The Future of TNA --- is it just me or...?

[Goldash]

Is it just me or is anyone REALLY excited to see what TNA will do in the next few months? Going on tour and broadcasting live every other week is a bigger jump for the company than anything in its history previous to this point. Their failed attempt at a "new Monday Night War" was a joke from the start, knowing very well that their insular Impact Zone and one-off house shows weren't going to get them ahead.

I also have a feeling that the old guard who joined TNA to get away from touring in Florida will slowly become phased out or turn into the equivalent of WWE part-timers. This is a good opportunity to build their younger mainstays --- AJ, Aries, Roode, Daniels, Kaz, Joe, Park/Abyss, Bully (to name a few) --- into bonafide stars and the main focus of their programming.

Bully Ray's multi-part reveal of "the hoax" leading up to his Lockdown heel turn was nothing short of a brilliant way to explain a confusing, highly criticized angle --- almost pulling a fast one on the IWC for thinking it was so crappy in the first place, when it was either highly calculated or just a great way to explain a massive clusterfuck of wrestling logic.

Then again, this is TNA. Every single time they've had an opportunity to capitalize on something huge, they've ruined it through creative stupidity. This is not the fault of the people in the ring --- their roster is one of the most impressive in all of wrestling, after all --- but the people on top. Instead of using their resources to create something larger than life, they go the opposite direction and create something bush-league.

I've had just about enough of the old guard, anyway. Vince Russo has been replaced by ex-WWE head Bruce Prichard, but that only says so much. I'm actually quite confident in TNA's ideas, though. Open Fight Night, Gut Check, the Bound For Glory series --- they've always been on the cutting edge of new ideas. But their need to constantly rekindle the flame of WCW is appalling, especially with their yearly "gigantic heel stable taking over TNA" angle like the Main Event Mafia, Fortune, Immortal and now Aces and 8's.

I'm also not a fan of their "dramatic" backstage angles. It gives the appearance of reality TV with the use of DSLR cameras but it moves TNA further away from convention. It takes a while to get used to, but I'm slowly getting used to seeing it. It's still going to be a bit annoying in places, like TNA doesn't know what kind of show they want Impact Wrestling to be. But, hey --- when you're a distant #2, innovation from the norm (in this case, WWE) should be your M.O.

If the Aces angle is a success, I honestly hope they do away with the "evil stable" angles and think of new, groundbreaking ways to push their talent. How WWE could turn CM Punk into an icon during one summer while AJ Styles, Austin Aries and Christopher Daniels languish in obscurity is beyond me. They just need a consistent run of hot angles, matches and wrestlers to gain momentum...maybe now is the time.

I've been saying that a healthy TNA means a healthy wrestling industry. The last time I said that (the crazy "boom period" crap that people were excited for after Money in the Bank 2011 for example) I was dead wrong. Hulk Hogan may be to blame, Eric Bischoff may be as well --- but the correct creative decisions need to be made in order for them to stay afloat. Otherwise, this chance may never come again and we'll all be reading R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez's "The Death of TNA" before long.

[Joshua Bishop]

As I am a TNA fan myself, I felt the need to reply to this post.

I am in big approval of these big changes to the TNA product. Personally I feel as if Hogan and Bischoff were the ones behind the move to start going on the road, because as Hulk himself has even said in interviews: how can this brand expand and grow nationally if there isn't a need to go out on the road and actually start TRYING to stir things up and eventually come up to go head-to-head with the WWE? I'm sure TNA's primary goal isn't competition with WWE, but I know for a fact that they're right about one thing: You have to TRY to go on the road and TRY to expand your product. It was well past time for TNA to get out of Orlando, and they've made so much stride by doing just that. Their sets look big league and their production is slick - I personally prefer the look and feel of Impact compared to Raw and Smackdown. Seeing Impact in different towns has only helped the product gain prominence, as angles, matches, and talent have gained much more importance by being out in front of a hot crowd. Many people called TNA crazy for running the Alamodome for Lockdown, and look what it gave them. For the very small portion of the full arena they used, they drew their biggest crowd in history. TNA also does well in getting the crowd involved in their camera shots, because it only helps their standing by displaying a crowd in full force, because it just helps you realize how far this company has come since the Asylum days in Nashville. Dumping Russo was the best thing that could have happened for the product, because look at what has happened to TNA with Pritchard and Lagana at the helm. It's by no means the best product on the market (I personally believe that honor belongs to New Japan), but it's far better than WWE is at the current moment, and it's consistently delivered quality entertainment over the past year, aside from a few bleak spots (Claire Lynch, anyone?)

Cutting down from 12 pay-per-view events to 4 was easily the other smartest move that TNA has made all year. Instead of having monthly events that feel like TNA is just chugging out Wrestler A vs Wrestler B to get to the next month, they now have 2-3 months of Impacts to play with and help set the backdrop for their remaining events - that means Slammiversary and Bound For Glory, for example, will feel much, much more important. I can only see buyrates going up for TNA by building up 4 large, extravagant events instead of just chugging out whatever they feel like doing for the next month. It also allows TNA to make Impact a bigger program because they can use certain Impacts (such as the incoming event on the 11th in Corpus Christi) to allow them to have huge matches on television for free, without giving too much away. I believe their big money program in the long-term will see Bully Ray face Sting at Slammiversary, and then AJ Styles at Bound For Glory. They are investing a lot in Aces and Eights and even I will sit here and admit that I was one of those fans who was critical of the Aces angle. But after seeing what happened at Lockdown and seeing Bully's 5-part reveal of the hoax only made me applaud this company. Here was a company that was marauded and ridiculed for not presenting a long-term thought process with their angles, and they laid out nine months of hard work. To see the group that everyone wrote off as an afterthought NOW in prominence and made legitimate by a man who honestly deserves to be World Champion for all the hard work he's put in over the past 2 years is nothing short of brilliant. Splitting Ray and Devon seemed like a bad idea at first, but after seeing the evolution of Bully Ray from tag team wrestler to main eventing World Champion, I can't help but applaud Ray for getting in the best shape of his career and delivering some of THE best promos in professional wrestling today. He's up there with CM Punk in terms of just awesome mic work and captivating promos.

But while TNA's main event programs have been easily the best pieces of quality entertainment they've delivered in their 11 year existence, there's still fixes they need to make to the program. Gut Check feels too bush league for anyone to take seriously and has a mind-numbingly dumb concept of having judges determine who stays and who goes, especially when the Gut Check winners wind up going back to OVW and doing nothing of importance. It also makes no sense for someone to win their Gut Check match and NOT receive a contract - why would you have them go over if you had no intention to sign them!? Something doesn't feel right about Open Fight Night to me, but I can't help but feel like the concept has provided entertaining matches and feel like that concept could gain more importance by not only enhancing storylines, but being used as a means to give someone that extra bit of leverage into gaining a future title opportunity or getting someone over by having them prove themselves against an established veteran Champion. Imagine if someone from the X-Division called out Bully Ray because they wanted to move on and they wanted to show that they were more than just an X-Division athlete; they have everything it takes to be a top name alongside names like Bobby Roode, AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, Austin Aries, Sting, and Bully Ray just to name a few, and they went out and had an entertaining match that the crowd completely got behind. Speaking of the X-Division...

They need to finally decide what they're going to do about its future. It only serves as TNA's cruiserweight division - which I'd be fine with, but only IF the Television Championship was treated as a legitimate mid-card Championship and not an afterthought. The fact that Hogan isn't trying to get one belt off of Aces and Eights and back into TNA's possession leaves a big loophole. If Hogan is this pissed off at the Aces for "taking over" his company, why wouldn't he try to gain any leverage he could by making sure that any Aces and Eights member with Championship gold would lose the straps immediately and regain control of them for TNA? It makes no sense for Hogan to target Bully and attempt to get the World Title off him, but not attempt to do the same with Devon when those two members have property that BELONGS to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, NOT to the Dead Man's Hand? The point is that it makes no sense to have the X-Division be the way it is now, but not use the Television Championship as a mid-card belt to help the younger talents establish themselves before they move up. If it were me, I'd either leave the X-Division behind and support the Television Championship, or I'd abolish the weight limit of the X-Division and have it go back to its roots as a division defined on no limits and abolish the Television Championship. Have some of the X-Division guys and hell, some of the Gut Check winners you signed, team up to boost your Tag Division and present more challengers for Aries/Roode or Chavo/Hernandez (depending on who TNA goes with for the foreseeable future, and I'm guessing it'll be the latter; if not, there may be a heel turn a-comin' based on Hernandez's hesitation to sign the contract on the last Impact...)

Lastly, pay the Knockouts more. TNA bolsters a women's division that can be taken seriously and is TREATED seriously, and it's honestly a shame that they couldn't keep some of the better workers they had (Kong, Flash, Roxxi, Wilde, etc.) because the pay wasn't worth a damn. I'm sure if TNA is financially stable enough to go out on the road and support the high demands of their main event talents, they can afford to give the Knockouts a higher salary.

They're making great strides now, but the same thing was said about WCW in 1996-1997. Let's just pray they've learned from history and don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

[The Lord of Awesome]

Maybe now we can see more title changes on TV shows. I miss the "ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN" mentality of the 90's and kinda early 00's that made those eras of wrestling so great. TNA does seem to be kinda heading back to that mentality.

[Tiago]

There's a Portuguese woman wrestler in Gut Check, Shanna. I'm really rooting for her since Portuguese Wrestling hasn't quite been on the map since the Tarzan Taborda days.

On topic though, I feel like TNA is right now delivering consistently a solid product. Some angles/wrestlers might not be much believable at times but the quality of the matches itself is great. Them going on the road will bring nothing but good things not only for the company, but for the industry itself in the US.

As far as the NJPW goes, I agree with you, Josh. The production values are certainly over the top, drawing an immense crowd, specially at events like WrestleKingdom.