TNA Impact Wrestling: Can it Be Fixed to Succeed?
TNA Impact Wrestling has hung on by a thread for too long. The days of talking about being competition to the WWE are gone and should be forgotten – it was never a realistic goal. Their goal all along should have been to be an alternative brand to the WWE – that is what they should look to be.
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The six-sided ring, the X-Division, and Ultimate X are different and exciting – that is how TNA got popular with its fans. They offered the alternative to what fans were seeing on television every week on WWE Raw and Smackdown.
Remember the original ECW, the no rules, no excuses made and none asked for ECW. Why did they become so popular? Was it the bloody matches? Was it the swearing and adult themes? It was all of that and what you are actually tuning in to see….wrestling. Matches with great athletes and letting them do what they got into the business to do.
Ring of Honor and NXT are popular and have a great following, why? They offer you something different then what you see Monday and Thursday night. That is what TNA needs to go back to doing.
TNA needs to take a step back and look at what they did to create a buzz that landed them a television deal, a video game, action figures, and most importantly a fan base. Then take a look at the roster and if they have the talent to create the buzz again. Go back to what worked before and keep the talent that can make that happen and get rid of those who can’t. Replace the ones who can’t with ones who can.
Push Ken Anderson, Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, Drew Galloway and EC3. Use Kurt Angle as a special attraction and not as your weekly featured star.
Let your wrestlers be wrestlers and let them speak for themselves. The worst thing that the WWE does is script their wrestler’s interviews. You take the personality and the creative juices right out of the wrestler when you do that and you’re setting them up for failure.
TNA needs to stay afloat while they are under this current television deal. When that deal is over they need to consider going back to the cheaper pay per view option that they once had. Reestablish the brand at an affordable rate – stream it off their website for a $4.99 a pop cost.
If that means that you’ll lose some of the top names then so be it.
Back to basics and back to smaller is better -that is what is needed for TNA to ever become more than a running joke with a lot of fans.
To copy and compete with the WWE is dumb and not realistic – their focus should be on giving the fan base of professional wrestling what they want. Stop hiring ex-WWE employees to work behind the scenes and as bookers unless they truly have a passion about the business – don’t just hire them for their face and name.
TNA can become relevant again to wrestling fans but they need to decide if they can live with being a wrestling company that caters to wrestling fans or do they want to be a sports entertainment company that will fail.
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” – Mark Twain.
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