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TNA is embarking on a series of significant changes in how they present and market
their product, with the first changes announced being in the PPV department.
After just announcing a cutback to ten shows from 12, they have now announced they
are cutting back to four live PPV per year, After Genesis on 1/13, the only live PPV
shows left this year will be Lockdown on 3/10 in San Antonio, Slammiversary from the
Northeast on 6/9, and Bound for Glory on 10/10.
Genesis was expected to be the last PPV show done in Orlando, or at least of the live
shows. From this point forward, they are all scheduled to be taped on the road.
Lockdown and Slammiversary will see a price increase from $34.95 to $39.95, while
Bound for Glory will be priced at $44.95.
The move is because they couldn’t make money on the 7,000 to 12,000 buys they are estimated
at doing for most of their shows (really all but Bound for Glory and Lockdown).
Even though there has been an apparent small increase in numbers since making Jeff
Hardy champion, it’s in the grand scheme of things, very minor.
The idea is that making PPVs more special and more rare will lead to an increase in
buys. Adding the higher price point would hopefully enable them to get up to whatever
break-even would be. In a sense, it’s a move backwards to the early days of PPV when
every event was seen as special. A few years ago, somewhat by necessity when a lot of
big name boxing matches were doing bad numbers (bad as in 200,000 or less) on PPV,
the decision by HBO was to cut back on PPVs and put on more fights that would have
been on PPV as HBO fights. The big boxing PPVs, now rare, did go up. But that’s a different
situation, because TNA is a secondary product, and there are still the lower
priced secondary boxing PPV shows, and they don’t do any real business even with the
decrease.
It’s essentially a realization, or recognition, that they simply aren’t going to be able to
build up to a break-even number, even cutting back to eight live shows, and they have
to take a different approach.
Dixie Carter and others in the company had for a few years talked about eight PPVs being
the optimal number, but not being able to make the move because they had existing
long-team contracts both with the U.S. PPV providers and also for overseas markets to
produce monthly shows. That’s why I’m surprised they didn’t first cut back to eight and
see how that went.
Evidently they didn’t have the confidence that would be a game
changer and they needed major changes. The realization is after all this time, no matter
what is said publicly, is that they aren’t increasing their popularity to the point they can
get the PPV business back to what it once was.
Because of international television contracts to provide 12 three-hour specials, they will
be taping a number of additional shows. On 1/12 in Orlando, the day before Genesis,
the company taped two different shows, one of which is scheduled to air in February
and the other in April overseas. Originally these shows were not earmarked for any airing
in the U.S., because Spike wasn’t interested in adding additional TNA programming.
TNA did the hour before Bound for Glory, the same way Spike used to do for the
hour before UFC PPV shows, and the ratings were not even released, which tells you
how bad they must have been.
The plan now is for seven of the eight additional PPV type programs to be taped and air
on a several month delay in the U.S., as $14.95 PPV shows called TNA One Night Only,
even though they’ll actually be airing most months.
The first, taped on 1/12, is called TNA X-Travaganza, a mostly X Division show that
will air on 4/5, the Friday night before WrestleMania. The second, a Joker’s Wild tag
team tournament that was also taped this past week, is scheduled to air on 5/3.
Airing taped PPV programming cuts way back on expenses, but you still have to produce
the show.
If they are getting 8,000 for a live show, it’s doubtful they could get nearly
that much for a show taped months earlier, with no storylines, and not including the
top draws like Jeff Hardy, Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan or Sting. It’s a test of how many true
hardcore fans of the product they have who will buy everything TNA related, because
they can’t be expected to draw anything past that audience. The price may be a novelty
that will get people to order once, but cut price gimmicks in wrestling rarely work the
second time. But whether people buy or not, the shows have to be taped to fulfill contracts.
The taped shows would have multiple air dates throughout the month, although
TNA PPVs have always had that, but of late have done almost no late business.
Friday may also be a bad night to debut, because if they are in prime time, that means
they go head-to-head with Smackdown, which has storylines, bigger stars, is more upto-
date, and is the incumbent and stronger show. TNA got destroyed going on traditional
wrestling Monday night against Raw, and going on a harder to draw night with a
PPV against a free show is a tough deal.
The one thing this shows is a realization that there isn’t going to be significant growth in
the traditional aspects of the business. TNA has its loyal fans, just not enough of them,
which is kind of the story of secondary level wrestling. TNA, like ROH in recent years,
has tried to attract new viewers and a broader audience, losing money with the idea the
exposure and gaining new viewers would equal new customers.
Instead, the mentality now seems to be how best to make money, or perhaps more accurately,
lose the least amount of money while catering to the audience you already have.
After May, the $14.95 PPV dates this year will be 7/5, 8/2, 9/6, 11/1 and 12/6. There
will also be one show that doesn’t air in the U.S. that will be taped for international television
this year.
The other themed PPV shows are scheduled as:
*TNA Hardcore Justice - A show with nothing but hardcore matches, including bringing
back wrestlers from the past.
*TNA Reunion - A show bringing back wrestlers who have left the company for one
night, and having the show done in the six-sided ring.
*TNA Knockouts Knockdown - An all women’s show. It will be a one-night singles tournament.
The tournament will continue until they are down to four women, who will
wrestle in a four-way match.
*TNA International Incident - A one-night singles tournament featuring wrestlers from
around the world being brought in, including from Europe, Japan, Canada, Mexico and
India. Wrestlers from AAA are expected on this show, as well as to British independents
along with the U.K. wrestlers on the roster, working with one of the major Japanese
groups and for India, likely some of the wrestlers used for the Ring Ka King project.
*TNA X Division World Cup - This will be a one-night four-team tournament with
wrestlers representing four countries competing for points that will include singles,
tags, trios and eight-person matches.
*TNA World Cup - Four different teams of four wrestlers each will compete in a series
of matches. Each team will consist of a heavyweight, an X Division wrestler and a tag
team. The show will end with two-ring Triple Chance Battle Royal.
Another key difference in business is that they now have to include more championship
matches on television and except when the big shows are coming up, the focus of television
will be almost completely promoted television as opposed to using television to
create matches for the PPV. It’s actually a completely different mentality, because as a
general rule, when putting together TV, the idea is to plan out a PPV card, and book
matches that involve interaction of people in those matches. Instead, it’s more like booking
a weekly house show, except in the period of however many weeks before gearing
one of the big four shows. But it also means that at least the money matches for those
shows should have to be done several months ahead since, at least with the main events
and title matches, you would want at least a booking outline for where you are going
since every PPV now is a major show.
The idea of more time between shows would in theory mean more time to hype the
shows. But TNA now usually has four or five weeks between shows, and they still don’t
promote anything close a full lineup until three days before the show, which is one of
the reasons the shows don’t do well. So one of the benefits of running fewer shows,
more time to build and hype the matches, is something they already had more time than
they were using to begin with.
They taped two shows on 1/12 in Orlando, one at 1 p.m. and the other at 7 p.m. Attendance
was smaller at the afternoon session, which was the Joker’s Wild tag team tournament.
So many people were leaving that as the show was going on that they announced
that if you stayed until the end of the taping, you would get a free TNA T-shirt. People
left during the evening show, but not nearly as many. Much of the audience was people
from the park, who came in because there was a show, but they weren’t interested in
staying for three hours, as opposed to wrestling fans who came specifically for the
shows like at the live PPV the next day or the Thursday night tapings.
The matches were taped with no announcers present. Even though they were all in
town since they came on Thursday for Impact and had another shoot on Sunday, so it
wasn’t even expense, they didn’t even bring them out to do shots or opens and closes,
even if commentary will be done at a later date to make it more up-to-date. Another
thing is, if any decisions are made to change any of the characters on the show, it makes
for that awkward viewing where you see them in their January roles in May, if characters
have evolved any, not to mention if wrestlers on these shows ended up injured, either
for real or storyline.
The first show was a blind draw series of tag team matches, leading to all the winners
going into a Rumble style Battle Royal with $100,000 in Monopoly money to the winner.
They brought a tumbler into the ring to start the show with Christy Hemme drawing
balls to set up the matches.
1. James Storm & Christian York beat Gunner & Crimson when Storm pinned Gunner
after a superkick.
2. Ken Anderson & Jessie Godderz beat Douglas Williams & Kid Kash when Anderson
pinned Kash with an inside cradle. For what it’s worth, Anderson worked as a babyface
and this is scheduled to air in May. He laid Godderz out with the mic check. Mostly
comedy.
3. Christopher Daniels & Samoa Joe beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Rob Van Dam when Van
Dam was on the top rope, but Joe quickly recovered and gave Van Dam a muscle buster
for the pin. This was the best match on this show.
4. Bobby Roode & Joseph Park beat Robbie E & Zema Ion. Park was still doing the same
act and this isn’t scheduled to air until May. Park suggested they could call their team,
“Law and Order.” Roode told Park to stay in the corner. The finish saw Park see his
own blood, turn into Abyss and lay out both men with black hole slams, and then turns
back into Joseph Park. Roode pinned Ion.
5. Devon & Doc beat Hernandez & Alex Silva when Doc pinned Silva after a choke
slam.
6. Robbie T & Matt Morgan beat Joey Ryan & Al Snow. Morgan and Ryan never went
against each other until the very end, even though the next day they started a break-up
between the two. Morgan pinned Ryan after the carbon footprint.
7. The story of the Rumble was like when Shawn Michaels won the 1995 Royal Rumble
with Davey Boy Smith at the end. Storm and Roode started the match, and would throw
everyone else out and start fighting each other. It came down to Storm, Roode, Devon
and Morgan. Storm threw out Morgan. Storm then threw out Devon, and finally Storm
eliminated Roode hitting the superkick. Storm was then given an oversized publicity
check.
The wrestling was mostly good, although nothing was blow away. I don’t know that
there are a lot of people who will buy everything TNA does, because that’s largely the
only people who are going to buy this, unless it gets pushed hard on the television leading
up to it.
The second show was said to be better. A basic show but the wrestling was mostly
good. Again, since it won’t air until April, they didn’t do a lot of storylines. A lot of
guys from TNA’s past were brought in. The only one advertised who didn’t appear was
Amazing Red.
Some of the crowd, the real wrestling fans, had been there all day but they were with
this pretty well until the fourth match. The crowd wasn’t as much into the later matches.
1. They opened with an X Division X-scape the cage match which had Christian York,
Jimmy Rave, Matt Bentley, Puma (T.J. Perkins under a mask), Lince Dorado, Alex Silva
and Sam Shaw. The work was fine but nothing special. Rave and York were the last two
and York delivered a neckbreaker off the top rope and escaped to win.
2. Douglas Williams & Kid Kash beat Anthony Nese & Rashad Cameron (Jeez). Good
match with a lot of big moves and near falls, ending when Williams pinned Nese with
the Chaos Theory suplex. Nese was the standout in the match.
3. Chavo Guerrero Jr. pinned Robbie E after the three Amigos and frog splash. Joseph
Park was referee. They explained that Park was referee because his brother was a former
X Division champion. Short match, which wasn’t much.
4. Kenny King won a four-way Ultimate X match over Zema Ion, Rubix (Jigsaw from
CHIKARA) and Mason Andrews (Scorpio Sky, whose twitter stupidity that got WWE
not using him didn’t stop TNA from using him). Very good match.
5. Christopher Daniels & Kazarian beat Sonjay Dutt & Petey Williams when Daniels
pinned Dutt after the Best Moonsault Ever.
6. Rob Van Dam pinned Jerry Lynn in a no DQ match, which was billed as the last
match the two of them would have. Van Dam won with the frog splash. Said to be very
good. After the match was over, the two hugged and then everyone in the locker room
came out and clapped for Lynn in his send-off.
7. Austin Aries pinned Samoa Joe by getting out of a muscle buster and winning with a
roll-up. Best match on the show. Strong main event.
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Lisa Varon (Tara) is opening her restaurant in Chicago in March and also have a documentary
being produced on her called “Tarafied.”
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Jeff Hardy is going to be off four weeks of television because they are taping four
shows in the U.K. and Hardy due to his felony conviction, at least at this point, isn’t
allowed to go to the U.K. At least he’s not being advertised for any of the shows. So
either they will have to tape backstage stuff ahead of time for him, which they rarely
do, or more likely, they’ll do an injury angle with him at the TV tapings this coming
week. They are going live on 1/17 and then 1/18 will be another show in Orlando for
the 1/24 air date. That’s one of the reasons they are rushing the Bully Ray/Brooke
Hogan wedding angle, because they aren’t going live again until 2/28.
--
The belief is that several wrestlers associated with Bully Ray from his past, probably
ex-ECW wrestlers, were contacted to appear as part of the wedding party for this
week’s show.
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
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