Worried the NEW Monday Night Wars will end soon?

[Takerfan93]

As you must know, TNA is airing from 8 - 10 on the 4th April to see how they do ratings-wise in that timeslot. This concerns me because if they move, it will be a huge step back. The fact that a new Monday Night War has finally happened is a dream come true for old wrestling fans, and is a great things for newer fans to experience. It hasn't heated up yet but it won't be able to at all if they change its timeslot. And on top of that, it was reported earlier that they are having quite serious financial problems due to the large amount of new talent they have hired, the expensive cost of going live, all the advertising etc. Things aren't looking good so early on in this new war.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I've said this before in other posts and so have others. There is no new Monday Night War going on. Hulk Hogan made a lot of bragadocious remarks about TNA taking over Monday nights, teaching Vince McMahon everything he knows and openly declaring "war" on the WWE. For all the big talk, you cannot seriously have a ratings war between two shows when one show's audience is roughly 5 times that of the other. Raw's average audience in 2010 has been somewhere around 5.3-5.4 million whereas the average audience of iMPACT! has been somewhere around 1.1-1.2 million overall.

If TNA wants to build a bigger audience for itself, then it's not going to happen going head to head against WWE Raw. Fans can argue and debate as to who has the better roster, which is the better company, who puts on the best matches, etc. until their tongues fall out. It's all conjecture and personal opinion and it's just plain fun to discuss. However, ratings have always been a discernable, unquestioned method of determining success of a product. Right now, iMPACT! is getting killed going head to head against Raw and I've heard no explanation from anyone as to why that's likely to change.

For the three hour edition of iMPACT! on January 4th, TNA began at 8 pm, a full hour in which they had no competition from the WWE. The first hour of that broadcast pulled a 1.7 and while the next two hours of the show did lose viewers head to head against the WWE, the numbers generated by that first hour unopposed by the WWE helped bring up the numbers of the show overall to the biggest audience TNA iMPACT! has ever had. Now, Hulk Hogan's presence on the show was hyped and advertised for months and there's no doubt that helped out quite a bit. If iMPACT! does move to an 8-10 pm timeslot on a permanent basis, then they'll have a better chance of increasing their ratings at least back up to their normal levels because they'll have one full hour in which they're not opposed by Raw. Even if they do lose viewers in the 9-10 pm timeslot against Raw, there's still the potential that first hour could pull up the numbers for the show overall.

Frankly, I feel it was a stupid and downright arrogant decision on TNA's part to try and go head to head against the WWE despite having only a fraction of it's viewers. TNA NEEDS to take that big step back in order to regroup, maybe come up with a new strategy. Or, better yet, maybe actually wait for several years and build up their product before trying to take on the WWE.

 

[Takerfan93]

Technically there is a war going on though, it may not be an even war, but it is a war nonetheless as they are going head to head in the ratings. I just was hoping they would be better competition because then WWE, which as everyone knows is very stale right now, would step up their game. I was so exited for a Monday Night War because I wasn't a wrestling fan during the first one, but all the momentum has kind of been lost. And WCW didn't exactly start out with huge ratings but they grew as they went along, competing with WWE, and they prepared for around the same amount of time TNA have. I think they need to realise that Hogan and Flair aren't the draws they were during their prime. For example, when people turned the first permanent Monday night iMPACT! on they saw a bald 60 year old and a balding 56 year old wrestling, when they turned on RAW, they saw Undertaker and HBK, no need to explain that really lets be honest

 

[hatehabsforever]

Worried that the new Monday Night Wars will end soon? Not really, because as far as I'm concerned, they already are over.

There cannot be another Monday Night War era like there was back in the WWF/WCW days. All the reasons have been discussed to death on these forums: internet spoiler sites, 90-day no compete clauses, PVR's, ownership of wrestler's names, the change in climate of the professional wrestling industry, as well as other reasons I'm sure. Rather than focus on a war, TNA should focus on a co-existence with the WWE, establishing their own niche along side of the WWE, rather than trying to compete with it. If they insist on waging war, they will come up on the short end of things, and will go the route of WCW or ECW.

The war was over before it began. Just look at the numbers. And who's going to change it? Samoa Joe? Jeff Hardy? RVD? Hogan and company? None of these guys can mount and sustain a realistic challenge to the WWE. So there's no war.