NoDQ.com > Columns > Off The Top Rope: The last straw for TNA? Posted by Charles Deane on 03/30/2008 at 12:54 PM
MITB: Kennedy
Bunnymania: Don’t care.
Mayweather-Show: Show
Finlay-JBL: Finlay
ECW: Kane (but only because everyone else is convinced he will, I have no idea really)
WHC: Taker
WWE: HHH
Flair-HBK: HBK
There are my Mania predictions. I’m not going to dwell on them. Instead I’m going to dwell on something else wrestling related in Orlando: TNA.
Yes, that’s right, once again I am doing a ‘TNA hater’ column as one of you put it so bluntly last time, but this time I don’t really care what you think because everything I’m about to say is stone cold, undeniable FACT as opposed to opinion. You see, TNA f**cked up. The first ever live edition of iMPACT was a complete and utter failure in so many ways. I don’t even know how they did it. Well actually, I do, but I don’t know why.
Everything was set up for them, all they had to do was put on a good show and live TNA could have become a staple of our weekly wrestling. With thousands of wrestling fans descending on Orlando for Wrestlemania, they had the opportunity to present their product to new fans.
Except, if reports are to be believed, most of the seats were reserved for VIPs and only the bare minimum of paying customers were allowed into the iMPACT zone. This proves two things:
1) TNA are idiots. Presumably the VIPs got in for free and also were already fans of the product. This means that they lost gate fees as well as the chance to gain new fans.
(EDIT: This point is rendered null apparently since a reader named Jason has informed me attendence is free; is included in the price of getting into the park. I was not aware of this at first, so thanks for telling me Jason!)
2) The iMPACT zone was too small to hold their first live show. They would have been better off doing it somewhere with s bigger capacity. I know this week was too big an opportunity to miss, but if TNA want to grow they need a bigger venue or start doing more shows on the road.
The matter of fans being turned away is not the only problem there was with the show, however. There’s the point of its rating: 1.0. Not only is this not a new ratings record for TNA, as even I predicted, but it’s not even what you’d call a good score for TNA. How did they manage to get it so low? Well, I can’t explain everything about it, but one of the reasons might be because the show wasn’t particularly special.
I watched the show, not live of course, but I managed to track it down and watch it nonetheless and what struck me was how… ordinary it was. It wasn’t a bad show, but there was just nothing special about it. There were no big debuts, no big matches, nothing you wouldn’t expect to see on a regular edition of iMPACT. If you removed all the references that the show was in fact live (although mind you, that would certainly be cutting out a lot) there wouldn’t have been anything about the show which would have led you to believe there was anything special about it. Even the aforementioned crowd didn’t seem to be particularly into it. They were lively, as TNA crowds always are, but they weren’t exactly going nuts.
This might sound harsh. I may go back on this in future, to be fair. Regardless, I really do think this could be TNA’s last chance wasted. After such a mediocre performance, I don’t see TNA securing a permanent live deal, certainly not in the near future, and not having a live show really harms its credibility which will make it hard to attract new fans and so on and so forth until they are trapped in a downward spiral and die.
I’m genuinely sad, but truth be told the blame lies solely on TNA itself, and with the absurd decisions they continue to make (WHY OH WHY IS CHRISTOPHER DANIELS FORCED TO PRANCE AROUND AS CURRY MAN?) as well as their refusal to learn from their own mistakes, it’s pretty hard to feel sorry for them.
I hope all of you that will be watching Wrestlemania enjoy it.
~ Sheepling
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