garynysmon

- I suspect this will be very against the grain, but I honestly cringe at wrestling fans who are a little too open about their fandom. From my POV it was always meant to be this pretty embarrassing hobby we had that you were cautious with who you opened up about it. Granted there have been occasions where its been just about socially acceptable to wear wrestling t-shirts in public when people like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold etc were borderline genuine celebrities. But at this moment in time, none of your work colleagues are going to be impressed hearing about how good a wrestler they've never heard of is, or how you were up until 4am the night before watching a Pay Per View that cost £30. - I cannot for the life of me understand why, in this day and age when everyone has the attention span of a goldfish due to doomscrolling, why are most wrestling matches so bloody long? I get it, I'm not a 'wrestling' guy in terms of the in-ring stuff ever being my favourite part of a show, but surely there were aspects of the Attitude Era that were bang on and didn't have to be jettisoned en-masse? You could easily have a fast paced show, everyone being involved in some kind of storyline with a few 2-3 minute matches. In fact, it would be perfect in terms of packaging for social media. It seems to me that while proper sports are trying to tighten up (see Cricket with the Hundred for example), American wrestling has gone in the opposite direction and hunkered down to appeal to a smaller base of hardcore fans. But genuinely, if I was a kid now, I can't imagine that any current wrestling would appeal to me at all.

Bonnie Blackstone seemed to appear and then disappear quite sharp-ish from the WWF broadcast team in 1993.

Heard that one before! Like I said, the current incarnation of the company, booking-wise, is far from my favourite and I barely watch it at all nowadays (or any current wrestling for that matter). But its also right to concede that TNA has settled into a holding pattern of pretty decent TV ratings and arena attendances being significantly better than at any point in their history (other than a year or two ago). Not long before the pandemic, Impact was being recorded in really dark high school gyms in front of dozens of fans where you could awkwardly hear one or two poor sods pathetically trying to get a chant going. Fast forward to now where we’ve reached the stage where online tribalists on the other side of wrestling’s ‘cold war’ think its hilarious they could only get 2,500 into a building. If nothing else, the expectation level is significantly higher these days. TNA Impact is getting around a third of AEW Dynamite’s weekly TV rating, while clearly TNA doesn’t have even a third of AEW’s talent budget, for instance. I may not agree with the company’s direction but its hardly a brand on life support either, and now seems to live within its means. Any remaining WWE links really aren’t clear at all in terms of the on-screen product. Barely anyone shows up any more. You could fairly argue that if any links with WWE were scrapped tomorrow, TNA would still be coming out of it in a more robust shape than they did going into it.

He must be thick as shit tbh. In this day and age he must know that mocking people dying in an airstrike is beyond the pale even if you’re meant to be an edgy rapper? Any barbs about WWE and Saudi are irrelevant in that context really.

I mean, I don’t like it personally but business-wise its probably one of the best decisions they’ve ever made. Nowadays 2,500 is considered a poor attendance for a TNA PPV but the product under Scott D’amore (which I much preferred on a personal level) would have given anything to have regular four figure attendances. Also likely that having any kind of link to WWE talent opened the door the AMC and Canadian TV deals.

Starting off the year with a bang, the Hard to Kill PPV on Jan 13 has already sold out at Center Stage, Atlanta. I haven’t watched much Impact, or wrestling in general over the past few weeks due to the World Cup and Christmas, but this card looks a banger. Full Metal Mayhem for the Impact World Title Bully Ray vs. Josh Alexander (c) Career vs. Title Match Mickie James vs. Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace Impact X-Division Title Match Black Taurus vs. Trey Miguel (c) Impact Digital Media Title Match Moose vs. Joe Hendry (c) Fatal 4 Way Elimination Match for the Impact World Tag Team Titles Heath and Rhino vs. Matt Cardona and Brian Myers vs. Chris Bey and Ace Austin vs. NJPW Strong Openweight Tag Team Champions The Motor City Machine Guns (c) #1 Contender’s Triple Threat Masha Slamovich vs. Taylor Wilde vs. Deonna Purrazzo Winner earns a future shot at the Impact Knockouts World Title. Eddie Edwards vs. Jonathan Gresham