, which makes me a happy fan. Just keep it simple and don't insult my intelligence. Make interesting characters that I want to see in matches, not stupid clones of washed up wrestlers from the past. Make good storylines and feuds over championships, not devaluing a belt by having the champion lose it because she didn't pick the right box. Wwe gets too much crap put on them by people cause they went pg, I wish they went back to the attitude stuff myself, but hey there show is still alot better than tna which does do adult-oriented stuff. If tna ever wants to compete with wwe start by improving the storylines they write, and the wrestlers characters. That is what makes wwe the king, cause they are the best at doing those two things.

 

[psykohurricane]

I was listening to the who's slamming who podcast last night and one of the host said something about TNA that actually made sense. He said that TNA didn't look back-up anything they said and by doing that, it just made them look like a weak second rate company. He them talk about how vince McMAhon Jr. bought the small territorial company from his dad and made it into the big company we know now.

It got me thinking, and i realise that TNA had all the chances in the world to be real competition for the WWE but they made some many mistake since they started feuding with the WWE, it's not even funny.


First you have the january 4th show. The 3-hour show drew in a 1.5 ratings which is pretty good for and upstart company going again the WWE. They had the 6-sided ring, they showcase the x-division and the knockout division in a pretty good fashion. A.J. Styles who was still a face at the time had a 5 star match with Kurt Angle, They had the return of Jeff Hardy, Sting, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman to TNA plus the debut of Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan. The show wasn't perfect but it gave them momemtum and everybody was talking about TNA the next day. But TNA management being what it is, they didn'T try to convince Spike TV to move them on Monday's and it took 2 month befor IMPACT came back to monday'S night. That was their first mistake and showed how much TNA management didn'T think they were ready to compete with WWE even throught they had great ratings and all the momemtum in the world

Second mistake was the GEnesis PPV and all the changes they made. Personally, i don'T mind the four sided ring but let's face it, the six sided ring was what made TNA look special and what all these new fan that watch IMPACT on january 4th saw on that day. A.J. Styles as a face got over with the casual fan so having him become a heel made no sense, the fact that LAshley was so easily taken out made no sense, having Bischoff and Hogan all over the PPV made no sense. This PPV pretty was the start of TNA losing some of the momemtum they had and it's not over yet.

Then after 2 month of still being on thursdays, they finally decide to go head to head with WWE. They have no momemtum left because the buzz that TNA had in january as died down and nobody want to see Hogan or Flair wrestles and since that'S the only think advertise for the show, the first monday night IMPACt didn'T do that well. One of the big mistake they made was to not advertise Sting and Jeff Hardy'S return. This would have help tremendously. Plus giving a thursday replay didn't help them either in looking like a strong company. It just scream look, we sure nobody are going to watch us on monday so were just watch us on thursday.

Now after a month of getting their butt kick by WWE, they decide to move from 9pm to 11 to 8pm to 10 pm. Which i think is a great move as it my help them in the long run. The problem is again the famous let's put a replay on thursday thing they are doing. Again it make them look like they are desperate to get fan to watch and are not confident enough that they are able to get fans to watch on monday's.

In the end, TNA missed so many opportunities to be competitive with the WWE is not even funny. In four month, they went from doing 1.5 - 1.2 ratings everyweek to doing 0.6 to 0.9 ratings. They alienanted all the new fans they made on january 4th and are losing some of the die-hard fans because they talk a big game but are not able to back it up. I feel bad for them because, some of my favorite wrestlers are in TNA right now and if it continue the way things are going, in 2 or 3 years, theses guys won'T have a place to work because TNA will be bankrupt and that'S to bad because i was really hoping for TNA to be able to compete with WWE instead of being the little company that doesn'T have any confidence in themselves and what the talent in the company can do.

 

[Roark77]

Like someone earlier posted, Lockdown will be a great test.... I don't think they'll get close to selling the building out.

They had teens posting out pamphlets out at Elimination Chamber to get a chance to get free tickets and get on TNA's website. My guess is ticket sales aren't going good.

It'll be interesting to see if they have a large difference between paid attendance and actual attendance. Near the end of WCW, they used to give out thousands of free tickets to try to fill arenas and it wasn't a successful tactic. The Family Arena holds between 6-10k (depending on the event) and it'll be interesting to see what TNA manages for attendance.

One of the problems that TNA has is that they want to be WCW 2.0 (which is funny since WCW had a lot of awful crap) when they're more comparable to classic ECW. ECW was focused on in ring product, loved gimmick matches, played small venues, and had edgier programming. The main difference was that ECW was far better at marketing its product as an alternative to the big two. TNA has trouble matching ROH's attendance, much less matching what ECW used to be able to do.

TNA used to feel different from the WWE, going back to those goofy weekly PPV shows in 2002. Lately though, TNA has stopped feeling like an alternative to the WWE. Nostalga might be a short term boost (and it looks like that shine is already going away) but it won't build a long term product.

 

[TCBT]

TNA used to feel different from the WWE, going back to those goofy weekly PPV shows in 2002. Lately though, TNA has stopped feeling like an alternative to the WWE. Nostalga might be a short term boost (and it looks like that shine is already going away) but it won't build a long term product.

Agreed. I'm very intrested to know what's going on between Dixie Carter and Hogan behind closed doors. Do they actually agree on what TNA is churning out week in and week out? Does Dixie think Hogan has helped the company out since he came in? Does she regret doing business with him and Bischoff? Because while she's always supporting TNA's decisions, she HAS to see the rapid decline in TNA's product, ratings and sales.

TNA was far from perfect before Hogan, but the things they had right got completely revamped when he came in. My worries are that TNA isn't thinking long-term and that Dixie is running TNA as if she was playing a game of Monopoly. It's a little different using colorful play money than it is using millions of real dollars, most of which are her father's, and jumping the gun at really risky moves without considering the consequences.