Impact wrestling thread - It's a Don West tribute thread now!

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I've seen one or two of the Pop TV airings, and they are inoffensive wrestling shows. Just matches and angles and a wafer thin roster with Matt Hardy headlining. Its far from shite (by TNA's own unique standards), but by no low standards would anyone ever call Impact "intriguing" or "great." They just air and you forget about everything. Its pretty sad. You never get that sense that you want to watch the next episode. Its a shame really. They havent got anyone who is significantly over. There's no Austin Aries from 2012. No Joe from 2006. No AJ Styles. No LAX. No Motor City Machine Guns. No Bad Influence. No Beer Money. Well there is Beer Money but they've got that 'New Age Outlaws nostalgia run' about them. And most strikingly, no stars. There's that vibe these days that if WWE wanted them, they'd be working there. Not slogging it out in front of 14 people. Everyone else worth anything has fucked off. Its just sad viewing. The production is so bad. ROH level. The colour scheme is all dark colours and dark blue. The announcing is fucking unbearable. The whole presentation takes you out of the moment.

 

You need to be stylistically different to everyone else out there. Lucha Underground has an idenity. ROH has an identity. New Japan has an idenity. Even NXT has one, and they are owned by the same people who produce Raw and Smackdown. Even WWE gets you need to present something totally different to WWE to gain interest. Even in this country, you have ICW and Progress who are way different from each other and they are in the same country. They even get it. What identity does TNA have? What identity did TNA ever have, even when it was on Spike? If I were to sum up TNA in one sentence, it would be "the promotion with the six sided ring trying to get over a feud between the Hardy Boyz, that has never once worked in the past." The penny still hasnt fucking dropped with this lot.

Edited January 28, 2016 by IANdrewDiceClay

[Big Benny HG]

But how exactly can 18,000 people extra watching be 3 households

The same as this country - TV viewership figures and ratings are based on a small sample of metered households that provide the ratings company with information about what they watch, how long they watch for, how many people etc. There is no way of gaining information about viewing habits unless the special ratings box installed in the viewers house actually reports it (TVs don't 'send' information anywhere). Those results are then extrapolated up to the rest of the population. Each individual metered house therefore statistically represents thousands of households.

 

The figures are an improvement on the Destination America stats, but still nowhere near the 1.9 million they had been getting a few years ago. People have given up on them. People don't care. It's an insignificant product.

[Chest Rockwell]

Now il be the first to admit I know very little about how the American rating system works not do I understand there fixation on the rating when surely the only thing that matters is viewership numbers

Ratings in this context means viewership numbers. They're the same thing.

[Linus]

Viewership is the (estimated) total number of viewers, rating is the percentage of those watching TV at that time.

[tiger_rick]

I've tried to watch the shows but I just find it depressing. Everything looks so cheap and dark. It looks worse than the early days in the Fairgrounds. You could forgive them then, they were finding their feet. Now they've been going for so long that they should be well established but they continue to regress at an alarming rate.

 

The roster, the set, the lighting, the production, the commentary, the crowds are all small time. I'm not comparing them to WWE. I'm comparing them to TNA.

 

The other problem is that no matter how inoffensive the shows are, they've shown time after time after time that it's not worth investing in their stories or their talent because they'll fuck it all up at some point.

 

I always wonder how I'll cope when my football team is like TNA. I spent most of the 90s watching Hull City in a mostly empty, dilapidated stadium in the third and fourth tiers. Losing most weeks. After a decade and a bit of our fancy stadium, reasonable crowds, success, when it all crumbles and it's back to 4,000 in a 25,500 seater stadium, tossing it off in League Two, what's that going to feel like after the highs and the promise? That's what TNA feels like to me.

[WyattSheepMask]

So would you say current Hull City are TNA on Spike but they're in a late night slot rather than prime time?

[tiger_rick]

So would you say current Hull City are TNA on Spike but they're in a late night slot rather than prime time?

Yeah. But we're not heading for Destination America. Yet!

Edited January 28, 2016 by tiger_rick

[pryko]

 

So would you say current Hull City are TNA on Spike but they're in a late night slot rather than prime time?

Yeah. But we're not heading for Destination America. Yet!

 

I'm a Bolton Wanderers fan.  TNA right now is probably Bolton right now.

[Linus]

This was the conclusion to my review of the debut on POP! for Real In Memphis. Kinda sums it up, I think:

 

 

Anyway, this wasn’t a bad show, it was just a show. And there’s nothing wrong with that if you’re a run-of-the-mill indie from, well, Bethlehem, PA. But this was the relaunch for a promotion that gets far more than its fair share of column inches and fan attention, and should be doing so, so much better. The issue is that they see WWE as the industry leader and just try and copy what WWE does, without realising that it 1) comes off as just that, and 2) they’re not as good at it. Above them in the pecking order is NXT, ROH, and Lucha Underground, all of whom present a different product, and have found their niche accordingly. If TNA had any balls – or, more likely, any smarts – they’d do the same.

 

See you this time next year for the next relaunch?

[freaky]

The roster, the set, the lighting, the production, the commentary, the crowds are all small time.

I quite like the giant video wall with the entrance carved into it - I actually prefer it to the Raw & Smackdown set - but I agree that everything else about the production just feels so lifeless and washed out.

[PunkStep]

Real in Memphis is still going?? Does AJ Styles still lace Harley Race's boots?

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Harley usually wears slippers these days, sadly. The man is on a motorised scooter everytime I see him.

Edited January 28, 2016 by IANdrewDiceClay

[Ambulance Chaser]

Someone in TNA has watched re-runs of Lucha Underground, that feast or fired segment just reeked of it. Quick camera cuts zooming in and out, the underlying music playing in the background, JB stood over the Wrestlers Dario Cueto style. Least Grado is gone the fat pie faced goon.

 

Looking forward to seeing EC3 as a face.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Ambulance Chaser

[Linus]

Real in Memphis is still going?? Does AJ Styles still lace Harley Race's boots?

We put out an issue very irregularly. Did one the other week so God knows when the next one will be out!

[Sexy Dad]

I was having a look through some DVDs and found my copy of Destination X 2011. I got the case signed whilst at the TNA meet and greet by AJ, Shelley, Samoa Joe and Austin Aries who were all on the show...strategic thinking, Gunner wasn't going to get his name on there.

 

Anyway, looking back at that show it really was something special and was really strange in a sense that it was basically 'ECW One night Stand' but in a company that was still in existence. It featured fellas that had been put on the back burner or weren't really featured and gave them time and it was AJ's first main event since inexplicably dropping the belt a year and a bit earlier to RVD with no build.

 

It was basically everyone harking back to how good (the good bits of) 2005-2009 were and the enemy and imposing force was Bischoff and the shadow of 2011 TNA. However weird as much of TNA was though it was a short run which was a bit different and gave a lot of reasons to tune in.