A Quick Explanation of my Hiatus
After the April 1st column, I decided to take a few weeks off as I had written a blog a week for all of 2012. After those few weeks, I was ready to start writing these again but then schoolwork became an issue because I had to write 3 term papers and do a full-length/in-depth presentation about a company of your choice. (To make my life easier, I actually did it on TNA as it would save me time on research) Now that’s all done as I’m finished with college forever and now I have to find a real job L. But in the meantime, I’ll have time to start writing Crossfire blogs again while I’m on the job search J. (For those curious, I’m looking for work as a tax accountant)
Happy 2nd Birthday TNAsylum
This is a site that is known as a safe haven for TNA Wrestling fans but to me it’s much more than just that. This site was the very first site I actively became a part of as on most other sites I would go to, I just read the news items and comments by people who are on the site but never join in. ( I have no real interest of paying membership fees to comment or having to create a discus account to comment) However TNAsylum was different as it was a site with interesting TNA news and POV’s on said news, a very easy going comment section where you just say what you thought, hit the submit icon and poof your voice was being heard. (Of course we had to create a username later on but I was already entrenched on the site so I did just that)
It’s an interesting story on how I found the site as I was online looking for any opinion that was at least somewhat positive about the Jeff Hardy heel turn at Bound for Glory 2010 and TNAsylum came up on the Google search. The rest as they say is history as I have been a member of this site since October 2010. After about 8 months of just being a commenter on the site I made Talon an offer he didn’t refuse as I offered to write a blog for TNAsylum and he was nice enough and gracious enough to accept me as part of the writing staff. This blog will be my 45th for the site (it will say 44 but one of them got mismarked) and I have had an absolute blast writing it. (I hope you all have enjoyed reading it)
TNA Going Live Was The Wrong Call
As a hardcore TNA fan, I will watch TNA every week no matter what the spoilers say (Unless The NY Rangers are playing a game 7 than that takes precedent over TNA) so the idea of going live just to stop people from reading the spoilers means very little to me. I mean don’t get me wrong Going Live is progress and a step in the right direction for TNA regardless if I agree to it or not but as a hardcore TNA I always valued TNA taking their show on the road more than going live for a number of reasons:
1) TNA has a terrible track record when it comes to Live Shows. Who can forget Sting repeatedly hitting RVD in the back with a baseball bat because Hogan missed his cue and was came out so very late to stop Sting. It makes TNA look minor-league when their live shows come off so mistake-filled.
2) TNA creative always have a difficult time booking live shows as the show comes off as booked by the seat of their pants as opposed to being booked with a plan and purpose. See all the Live TNA shows during their failures on Monday Nights in 2010.
3) TNA loses any PR spin they can have if the ratings are still poor. We have said this many times on the TNAsylum comment board that going on the road doesn’t equal higher rating but Live Shows do mean higher ratings must happen. If on June 15th, we see that the June 14th Live episode of Impact does a 1.0 with 1.4 million viewers than TNA is in big trouble and TNA has no spin to hide behind.
4) I always talk about how a crowd can make a show better than it appears to be which was very evident at WWE’s Over the Limit ppv. If you put the same Over the Limit show in front of the crowd that was at Lockdown then we are talking about Over The Limit being the worst WWE ppv in history but because the crowd was hot the show just came off as a below average show as opposed to a all-time bad show. I am veering off topic slightly but TNA’s track record usually shows that they go to cities that produce hot crowds and if you put the TNA product in front of hot crowds than the shows would come off as so much better than it does now.
5) The cost would seemingly be quite equal for going on the road as opposed to being live and for the same price; I feel the TNA product would come off as a thousand times better being taped in front of a different audience every two weeks as opposed to being live in the Impact Zone every single week.
Alex Shelley Leaving TNA
This is something I didn’t see coming as I feel that he is leaving just before he has a chance to take off again in the TNA Tag Team Scene. I don’t blame TNA for keeping the Guns off TV the past few weeks as it seemed like Sabin had a fair amount of ring rust so TNA did the right thing and let him work non-televised events so he can get rid of the ring rust. If you check out live events since Lockdown, The Guns have been on just about every one of them. So it would appear that Sabin is ready for televised wrestling again and that’s when Shelley decides to leave. The timing is weird in my opinion. Where Alex Shelley goes is anybody’s guess because I do not see him going to WWE at all because of reasons I previously stated in the latest Alex Shelley Rumor thread on TNAsylum. My guess is he takes time away from wrestling outside of an indy appearance here and there and finish college (something he has talked about doing). After he does that, than perhaps he’ll come back to TNA whether its next year or 3 years down the road.
ROH is Beating TNA in Certain Markets
Even if it is true, it is an asinine assertion to make especially when you don’t provide the data or proof to back it up (even with the proof it is a stupid thing to say). When you are a company who is having ppv problems, when you are a company who is taping 4 episodes of your TV show in a single night in a building that holds no more than 400 people, when you are a company that still can’t even register enough viewership to get a Nielsen rating on record and when you are a company that loses talent left and right because you can’t afford to pay them you are in no position to claim any sort of ratings victory over a company that has none of these problems. It’s simply an absurd thing to say. For the ROH fans who will swear this is true, I can only imagine the things you would say if TNA makes this same claim about WWE. It would probably go something like this: “We Want Proof or you are full of shit TNA”, “Everything this company says is a joke”, “TNA is barely beating ROH in the ratings how can they be beating WWE in ratings” etc.
WWE Going To 3 Hour Shows
Remember the title to my last blog on the site: “It’s Beginning To Look A lot Like WCW” well this move further proves that titles validity. This is a TERRIBLE move by WWE as it will hurt WWE’s product, WWE’s ratings and the fans perception of WWE which is getting worse and worse as we speak as it is. It’s simply a money grab by the WWE and that is not enough to outweigh all the bad this move will do. Mark my words: The rating difference between WWE and TNA will shrink drastically by the end of the summer because of this stupid move by WWE.
