TNA Should Have Listened to the Fans a Long Time Ago

[Odisho]

During Turning Point 2009 when it was AJ Styles vs. Daniels vs. Samoa Joe and the whole crowd was chanting 'Screw Hulk Hogan!" (clap clap clap clap) 'Screw Hulk Hogan!" also "You're all AWESOME!"

go to 21:48 for the chants. (or you can watch the whole awsome match and dont forget to watch the triple threat at unbreakable 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBBiCt9az9A

I just found it interesting that TNA's own fans clearly chanted screw hulk hogan and they want what they saw to stay as it is. With TNA's own talent and actual wrestling.

Now that hulk hogan era has left, its clear to say that TNA is in worse position than it was in 2008. And its not even the hulksters fault, Its tna's fault. AJ styles said it best, TNA decided to put ex wwe talent over TNA's originals who put the company on the map.

Do you prefer TNA stayed as it was instead of becoming a bad version of WWE right now?

 

[The Boss]

TNA's problem has never been about the talent. TNA has always had an abundance of talent and whether that talent comes from within or whether they made there name somewhere else is irrelevant. Remember, through out the 80s and 90s WWE got all of it's major stars (with the exception of The Rock) from other companies. And ever since those other companies closed WWE has been in it's biggest drought of The Vince McMahon Jr. era.

TNA's problem is and always he been self promotion. Or lack there of. When Impact Wrestling came to my town do you know who did all promoting? ME. That's right, yours truly. They came to my local promotion, gave us a stack of flyers, a few tickets and several boxes containing mini packs of Orbit chewing gum. I sold the tickets at our show, gave away as much of the gum ad we could and hung flyers all over the area. For TNA's part, Jeff Hardy made one appearance on a local talk show the morning of and that was it.

You can't expect to grow your audience if you are not even willing to promote it. How are people supposed to know it exists? They thought that signing the biggest name in the history of the business would generate publicity. But they never used him as a promotional tool. If you didn't already watch or follow on the internet you would never know he was there. TNA should have sent him to all the network talk shows to promote TNA just like Vince did in the 80s. Until/unless TNAgets serious about promoting... and not just on Spike or the internet, they will continue to be an unknown promotion.

 

[$Mr. 100%]

Tna problem has been recycling same storylines over and over. Planet jarrett Christian coalition main event mafia immortal aces and 8s. Every year its a new heel faction trying 2 take over and now u have dixie doing it. Bad gimmick matches(electrified cage match???)also plays a huge part. And yes when hogan came n tna shouldn't have let him bring n his cronies(nasties hall and pac Orlando Jones etc). Hogan had way 2 much tv time and tna became about him. W/that being said tna management can't b all that bright and i always wonder y different wrestler leave wwe run it down then comes back 2 wwe immediately after tna contract is up(booker flair foley nash now hogan etc)?

 

[Zeven_Zion]

Listen to the fans? Excuse me, but since when do "the fans" have a uniform opinion about anything? Take an hour to ask ten people in the TNA forum about certain elements of TNA's programming and you'll likely get responses so vastly different it'll make your head spin.

Also, can we just stop acting like a single instance of a hundred or so people chanting something is any indication to what over a million others who watch the product on a weekly basis would like? If this was happening in every arena, every Thursday, all the time, on social media then yes - you have a solid point. But this? Holds no water.

Besides, as far as I remember, I don't recall TNA being praised back in 2008. Or 2007. Or 2005. What I remember was a slew of people who called it shit, and a slew of people who disagreed. Surprise, surprise, it's 2014 and nothing's changed. Except some people romanticize a TNA that never existed. A TNA that was never that good. TNA has always been hated by the majority of fans on forums, TNA has always been slagged and will likely continue to be treated this way. Because it's TNA. They can never, ever, do it right. Why? We go back to my first argument. All of us cannot possibly agree on anything when it comes to TNA. It's everyone's favorite company to fantasize about because it's so small it makes you feel like even you can run it.

And again - why? Because Internet fans happen to be (in my opinion) the most devoted ones. It shows just by the fact that we follow this crap on the Internet, while other fans watch it on TV and move on with their lives. Thus, we're the most passionate, hence we have specific opinions about specific things.

Arguments like it's become a shittier version of the WWE are just nonsense. What? Because of a recycled storyline or two? TNA is a separate entity entirely. They approach storylines, matches and their whole brand in a different way. Sure, there are similarities. But do a few similarities mean a duplicate? It does, if you're fishing for bullshit.

Wrestling's success, as well as the success of any other spawn of the entertainment industry such as music, movie or a TV show, is not dependent on uniqueness. The fact that something has never been done before does not equate to it being great by default. It can be total and absolute shit - and in fact, most times it is. Because it is untested. A recycled storyline, while a repetition of a previous one, is a lot safer to use and you know how to make it good since thankfully other people have gotten it wrong. That's assuming achieving uniqueness is an easy feat. It's not. Not when you've had half a fucking century of wrestling. All kinds of wrestling.

Do I need to remind you of the groundbreaking story that was Clair Lynch? Have you ever seen this storyline done before? I haven't. It was pure GARBAGE. How come no one (and I mean NO ONE) ever said "You know what, this is shit but at least they're different". Because at the end of the day no one cares if you do something different because it's shit. It's only a variety of shit I've never seen before. We all want to see something GOOD. It could've been done to death, but if it's good - it's good. Ground breaking and good is an incredibly rare thing to accomplish. Wrestling hasn't done it in 15 years. Don't expect it to start now and don't expect it from TNA of all companies.

Can anyone here honestly say that Daniel Bryan's success with the WWE, him getting over and all that jazz, was unique? Fuck no. It's a guy who got over with a fans thanks to a catchphrase and he lit their butts on fire. Then they had the McMahons screw him over and over and over again. Yeah, we haven't seen that before. Austin went through it, Rock went through it, Triple H went through it, so did Taker and even Chris fucking Jericho (among others).

Hey, remember the summer of Punk? That was good, right? Was it new? Not at all. Just a guy getting over by using his personality. It wasn't even because of the shoots. There was A shoot, a worked shoot and it only started things. Punk's personality carried the rest, WWE buried what was left. Regardless, it's been done before. What wasn't done before was Punk wanting to leave with the Championship. That was new. But low and behold - it ended up sucking ass. Why? Because the execution was terrible.

So it seems that judging by the coolest things in wrestling in the last 2-3 years, they're all things we have seen before. But they were done well and you'd be surprised to see how fans stop giving a shit about "new" when something is plain good. Incidentally, all the unique storylines in both TNA and WWE have fucking flopped. They've either been horrible from start to finish or lost traction in between because people just didn't connect with them. Who knows, maybe because they were so damn unique.

Fans need to learn that it's not about coming up with new, never before seen concepts but instead making old ones really damn good. There will always be twists and elements of recycled storylines that make it different. TNA should worry about making the basic storylines entertaining before digging into more complex material. Same goes for the WWE.

The way it is right now, I don't think TNA should listen to anyone. Their problem is that they listen TOO MUCH. Vince doesn't. He listens to himself, produces what HE feels is good and if you don't like it you can kick rocks. I don't think both methods are right because they're both the extreme versions of their own kind.

The day wrestling learns how to balance everything is the day we'll have a lot more to enjoy than Brooke Tessmacher's ass. The day the fans learn that they don't know better than wrestling companies, will also be pretty damn sweet. You know what you like, and you have your own theories and suggestions ... but generalizing it to TNA's entire audience, pointing a finger and saying "they're doing it wrong" because they're not reflecting YOUR idea of the ideal wrestling show is plain ignorant. People who do that stuff got some balls on them. Undescended, but balls nontheless.

 

[mlp420]

They weren't going anywhere then. That's why they brought Hogan in. That's the point people miss. Just because Hogan didn't work out doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying.

A lot of people have bad memories. Not only was TNA not going anywhere at that time, but the IWC hated TNA then too! TNA has gotten nothing but flack since 2005. First everyone hated TNA because Jarrett was the owner and he had the title on himself. Then they hated TNA because Russo was the booker. Then it was Bischoff and Hogan. Now they're all gone so it's Dixie Carter. There's always going to be something.

The whole industry sucks right now, but TNA is the designated punching bag for smarks to take out their frustration with the state of the wrestling business. I think that's because most people really only want TNA to either do well enough to scare WWE into not sucking, or be a modern day ECW: A cutting edge promotion for WWE to rape for talent and ideas. That's why people are so obsessed with holding TNA up against WWE. TNA can't sign anybody that was in WWE. TNA can't use an angle that remotely resembles anything that was ever done in WWE. TNA should have a six sided ring since WWE uses a normal ring. And this is coming from people that are supposedly wrestling fans and not just WWE fans.

 

[lil steroid meat]

While TNA definitely has pretty much been changed for the worse after Hogan (only positive thing that arose from the Bischoff era as far as the product is the reality show-type camera that they use in the backstage segments and my memory is blurry so that might have been there pre-Hogan), TNA has a lot of problems that have nothing to do with him.

Hogan is responsible for the decision to go on the road and lose money, from the outside looking in, he and Bischoff are responsible for getting rid of one of the things that made TNA unique, the six sided ring, he also is responsible for trying to compete with the WWE in both going to Mondays + changing the name and branding to Impact Wrestling and looking like a poor man's WCW Thunder.

But TNA, and TNA itself is responsible for a lack of promotion (many people don't even know there's a pro wrestling company outside of the WWE).

Then, once you address the lack of promotion, you have to address the product. Creative has been pretty shitty for a while now, not to mention what seems to be an inability on TNA's part to accept that the nWo/invasion storyline has only worked twice. Once in WCW, and once in Japan where Eric Bischoff stole it from. Can't forget the terrible Russo-style stuff they do alot.

Also, TNA does not know how to make true stars. I'm talking about true crossover, recognizable stars. Non-wrestling fans will recognize Steve Austin, John Cena, Hulk Hogan, The Rock (for argument's sake, let's say pre-2003 pre-movie Rock). Non-wrestling fans will not take a second look at AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, etc. etc. In addition to this, they abandon their homegrown talent in an attempt to piggyback off of the WWE and WCW names.

Hulk Hogan isn't responsible for shitty creative, shitty marketing and promotion, the non-ability to create new stars, and the inability (or refusal) to find and accept a niche in pro wrestling.

 

[ocekit]

Hogan is not responsible for everything that's wrong with TNA, or really even most things. TNA had major issues even before Hogan & Bischoff came around.

That reminds me: Do you remember the group of audience regulars who were called the Crucial Crew? Is it possible that those annoying asshats were the ones who started the anti-Hogan chant? I mostly remember how nobody liked them, not even other TNA fans.

 

[mlp420]

While TNA definitely has pretty much been changed for the worse after Hogan (only positive thing that arose from the Bischoff era as far as the product is the reality show-type camera that they use in the backstage segments and my memory is blurry so that might have been there pre-Hogan), TNA has a lot of problems that have nothing to do with him.

Hogan is responsible for the decision to go on the road and lose money, from the outside looking in, he and Bischoff are responsible for getting rid of one of the things that made TNA unique, the six sided ring, he also is responsible for trying to compete with the WWE in both going to Mondays + changing the name and branding to Impact Wrestling and looking like a poor man's WCW Thunder.

But TNA, and TNA itself is responsible for a lack of promotion (many people don't even know there's a pro wrestling company outside of the WWE).

Then, once you address the lack of promotion, you have to address the product. Creative has been pretty shitty for a while now, not to mention what seems to be an inability on TNA's part to accept that the nWo/invasion storyline has only worked twice. Once in WCW, and once in Japan where Eric Bischoff stole it from. Can't forget the terrible Russo-style stuff they do alot.

Also, TNA does not know how to make true stars. I'm talking about true crossover, recognizable stars. Non-wrestling fans will recognize Steve Austin, John Cena, Hulk Hogan, The Rock (for argument's sake, let's say pre-2003 pre-movie Rock). Non-wrestling fans will not take a second look at AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, etc. etc. In addition to this, they abandon their homegrown talent in an attempt to piggyback off of the WWE and WCW names.

Hulk Hogan isn't responsible for shitty creative, shitty marketing and promotion, the non-ability to create new stars, and the inability (or refusal) to find and accept a niche in pro wrestling.

The "create new stars" shit is so ******ed. How in the hell is TNA going to make their guys as big as WWE guys if WWE has triple the audience? That makes no sense. Everyone loves everything ECW did in their hay day. Were RVD and Taz as well know as even the lower card WWF/WCW guys? Hell no, only people that watched ECW knew who they were. Is that because ECW were idiots and didn't know how to make new stars? WWE could take 10 guys from TNA and book them EXACTLY the same way TNA has over the years. Same angles, feuds, promos, everything. And they'd be bigger in WWE than they were in TNA. Because they have more eyeballs on their product. I'm getting really sick of people getting on their soapbox talking about creating new stars to try and pretend they know something about wrestling.

And BTW, there is no surviving being a "niche" in pro wrestling. WWE can always cover ground. When people turned away from them in favor of ECW's hardcore wrestling and edgy storylines, we got the attitude era and ECW went KABOOM. Serving chicken because they're serving burgers may seem smart, until they add chicken to their menu.

 

[lil steroid meat]

The "create new stars" shit is so ******ed. How in the hell is TNA going to make their guys as big as WWE guys if WWE has triple the audience? That makes no sense. Everyone loves everything ECW did in their hay day. Were RVD and Taz as well know as even the lower card WWF/WCW guys? Hell no, only people that watched ECW knew who they were. Is that because ECW were idiots and didn't know how to make new stars? WWE could take 10 guys from TNA and book them EXACTLY the same way TNA has over the years. Same angles, feuds, promos, everything. And they'd be bigger in WWE than they were in TNA. Because they have more eyeballs on their product. I'm getting really sick of people getting on their soapbox talking about creating new stars to try and pretend they know something about wrestling.

And BTW, there is no surviving being a "niche" in pro wrestling. WWE can always cover ground. When people turned away from them in favor of ECW's hardcore wrestling and edgy storylines, we got the attitude era and ECW went KABOOM. Serving chicken because they're serving burgers may seem smart, until they add chicken to their menu.

Well, ECW's demise had nothing to do with WWE's product being edgier, it was because of money troubles, plus the fact that Spike/TNN dropped their show for RAW, which was a proven ratings juggernaut at the time and the bigger brand obviously vs. ECW not being a sure ratings grab. And without a TV deal in a pre-internet society, as a wrestling company with a certain budget, you are pretty much dead. WWE's product change took nothing from ECW's fanbase. Even the Attitude Era was still a watered down version of ECW's stuff. But this doesn't have shit to do with shit, just flexing my pointless fucking knowledge/opinions of the business of pro wrestling lol.

First off, you can't compare ECW to TNA because TNA has Panda Energy backing them, ECW had no money behind them. The Panda Energy backing leads me to my next point, which is the main reason TNA hasn't been able to create a star in it's existence, is that very few casual wrestling fans know it exists.

Even with established guys like Hardy, Angle, Sting, etc., TNA doesn't market itself well enough to where people even know the company exists, let alone give a damn about any of the guys there.

Start having the guys do some talk show appearances where you plug the show, air more commercials (I have never seen a TNA commercial that wasn't for a local house show), increase the general public's awareness of the company in general, and from there it's on creative and the wrestlers themselves to make stars that people care about.

As far as the niche point, you are wrong. In a lot of ways, WWE cannot start "serving chicken" because it's too big to do so. Too many shareholders, Linda McMahon doing her political thing, and too reliant on star power. And most of all, it's worked hard to earn a reputation as a family entertainment company.

There are a lot of things WWE cannot do . . . not because they don't have the ability to, but because they have to answer to too many people.

Obviously, they can't be too edgy or say certain things in promos (promos these days are often very generic and corny and follow a script strictly vs. 10-15 years ago when you could tell Rock or Jericho or Austin were just flowing off of the top of their head) because of it's family entertainment reputation, Linda McMahon's political endeavors + the bullying campaign.

No blood for, again, the family entertainment thing.

They have a list of banned moves for whatever reason.

They really don't trust smaller guys to be able to do the job, which cuts out a lot of indy guys (and this isn't really something they are locked into, but as long as Vince is alive, I'm sure he has the vision that every year WM should be main evented by Greek god looking giants, and rightfully so, because that's the spectacle that he has built up for Wrestlemania. Daniel Bryan, for as over as he is, looks like a regular dude, and would still look weird main eventing Wrestlemania vs. the past years of the larger than life stars (physically and gimmick-wise) like the Austins, Takers, Hogans, Rocks, Cenas, Lesnars, Batistas, etc.)

They have too many stars for their own good, ESPECIALLY now with one title. Prime example right now is the Daniel Bryan situation. Bryan is the most over man in pro wrestling right now and should be winning the Rumble tomorrow, and going on to win the title at Mania, but the WWE has too many stars right now for that. You got Lesnar, Batista, Taker, Cena, Orton, Punk, HHH ALL needing a place at WM, that for an unestablished guy like Bryan, you don't wanna risk putting the main event on him (and rightfully so, the WWE has more eyes than ever right now and they are trying to play it safe and have a more typical main event like an Orton-Batista or Lesnar-Batista).

I say all that to say that TNA can exploit these weaknesses:

- Don't do that Russo crash TV shit, but give talent more freedom in their promos, vs. the strict "you must follow the script" almost teleprompter style of WWE.

- Let talent have freedom to do all their moves in the ring, be known for an edgier style of in-ring product.

- Don't worry about size, in fact, you can almost LOOK for smaller guys because of the X-Division. The X-Division is probably the thing they need to put a lot of focus on, because the WWE has no alternative.

- And this is the most important thing, don't worry about established stars, start creating your own. Aside from Angle, Hardy and Sting at certain points in time, nobody in TNA were HUUUGE draws. The Monday Night Wars were 20 years ago . . . nobody from that era is a huge draw anymore, and the only other people who have been huge draws since then are occupied by the WWE. Start letting older talent go and scour the indies and create new stars. The WWE doesn't have this luxury to just put new guys in the main event, because they have the Ortons and Punks and Cenas and Lesnars and Batistas who they have to give main event slots to before lower tier guys like Reigns and Bryan. And even then, they are looking at former bodybuilders and football players before they even think about going to the indies to get a new guy.

I know I kinda rambled, but their definitely is a niche to be occupied by TNA. WWE is family sports entertainment with a safe in-ring product. TNA could definitely be the opposite of that without trying to compete directly. It's room for two different mainstream wrestling products. Right now, TNA just switches its creative direction between WCW 2000 and modern day WWE with cuss words.

And even if WWE abandons it's corporate connections, Linda's political aspirations, and PR image that it's worked so hard for since Benoit (fat chance) + Vince drastically changes all of his opinions about what pro wrestling is (even fatter fucking chance), is TNA supposed to not try to be different just off of the fear and potential of the WWE "serving chicken"?

 

[Reflection]

Didn't Hogan arrive in 2010? Why then were they chanting "Screw Hulk Hogan" in 2009?
Anyway, in my opinion the main place where they fell apart were the general storyline for almost all the feuds. Their quality fell tremendously, and I went from watching ~40 episodes of TNA a year during 2006-09 to hardly around 4 episodes a year during 2010-14.
Another place they handled terribly were the title pictures. It was a complete clusterfuck. One month Rob Van Dam was the World Champion, next month he was competing for the X-Division title. The matches seemed like they were just thrown in together, there was no continuity, there was insufficient build-up most of the time.
And I'm only talking about the product side of things, not the business side.
Then there were also other blinders they made, like shifting focus away from what they specialized in, namely- the knockouts division, the x-division and the tag team division, and instead they focused on the singles division which was starting to get criticised for being mostly composed of "has-beens", and also random stables from time to time.
While it all could be a coincidence at the same time as Hogan and Eric's arrival, it is widely believed that most of these were their idea, along with poor business moves... So I'd say they deserve a lot of the blame.

 

[TNA cross the line]

Didn't Hogan arrive in 2010? Why then were they chanting "Screw Hulk Hogan" in 2009?

It was the December PPV for 2009 and the Hogan deal had already been announced. I always thought that TNA made this main event because they knew Hogan and Bischoff wouldn't have it when they came in.

 

[Cereal Killer]

It was the December PPV for 2009 and the Hogan deal had already been announced. I always thought that TNA made this main event because they knew Hogan and Bischoff wouldn't have it when they came in.

Not really. Everyone was excited about their arrivals. Everyone expected a change. Why did that crowd chanted "Screw Hulk Hogan?" They wanted the TNA roster to remain with fresh blood. The match was always likely to happen again, or something similar to it but I suppose they thought Hogan was unnecessary.

When Hogan was in TNA, the main complaint was that there was too much of him. The years before he came, the few members of the IWC's main complaint was that the veterans were always in the spotlight. After the Main Event Mafia demise, it seemed as if the bookers were driving off of the older talent and onto the younger ones. The final two months of 2009 looked like a new direction. The roster was red hot, the booking was pretty good and they had kept that indie style element to a limit. Around the same time the feud with AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe was going on, we also had the near 5-star matches with Desmond Wolfe and Kurt Angle. The product is still very entertaining today, I just find that a lot of their momentum from after one of their best years was lost.