garynysmon

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.

I think it speaks volumes that while social media killed off many forums, the UKFF has survived based on largely the same cast of posters during all that time. That has to say something doesn’t it? I was a bit later registering, in late 2009. And I’ve only actually met one other forum member, handsome Butch of course, in all that time. But given that we all overshare from time to time given its a bit of a ‘safe space’, and thanks to hilarious personal anecdotes etc, you feel that you know all the regular posters regardless. I spend way more time reading UKFF (albeit more infrequently than I used to) than I do watching actual current wrestling, which must count for something? If it wasn’t for this place and Ian’s Twitter feed, I’m not sure I’d have a clue what was going on any more. You’ve all made me laugh out loud at times. Keep up the good work. Thank you for the memories, thank you for the inspiration and thank you for Hulkamanka.

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