TNA News

[Hektik 0]

These are excerpts from the 8/16 Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

 

While not announced officially, several sources have confirmed that TNA has made the decision to cease weekly PPV shows on 9/8.

 

The decision at this point is to do monthly three hour shows on Sunday evening, similar to WWE and Pride, starting in November. Starting at 9/14, the Orlando taping will be moved from Thursday to Tuesdays, to give them more time to edit and post produce the show for Friday. There will be taped best of PPV shows airing 9/15, 9/22, and 9/29, but as of the end of September, TNA won't have Wednesday night PPVs, and won't be doing PPV shows in October. The idea is to have a 7-10 week build for the first Sunday show.

 

Since WWE is the powerhouse and has its dates locked up months in advance, it will become a game between Pride and TNA to get dates locked up first. On months that WWE does two PPV shows, those two companies will have to fight over the two remaining dates. While Pride is far bigger, and does slightly better on PPV in the U.S., TNA is more organized long term. The idea at this point is $29.95 per show, which I think may be a little on the high side, at least to start out. The plan is to upgrade the shows, running them in mid-sized arenas (5,000 to 7,000 seats) throughout the country. Most likely, that will change when they realize they can't sell tickets. The original TNA TV plan was similar, but after only being able to sell about 100 tickets for the debut show in Huntsville, AL, they moved to Nashville as a permanent home, at the 9,000 seat Municipal Auditorium. When they couldn't sell tickets there, they moved to the 1,300 seat Fairgrounds, where they usually come close to filling the building with free tickets, as the paid is usually hovering around 300 to 400.

 

Going to 5,000 seat to 7,000 seat arenas, and different cities, will increase costs somewhat. With major monthly shows, they can hype them better, and also should bring in outside headliners. The could probably do shows like that on a $150,000 budget, and maybe a little less. At $29.95, they can break even for the night on 10,000 to 11,500 buys, which is hardly an unreasonable number. As noted before, taking into account the costs of still doing weekly television, as a company, they aren't going to do well on less than 27,000 buys. At this point, there is talk of Fox Sports Net moving the show to a Sunday morning time slot. No decision has been made, but the slot being talked about is 11 a.m., which would go head to head with WWE Experience. That wouldn't be the worst idea, because nobody watches Experience, and it would look good if the company could come close to, or even beat a WWE show on Spike, head-to-head while on the weaker FSN. That gives them something to brag about, and if they can dual evenly in the slot with WWE, and I'd think they might be able to, it might help their chances of getting the necessary time slot upgrade, because in this day of age, Sunday morning isn't it either. The negative for Sunday morning, is come September, once the NFL starts, the show would be bucking NFL football on the west coast, and football is the only thing that historically is proven to bite a chunk out of wrestling ratings.

 

The buisness relationship with AAA and Antonio Pena fell apart. No reason was given other than the general impossibility of doing buisness with Pena. They were talking about a joint PPV in San Diego when he stopped coming. Even though TNA hasn't used Hector Garza, suddenly Garza decided he could make better money and be paid on time and didn't feel like being under Pena's thumb and quit. With Latin Lover threatening to leave and Heavy Metal also making noise, Pena didn't want to send guys to get a taste of better money, so just stopped doing buisness with TNA. Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantell wanted to go to CMLL, which has better wrestlers and far more depth than AAA, but Mike Tenay advised tham against doing so, saying they would just wind up with the same problems, and they could book the biggest name talent in Mexico on their own since the highest paid guys now are independents.

 

On 8/11, they are debuting the original La Parka under his name L.A. Park (to avoid legal action from Pena who owns the rights to the Parka name). Strangely, they are billing the original Psicosis under that name, even though Pena owns the rights to that gimmick as well as uses a different wrestler under that name, and the original Psicosis wrestles in Mexico as Nicho. At this point they are not booking Hector Garza until he can offer proof that he is legally out of his AAA contract, as they aren't looking for legal problems with from Pena. They are also going to use Super Crazy when his paperwork gets done, and plans are to use El Hijo Del Santo for major shows as an attraction and Perro Aguayo Jr.'s name has also been bandied about.

[Guest Staravenger]

I wouldn't be against La Parka being around every now and then. One of the few WCW "Cruiserweights" I enjoyed a lot.

[Guest whitemilesdavis]

The original TNA TV plan was similar, but after only being able to sell about 100 tickets for the debut show in Huntsville, AL, they moved to Nashville as a permanent home, at the 9,000 seat Municipal Auditorium. When they couldn't sell tickets there, they moved to the 1,300 seat Fairgrounds, where they usually come close to filling the building with free tickets, as the paid is usually hovering around 300 to 400.

 

That's just pathetic. This company needs someone to manage the business and marketing side.

 

All the Lucha names they are throwing about sound good. You never know who could end up being the next Eddie or Rey.

[starvenger 0]

I could see them going to the Detroit area, specifically Windsor Arena. I don't know if D'Amore still runs Border City Wrestling, but I'm sure he's got some contacts up there.

[Guest Staravenger]

I'm really amazed TNA didn't die after a few weeks. 2 years and running and TNA is still going despite losing money.

 

They have a good amount of (known) talent, have good production in my opinion (well, the camera work at least.) and are able to bring in big name talent for high amount of money now and then.

 

Whats even more amazing is they now have 2 national television shows (Impact & Xplosion) and are looking to become more "big" by dumping the weekly PPV format for once a month shots with real build up.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Of course it's amazing. TNA wasn't supposed to survive into 2003, but they did because Panda liked the promise they saw in the product. Why Panda stayed on board when the product turned to utter shit I'll never understand, though...

[Guest The Last Free Voice]

They must still have faith it can turn around. I hold that same faith. Hopefully I'm right.

 

The luchadores looked good last night. But Psi was under his mask... Isn't that a HUGE no no?

[Guest Staravenger]

The luchadores looked good last night. But Psi was under his mask... Isn't that a HUGE no no?

In Mexico it's a huge no-no, if he actually DID lose a mask/whatever match (I didn't watch WCW in 1998-on much and don't follow Lucha Libre).

 

I'm glad he has the mask, it makes him stand out. During the first show of TNA, he didn't look like anything but a random jobber.

[Guest Donners]

Super Crazy? Awesome.

[Guest Markingout]

The luchadores looked good last night. But Psi was under his mask... Isn't that a HUGE no no?

In Mexico it's a huge no-no, if he actually DID lose a mask/whatever match (I didn't watch WCW in 1998-on much and don't follow Lucha Libre).

He lost the mask in a match in Tijuana vs Rey Mysterio Sr. Long story, their.

 

Anyways, in Mexico it is a big no no, but in the US, no one cares. Nicho will probably get heat for his Mexico.

 

He wore the mask at the Super 8, but took it off during the match.