The Official TNA / Impact / GFW Discussion Thread

[guyver3]

I agree that both guys recieved more attention in TNA than elsewhere but I'm thinking in terms of being put on the map and establishing their name. It's all subjective but to me, Joe was made in ROH. Slight change of topic, but has any wrestler anywhere ever been as critically praised as Samoa Joe during that period in 2005 crossing over to 2006?

 

Think about it: the Punk matches, the Unbreakable three way, the Kobashi match, that phenomenal match he had with Styles at Turning Point (****3/4), the match with Daniels a couple of months later (****1/2). Just a phenomenal stint.

 

from 04-06 Joe was an undeniable beast arguably the best in the world the only one close to him from that same time frame was Bryan Danielson but he didn't really come into contention until his 06 work still though that was such a great time to be a fan of either promotion

[Fleisch]

I decided to take a look at what is going on in TNA to re-familiarise myself and hopefully help with the full release of my RWC mod (cheap plug ).

 

I don't understand, Bobby Lashley vs. Drew Galloway for the title is scheduled for the Slammiversary PPV in June, yet they are also fighting for the belt on an episode of Impact. Well who the hell is going to pay to see a rematch - even if ti is a Submission/KO rematch? Wouldn't common sense dictate that "hey we got Slammiversary coming up, we should build this title match and feud, have them wrestle exclusively for the belt on PPV to help the buyrate." rather than "Lets give fans the title match on free TV and then expect them to buy the PPV with an Impact main event."

 

It appears once again, those making business and booking decisions within TNA are lost in terms of what they need to be doing to rebuild this company and start turning a reasonable profit. It is unacceptable that they keep making the exact same mistakes every single year. Booking 101 - Drew Galloway is defeated in a non-title match by Bobby Lashley, setting up their Championship match for Slammiversary. Various shenanigans ensue over the coming weeks, with Lashley assaulting Galloway, Galloway retaliating with promo's and eventually his own revenge attack on Lashley. This builds Lashley up and gives the fans a sense that the outcome could go either way at the PPV. It's tried and tested, and if you make people care enough, they will buy. I'm not even "in the biz" and can work out that makes more booking AND business sense than giving your main title feud away for free on TV. WCW began doing that and PPV buyrates fell through the trapdoor. If TNA are only gonig to have 4 PPV's a year, they need to make each of them mean something more than just an extended episode of Impact.

 

Anyway, that aside, I'm kind of liking the ECIII/Michael Bennett stuff but again, build it for the PPV in an old school manner. The decay disturb me a little - Rosemary is a freak. Abyss thinking he is "beautiful" is pretty funny to watch. The guy is so versatile in the way he plays the Abyss character. The Knockouts division seems pretty competitive again and Sienna is probably my favourite Knockout at this point. Hope she eventually gets a run with the belt, but again, build, build, build. TNA are too haphazard in their booking and rush everything to a point a good portion of the audience just doesn't care. It's a shame when a lot of former TNA supporters are saying "how are they going to screw this up" because, again, the earlier years of the company were their best by far. They SHOULD be competing with WWE by now, but bad decisions, a huge decrease in fans (look at attendance figures). Their UK tours used to do good numbers, They had a crowd of 3000 turn up however only 1500 people bothered to stay for the second set of TV tapings when they were in Manchester. If 50% of your audience walks out after paying for tickets, you are really doing something wrong. In London, 2013 TNA got upwards of around 5000 people in attendance, this years tapings, 4000. A 25% decrease in attendance within a country you do good numbers in does not bode well. In the US, they are getting between 200-500 fans for TV tapings, not House Shows, TV tapings, and again alarm bells don't ring when your attendances used to be in the thousands? The facts are there. Yes people do enjoy TNA, but those people are now in the minority because a good chunk of their fan base has upped sticks due to TNA failing one too many times to capitalise on getting something good going without (excuse the phrase) crapping all over themselves. People will argue it's because they are touring now but that's not a good enough excuse because they have had 14 years to build their product, to build their identity but instead, they look like they don't know which way is up and too many people have seen them fail than they have succeed.

 

It is a huge shame, but I think TNA have damaged their image to a point where they will never be able to become as popular as they could have been. You could give the company back AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, you could give them Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, etc... and they would still screw up how to use them. If it wasn't for their international deals that set them apart from their real competition (ROH, etc), I wouldn't even say TNA were the #3 or 4 company in the US presently.

[kn23m]

I don't understand, Bobby Lashley vs. Drew Galloway for the title is scheduled for the Slammiversary PPV in June, yet they are also fighting for the belt on an episode of Impact. Well who the hell is going to pay to see a rematch - even if ti is a Submission/KO rematch? Wouldn't common sense dictate that "hey we got Slammiversary coming up, we should build this title match and feud, have them wrestle exclusively for the belt on PPV to help the buyrate." rather than "Lets give fans the title match on free TV and then expect them to buy the PPV with an Impact main event."

It's because noone is buying their PPV anyway, so they don't care about them + all last years Slammiversary matches were shown on Impact in next month anyway, so why would anyone will buy it this year, because I am sure that this year won't be any different!

[liontamer]

wondering if its to boost ratings either per the TV deal, or in hopes of getting a better one. A better deal might be more important than ppv, particularly for valuation with all the selling talk.

 

The show has been better than I thought it would be since the exodus of talent started, but no storylines really are that grabbing at the moment. OK, not great.

[liontamer]

caught up on Impact. A bit confused on the scrawny fake willow successfully hitting the twist fate on Hardy, witch was completely not sold, and then hardy hits one almost immediately after that had the fake willow out for probably 30 seconds.

[Warhawk8492]

Another very good episode of Impact. Better than RAW or Smackdown thats for damn sure/

[Dawn]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Warhawk8492" data-cite="Warhawk8492" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25170" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Another very good episode of Impact. Better than RAW or Smackdown thats for damn sure/</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Not trying to be an idiot, but do you ever see something negative in the episodes of Impact? It's your enjoyment, I won't deny you that, but I'm curious.</p>

[Dave_Scott]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Smasher1311" data-cite="Smasher1311" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25170" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Not trying to be an idiot, but do you ever see something negative in the episodes of Impact? It's your enjoyment, I won't deny you that, but I'm curious.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Well it's my enjoyment as well, and WWE right now is not, so to me it's always better than WWE. I can notice the stupid things sometimes that they do, and I'll have occasional criticisms, but as of right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying the episodes and feel like they've gotten better and better since the start of the year.</p>

[Hashasheen]

Transcript has been taken from Reddit, all credit there. PWI's Mike Johnson and POPTV's Bradley Schwartz.

 

Q: What's the relationship between POP and TNA/iMPACT Wrestling

 

A: The Passion of the fans is amazing. Our relationship with iMPACT is amazing. The relationship with Dixie Carter is very special, we have a great working relationship. What we have on tuesday night is the best wrestling product going. The characters, the inring action, everything. I'm sucked in, every tuesday I need to watch the show. Its' the 2nd highest rated show on our network. For us, we're excited. We have a longterm deal with iMPACT wrestling.

 

Q: You guys had the iMPACT replay on tuesday evenings, that was moved to saturday, now that replay is gone. Explain why you guys decided that the replay was going away. A lot of people saw the replay go away and a lot of people thought it's a sign that the deal is faltering.

 

A: It's a great question, and again, I love the passion out there when people see things like that and jump to conclusions. From a pure programming standpoint - when we started the relationship, iMPACT was new on POP, so we wanted to have as many people as possible be able to find it. So you want to premier it, then repeat it so that more people can get sucked into it and know that it's on and start tuning in. Television has changed the last 2-5 years, with VOD and with delayed viewing and DVR. Repeats across every network don't make as much sense as they used to as people consume content on their own terms. From a marketing standpoint we wanted to suck in people flipping channels. We did that for 3-3.5 months, then we thought ok, people know that it's tuesdays at 9 o'clock, it's going well, people don't need the repeat. They're DVRing it, they're VODing it, it's going well.

 

From a marketing perspective, we thought.. you know, maybe if we moved the repeat to the weekend, we might find more viewers. There was a little bit of nostalgia for me personally as I used to watch wrestling on saturday mornings. So we did that for about 4-5 weeks, we think it worked a little bit but it wasn't performing as other content in that timeslot would perform - and frankly we didn't market it and hoped people would find it all along. The plan all along was to have one big appointment to tuesday nights show. And if you can't make it at tuesdays at 9, you can DVR it or watch it on VOD.

 

Q: You mentioned the late viewing. One of the things that happens everyday, after monday night raw airs, after iMPACT airs, the rush you want to find out that Nielsen number and how many people watched. You get the +7 and +3 numbers and all the delayed viewing numbers which we don't get. From a wrestling fans perspective, there's still that fear that for - let's look at these numbers from the monday night wars era. You are privy to the numbers that the average person can't get their hands on. I know you can't give away too much of sensitive information. Talk about the final viewing numbers vs. the initial viewing numbers for iMPACT to give us an idea of what the audience is.

 

A: It's a, again, I love going on social media and seeing how many people posted the rating for iMPACT. Pointing back to those old days of ratings, overnight numbers just don't matter anymore. You can go look online, about 3 months ago FOX said they'd stop releasing overnight numbers internally because they're meaningless. One of my favourite quotes is from the head of research at CBS. "Overnight Numbers are like calling a baseball game after the 4th inning, there's still a lot more to play and not where the game ends."

 

I can be absolutely 100% truthful and 100% honest without any spin, every single episode of iMPACT with late viewing and VOD added in has been between 400'000 and 500'000 viewers. The peak, I think the highest one, was 520'000 viewers. That's our peak so far and it's only been 5 Months. And that's after only 7 days. When I look at iMPACT wrestling, i see a show that every single week is around, I would say, 450'000 viewers. And for us, as a small, emerging fast-growing cable network - a weekly original programming doing 450'00 viewers every week is fantastic.

 

Q: Let's talk a little about the content of the show. How involved has POP been in the week to week guidance what you like on the show, what you don't like. Has there been any sort of edic "hey we want more of this, we want less of that". SpikeTV certainly had that power over iMPACT in the past, and it did change and shape the product. I'm curious how the relationship between POP and iMPACT has grown over the last 5 months, wether POP had any influence on the actual product. Week to week you could make a more interesting product than WWE, not every week of course. How has the relationship grown over the last 5 months and how have you guys felt from a corporate perspective about the product and have you helped push the program in certain directions?

 

A: Part of my success in general is, I kinda have the philosophy to hire good people and let good people do good team. To that extend, Dixie and her team know wrestling. They know the athletes, they know the stars, they know how to put things together. We had little, i would say no impact on the process they're doing. I love that you said, and I would also say that depending on the week there is no better wrestling product than they (iMPACT) are putting on. The characters and the in-ring action, it's amazing. Some shows are better than the other, but that's true for any sports event or television program. But damn they're doing a fantastic job. Forget about the business side of things, I'm really loving it and I'm sucked in and watch iMPACT every tuesday night. We had no impact creatively at all. We're just really really enjoying the relationship, we're really enjoying the content every week. I wish I could take credit for it, but I got to give credit where credit is due, they're running a great program.

 

Q: John Gabruick stated to me that iMPACT is looking to bring new partners and investors on board. Is it possible POPTV could be interested in investing in the company, is that something you'd be willing to comment on on the record?

 

A: It's probably not appropriate for me to get into as a lot of conversations are confidential. Dixie runs here company and it's decisions for her to make. For us as a company that is owned by CBS and LionsGate we're always looking for opportunities to make our business bigger. Wether that's trough finding some strategic acquisitions or some opportunities that are out there, we always have our eyes out for ways to grow our business. Our relationship with iMPACT is very strong. It's not appropriate for me to talk about what their plan is for growing their business.

 

Q: Final question, somebody is going to listen to it and is going to spin it. I'm going to put you on the spot. September this year, will iMPACT wrestling be on POP?

 

A: Absolutely. We have a multiyear deal. It will absolutely be on. Upfronts are nothing for the public. Upfronts are very very very much an ad sales driven event. That's where all the televsion networks sell 70-90% of their ad inventory for the year. So the announcements you make in the upfront are really to support what your ad sales team is going out and selling. For iMPACT, because it's such a unique audience with a unique live component to it, there's a sponsorship abilities to that that aren't just in ring sponsorship, show sponsorship and of course advertising. It's really kind of a 360° sell. And we have, us and iMPACT, a 3rd party company that i selling those integrations and sponsorships. So it wasn't something that the POP ad sales team was out there in the market doing. As far as the rest of our network, we sell a women 25-45 demo, an adult 18-49 demo, we really needed a different company with a different client list and a different set of skills to sell 360° sponsorship and integrations as the real way to drive some revenue, additional and incremental revenue. That's why it wasn't in the upfront list as our team wasn't selling it.

 

From a programming stand point, yes it will be on the air, we're not going to get rid of the 2nd highest rated show on the network.

=================================================

 

TL;DR

 

1. iMPACT is the 2nd highest rated show on POPTV
   
2. Every iMPACT episodes does around 400'000-500'000 viewers (Live+3, Live+7, VOD)
   
3. TNA iMPACT will still be on POPTV this fall, they have a long term deal

[jwt13]

Transcript has been taken from Reddit, all credit there. PWI's Mike Johnson and POPTV's Bradley Schwartz.

 

 

=================================================

 

TL;DR

 

1. iMPACT is the 2nd highest rated show on POPTV
   
2. Every iMPACT episodes does around 400'000-500'000 viewers (Live+3, Live+7, VOD)
   
3. TNA iMPACT will still be on POPTV this fall, they have a long term deal

 

That's great news for TNA and they deserve it they have had a great product lately.

[The_CoC]

That's great news for TNA and they deserve it they have had a great product lately.

 

Agreed its really good to see. I truly think they are turning the ship around.

[jwt13]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="The_CoC" data-cite="The_CoC" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25170" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Agreed its really good to see. I truly think they are turning the ship around.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> They are, and I believe Pop will invest money into TNA. Now is a good time to make moves with Ryback, Cody Rhodes, Barrett, Sandow, and Rose all available, not that they will get all of them but two or three would be great.</p>

[The_CoC]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="jwt13" data-cite="jwt13" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25170" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>They are, and I believe Pop will invest money into TNA. Now is a good time to make moves with Ryback, Cody Rhodes, Barrett, Sandow, and Rose all available, not that they will get all of them but two or three would be great.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Yeah there are a few good ones there but to be honest I rather see them pluck guys like ACH, Dalton, Strong, Cole etc.</p>

[liontamer]

I'd definitely like to see sandow there. After that I'm iffy on the rest. Ryback probably has the next most to offer, but I'm not sure how well he fits.

[Warhawk8492]

They are, and I believe Pop will invest money into TNA. Now is a good time to make moves with Ryback, Cody Rhodes, Barrett, Sandow, and Rose all available, not that they will get all of them but two or three would be great.

 

Not to sure on Adam Rose, he has law problems IRL, so I doubt TNA should pick him up. Sandow, Cody, Barrett and Ryback could help fill in there roster though.

[Mootinie]

I can't decide if that Hardy segment is the best or worst thing I have ever seen in wrestling.

[crownsy]

<p>I actually watched it this morning, i'd been hearing so much about it.</p><p> </p><p>

It's like Matt and Jeff's "creative control" is being invoked to tell the story of that time they got really high on acid and wanted to make a indy film.</p><p> </p><p>

Also not really sure if thats a bad or good thing ha.</p>

[crownsy]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Warhawk8492" data-cite="Warhawk8492" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25170" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Not to sure on Adam Rose, he has law problems IRL, so I doubt TNA should pick him up. Sandow, Cody, Barrett and Ryback could help fill in there roster though.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> All four guys would be great. The Question is what assurances they would need.</p><p> </p><p> Ryback, in particular, just left a six figure position because he wasen't being paid "as much as he thought he should be"</p><p> </p><p> Not agreeing or disagreeing with that stance of his, just saying TNA might have to prove it can afford him given the history of pay irregularities before POP move and after.</p>

[liontamer]

<p>I'm not really a fan of the Hardy stuff, though I do think some of the uproar about throwing a doll to be kind of funny. People are comparing it two when then had Storm kill Mickie, well, until she was ok a week later. I wouldn't put it near that level.</p><p> </p><p>

For what it's worth, it got their best numbers on POP, 359,000 despite no big advertised matches.</p>

[sabataged]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Mootinie" data-cite="Mootinie" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25170" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I can't decide if that Hardy segment is the best or worst thing I have ever seen in wrestling.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> It was awful. I find the new B movie villian gimmick of Matt Hardy hilarious but this segment made Jeff look like a moron. There is no reason to do that. Matt can keep his schtick without hurting Jeff imo</p>

[Warhawk8492]

Crazy Matt Hardy has been great entertainment.

[MrSelfDestruct]

Brotha Nero...

[Warhawk8492]

The segments with Matt Hardy have been funny one of the many highlights of recent Impacts. TNA has been great over the past few months. ECIII Vs Bennett is great too.

[mrwhippy]

Who's booking TNA these days?

[Mootinie]

Who's booking TNA these days?

John Gaburick