The last 48 hours in professional wrestling have been downright depressing. The impending announcement on the WWE Network subscription list seems to have a lot of people at WWE HQ nervous as they don’t believe the numbers are going to be what they hoped, Daniel Bryan has revealed that he now needs further surgery before he can make his eagerly anticipated return to WWE, and now Spike TV the home of TNA Wrestling has allegedly decided on the cancellation of Impact Wrestling from its station. I use the term decided loosely as there hasn’t been a formal announcement as of yet but right now all indications are that TNA and Spike TV have been unable to reach a deal that would see the station carry their programming. However for the record, both sides have officially commented that negotiations are still ongoing. Considering their contract is up in October that is incredibly worrying indeed. If the rumours are to be believed and the relationship between TNA and Spike is over, it’s not a huge leap to believe that TNA Wrestling could very well cease to exist by the end of 2014.
In the professional wrestling industry television is everything. With fans less inclined to buy PPV events unless they really believe they are going to be worth their while, promoters have turned to television to increase fan interest in their product and make the most money. It’s certainly no secret that WWE had incredibly high hopes for renegotiating their TV rights fees this year however unfortunately that didn’t go the way they wanted and with no other alternatives in sight WWE remained on the USA Network for substantially less money. When you look at TNA’s situation it gets even more frightening as WWE is the leader in the market for professional wrestling and if they are struggling to get a deal you can believe that TNA will as well.
Now as much as you may be a fan of Magnus, Samoa Joe, James Storm, Bully Ray, etc you can’t really argue with the facts. To the mainstream media they do not come across as big time stars. Heck even when TNA had Hulk Hogan on their roster the brand still didn’t come across like a mainstream company. To a certain extent that may be in part due to the brand name of TNA which in some circles has a different meaning to Total Non-Stop Action lets put it that way. However it’s too simplistic to place the blame on the brand name, and quite frankly that’s just silly, but it got an extra few lines of text in, so hey ho!
One of if not the main reasons that TNA is possibly about to close down is due to the fact that the organisation is absolutely awful at creating and maintaining stars. I include the word maintaining as that has always been the company’s weak spot. They may be able to get a talent over and get them to where they need to be but when it comes to preserving their star power the entire organisation is totally inept at doing so. Take a look at the likes of James Storm, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels to name but a few. All incredibly talented athletes who fans used to care for incredibly. Almost to the point that back in 2005 a Samoa Joe match on the indie scene meant a thousand times more than a WWE World Title match on PPV. Fast forward to 2014 and out of all of those names only 2 are currently working for the company and both seem like total shells of their former selves.
The question everyone now seems to be asking is what will happen to the industry if TNA closes its doors for good? Well a lot of people are unfortunately going to lose out. The fans for one. TNA may not be the biggest company in the world but their marketing strategy in the UK for example has been nothing short of outstanding. TNA knows what it takes to endear themselves to a specific audience and you could argue that TNA does far more for the UK than WWE does. If TNA were to close then a portion of people who go to see TNA live in the UK, buy the merchandise, watch the show on Challenge TV, etc will lose the opportunity to see their favourite stars on TV every week.
This takes us to the talent themselves. Whilst there can be no doubt that attitudes have changed drastically over the years and independent talents are no longer seen as the scourge they once were, there still is some prejudice on behalf of some narrow minded WWE individuals. Two of TNA’s most popular names for example such as Austin Aries and Samoa Joe have previously attempted to get into WWE only to be thwarted and what is to say that anything has changed? In all honesty it’s probably less likely WWE would hire them now as there is more mileage on the body clock than there was previously. The industry as a whole will lose out as once again there will only be one big name company in the profession. Now it is a bit of a stretch to call TNA a big name/player in wrestling but considering legends such as Sting, Kurt Angle and Hulk Hogan have hung their hat there over the years its not terribly out of the question.
The only ones who stand to gain anything out of this scenario is WWE. With a tape library potentially on the table WWE must be salivating at the chance to add to their extensive WWE Network portfolio already. Not only that but WWE may decide to offer previous company names such as Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy and Bully Ray their jobs back. With a few years away from the company their return would create multiple fresh scenarios and in a time where only a select few on the roster present this opportunity it may be a chance WWE might not want to pass up. It worked for RVD.
With Dixie Carter and Spike TV executives saying negotiations are still “ongoing” it remains to be seen what will become of Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling. There is always a small sliver of hope in that another TV station may want to carry pro-wrestling on their network. After all Impact does draw in the range of one million plus viewers each week and there aren’t many television shows in the industry today that can claim that. Not only that but wrestling fans are notoriously loyal and will stick by TNA through thick and thin. This has been tested dating back to Vince Russo’s reign of power in TNA back in 2006.
More will certainly come from this story but for now all we can do is sit and wait to see if another company has bitten the dust. The last time this happened was back in 2001 and was the end of the Monday Night Wars. This most definitely was not a war and TNA will end up looking more like a massacre if Spike has their way.
How ironic that the company that has done the most to save TNA over the past decade may now be the one that killed them off forever.