If you haven’t heard it enough from TNA in the past, the company claims to have some major announcements that will take place at the iMPACT tapings in New York City next week. We are supposed to see Dixie Carter go through a table at next week’s show, but this was taped nearly a month ago. The new tapings are set to take place next week while all of that is going on. So with all of that being said, these announcements are TNA’s way of bringing in viewers.
TNA has done this often. They will tease some sort of major announcement that has to do with a whole lot of nothing. Sometimes it is important, but mostly it just seems like a desperate attempt to bring in viewers. If TNA didn’t tease these “big announcements” so much, I assume fans would like it when TNA actually did, say, tease them. Today, however, you can miss the show and find out later. It’s like the boy who cried wolf. You can only do it so much before people just don’t care.
Most feel that TNA will be updating us on their Spike TV deal, which they publicly claim is ongoing. However, several people have gone public with their thoughts. Even TNA talent like Matt Morgan, who was at one point set to leave TNA for WWE, came out to say that if TNA does not end up on Spike it might be for the better. So the writing is on the wall, and most of the talent knows that Spike TV probably won’t renew Impact Wrestling.
People love to claim that Impact Wrestling is Spike TV’s top show. It is not technically at this point. TNA has failed to deliver higher ratings than big shows such as Bar Rescue . Even reruns of Cops seem to do better. TNA was gradually going up, getting 1.6s and so on. Today, those numbers are barely past a 1.0. They have even had weeks where they were less than a 1.0, mainly because people seem to be moving away from TNA these days.
With the absence of a Sting and Hulk Hogan, it is almost impossible to shop around the show to other networks and get anything near what they do with Spike TV currently. There is presently no back-up deal in place for TNA to fall on another network . That being said, it seems like TNA may be teasing major announcements to see if they can draw people in for the shows. On top of this, however, TNA will probably not address their Spike TV issues publicly. Backstage though, many are assuming the end is near.
Jim Ross, Mick Foley, and others have commented on the potential downfall after the Spike TV deal is up in October. The big issue is that TNA hurt their relationship with two organizations due to Vince Russo. Not only did they have Vince working with them privately behind the backs of Spike TV executives, but they also didn’t tell The Great Muta, who does not care for Russo due to how he treated Japanese wrestlers in WCW. So the Wrestle-1 partnership, of which will affect their Bound for Glory PPV in Japan, could be up in the air.
They really screwed themselves over. Now that they do not have Russo helping out, there might be a bigger issue. They were so desperate to go out and get him knowing the issues he could bring if found out, but they clearly needed him. Without him there — he is officially fired now — what do they do? It most likely will come down to another wrestler who would help with booking and stories. We saw how wonderful that worked for WCW, right?
TNA is going the way of WCW and who didn’t see it coming when they began to do the exact things WCW did? This time around, it is not some corporate buyout that forced the move. Rather, it is simply a company that could not last. It was not as if they had to compete with WWE at this point, which is impossible. They simply needed to be another option and they couldn’t do that well. That being said, it is not crazy to think that TNA could not last. Now Spike TV simply feels there is no need to have it when they could draw more with another show. TNA will still claim negotiations are ongoing , but we know the facts. It’s over, and no big announcement will save that.
[IMG Credits: Google]