2 Cents - Why Cant TNA complete??

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

Ok so been thinking alot about this, and sorry if someone has already covered this topic!! But next month im going to the TNA UK Tour. My flatmate has informed me that NOW TNA are doing a buy 3 tickets and get the 4th free at the venue im going to. Obvs to get more bums on seats. Now im going to see TNA in the same arena as my Ice hockey team play. The arena holds 10,000 people. My hockey team fills roughly 3/4s of that every game unless its a rivallry then its filled and over here Ice Hockey IS NOT a main sport. (Theres only 10 teams in the top league).

Anyway going abit off subject, i find it hard to believe that TNA has been around for 10 years, this is the 5/6th tour they have done over here and yet they seem to always struggle to sell tickets. I really dont understand why!!! This will be my 4th TNA show ive been too, and everytime ive seen them over here half the arena has been empty. Infact the only TNA show ive been too that has been full was when they were filming IMPACT and i was lucky to ge to see it being filmed in Orlando.

Anyway again going way off subject, what id like to know is

WHY CANT TNA COMPETE WITH WWE??

AND

WHY CANT THEY FILL BIG ARENAS??

[Bob-O]

Apart from the popular reasons that TNA can't compete (lack of promotion, bad writing/booking, lack of fresh talent), ultimately I think the problem is the same reason why WWE can't compete with WWE, and that's lack of general public interest. The industry isn't hot right now, and the decline has been steady; illustrated by how much trouble WWE is having matching even last year's numbers.

The reason I personally think that they can't sell out arenas is their asking price. Maybe I was reading the website wrong, but when TNA came to Erie, they wanted $50 a ticket for cheap seats. I'm not paying that for TNA, and I'm a lifelong wrestling fan. I'd pay it to go to a TV Taping, but not for a house show.

[Serujuunin]

At least you guys get tours. Whenever TNA does a tour of Canada it's only ever Ontario or Quebec. I'd love to see TNA live, just so say I did.

I agree with Bob-O on the asking price, but I think their problem is the product. They're focusing too much on the former WWE guys (not so much recently, but still) and ignoring their home grown talent that people want to see. I know that when I see Jeff Hardy or Kurt Angle on TNA TV, I'm wishing that a TNA guy like Storm or Styles or Daniels was in their place (except that I can oogle Jeff. )

Their segments are silly, their matches are too short and don't seem to ever finish cleanly, and their angles are rarely believable.

[Big Red Machine]

Everything everyone has said. I'm not sure that ROH sells even front row tickets for $50.

[Big Bad Booty Daddy]

Yeah just had a look at my tickets and they were £35. Lets hope they put a good show on!!

[Nic]

I agree with everyone

no good/great storyline's
lack of fresh talent
lack of money
and so on

I know when they came to Oklahoma (earlier in the year) I paid less then 90 dollars for 4 tickets, 5 rows back which wasn't bad by a long shot. the issue was and I even asked my wrestling buddies around oklahoma/texas before and after the TNA event if they knew that TNA was in Oklahoma and no one even knew about it, not even the indie wrestlers in Okla. City where the event was held, which show's bad if not horrible promoting skills

now as far as the show itself, great matches for an indie house show, (tho most indie's can get the music right for their wrestlers, which TNA failed to do so) we had Ric Flair vs double J, if Flair won no one got backstage tickets, if Double J won 25 people got backstage tickets (of course JJ won) but those two (flair and jj) along with Kurt were the only older guys, and 3/4 of the roster wasn't there"cause they were taping in N.Y " which is one of the first things you don't want to tell your fans..

so we had
Beer Money
MCMG
Doug Williams
Matt Morgan
Velvet SKy @-)
Angelina Love
Eric Young
Flair
Angle
Jerrett
and a couple others

which could of made for a great show (MCMG and Beer Money interacted with the fans above anyone else

also they had only Double J singing autographs after the match, so 1 person, 1 booth and a couple hundred fans in front of him and one 1 hour to get an autograph before they had to pack up and leave, which show's poor planning.

plus the fact if you wanted a pic with Angle, Morgan or Flair, you had to pay 60-75 dollars

so this is probably why TNA can't and will not be able to compete with WWE in any way, shape or form.

plus the taping of the show's 2weeks or more in advance is a horrible idea along with the fact telling people at your house shows "Please do not post pic's or results as part of this show maybe on a future episode of TNA Wrestling on Spike"


i think since they have the money to do so, tour the U.S alot better then they do, spend more time in a state rather then having a house show say in arizona, then the next one a state or two away, have your 3/4 of your roster on hand, where you can try to put on a better show, and don't tell your fans "we are taping in "add state here" so most the wrestlers wont be here, cause that is just bullshit, and it ruins the show for everyone.. also with txting, emails, T.v, websites, an news paper.. there is no reason that everyone in the state of your show and surrounding states, wouldn't know your there

stay consistant, like WWE when their RTWM starts, I know they will hit Houston, Dallas, Wichita Falls and Amarillo, TX, then come up to OKC, Oklahoma for RAW and Tulsa for for SD!, TNA does have the funds to tour a schedule, maybe not just like WWE's U.S/Canada tour's, but pretty damn close.

Don't Tape More Then 1 Week In Adavnce: taping more then a week or two in advace is stupid and just show's poor planning all the way around, ((WWE is guilty of planning Rock/Cena for WM next year) this is not only a no no, but a big Fucken Hell No, it's just stupid, and more so when you have the funds and the wrestlers to put on live show's (on TV) there is a reason everyone promotion has a locker-room full of wrestlers, its where you can put on great show's and don't really have to tape 2 weeks or more in advace.. plus when the results are posted at places like our great WR website for show's that won't happen for another few weeks, noone will watch your show's

Poor Planning All Around and that kids, is my all over the place reason why TNA can not compete with WWE

[Big Red Machine]

Don't Tape More Then 1 Week In Adavnce: taping more then a week or two in advace is stupid and just show's poor planning all the way around, ((WWE is guilty of planning Rock/Cena for WM next year) this is not only a no no, but a big f***en Hell No, it's just stupid, and more so when you have the funds and the wrestlers to put on live show's (on TV) there is a reason everyone promotion has a locker-room full of wrestlers, its where you can put on great show's and don't really have to tape 2 weeks or more in advace.. plus when the results are posted at places like our great WR website for show's that won't happen for another few weeks, noone will watch your show's

I have to 100% disagree with everything in this paragraph. Don't plain in advance? Are you insane? You have to book (or at least have a semi-specific idea of where you want to be) a few months in advance. When I did the old "BRM Books TNA" back in 2009, which started from Victory Road, the first thing that I did was figure out what I wanted to happen at BFG.
Jarrett was going to feud with Foley over control of the company
AJ was going to take the belt from Kurt
Sting was going to Convince Morgan to turn babyface and take the tag belts from Booker & Steiner
Rhino vs. Abyss in a Monster's Ball
Alissa Flash vs. Sarita in an Iron-woman match for the title
Kong vs. Tara with the angle being that we didn't know if Tara was strong enough to lift Kong up for her finish.

You have to know where you want to be for you next big PPV so you can build up to it properly.

In the BRM Gives WWE A Shot In The Arm thread (starting from Bragging Rights 2009), I had the entire angle with Cena vs. the McMahon Helmsley Faction feud, and HBK's heel turn and eventual face turn all mapped out before I started, and most of the details down for War Games and for Legacy's tease into tweener-dom, leading to Dibiase becoming a babyface and taking on Orton at Mania. Once I made the decision to include Smackdown (a bit before Armageddon), I knew I wanted to make Brand Rivalry a big deal, have Jericho crap all over Smackdown and try to leave with the World Heavyweight Title, turn Kane into- a Smackdwon-Patriot babyface to stop Jericho, use brand rivalry to create tension between Kane and Batista because Batista wanted to jump to Raw to help Cena, plotted out everything for Edge vs. Punk and everything that I did with the Women's Title.

If you go back and read those fantasy bookings, you will see how all of those things build up to make the big cards bigger.

With something as intricate as Rock vs. Cena seems to be, they need a lot of planning (personally, I think that they changed their plans after MITB when they saw how well the Punk angle- specifically the anti-Cena part, and the way the crowd reacted to it- was going). You can see things coming together. Someone said "Cena was getting a mixed reaction... now look at this Punk thing. Cena is getting booed a lot more. And people were booing him when he and The Rock were exchanging insults, too. Cena's points against The Rock (that Rock had no reason to hate him other than the fact that he didn't like the way Cena dressed and didn't like the age of Cena's fanbase) are 100% valid. The Rock is just being a jerk, while Cena is being a babyface... but the people are cheering more for the Rock. Let's do something with this."

First they start calling more attention to the mixed reaction. Then they introduce the "Rise Above Hate" t-shirt. Then they subtly shift the focus to "is the mixed reaction secretly affecting Cena on the inside?" Then Kane comes back and jumps Cena, saying that "Rise Above Hate" is a lie. This makes us ask "if it is a lie, then are the chants really affecting Cena more than he is letting on."

It is great booking that NEEDS to be planned out months in advance.

[Nic]

i see your point.. I didn't mean don't plan in advance, I was referring to them taping show's 2-4 weeks in advance which I think is dumb, cause they are worried about ratings, so why not take the time and effort that the do to tape shows 2-4 weeks in advance and do a live show,

cause by the time they do these tapings that far ahead, 75% of the world know's your results and won't tune into your weekly show, which will drop your ratings

I think TNA would do better as a live (kinda like raw) show each week, with a few minute delay to catch the cussing and stuff like that.

[Big Red Machine]

i see your point.. I didn't mean don't plan in advance, I was referring to them taping show's 2-4 weeks in advance which I think is dumb, cause they are worried about ratings, so why not take the time and effort that the do to tape shows 2-4 weeks in advance and do a live show,

cause by the time they do these tapings that far ahead, 75% of the world know's your results and won't tune into your weekly show, which will drop your ratings

I think TNA would do better as a live (kinda like raw) show each week, with a few minute delay to catch the cussing and stuff like that.

Because taping live is more expensive.

As far as spoilers go... I don't understand why people read spoilers and I never will. Anyone who reads spoilers and complains that they don't enjoy the show should try going spoiler-free. Reading spooilers will only make you enjoy the show less.

Furthermore, i would have thought that people would have learned by now that, because of the existence of backstage pre-tapes, reading spoilers doesn't tell you everything that happens.

And the fact that people have access to spoilers has nothing to do with TNA not being able to compete. Spoilers for most indy shows are out long before the DVD comes out, but most major indy's still manage to put on a quality product. Hell, Smackdown is usually better than Raw, side by side, and SD has spoilers while Raw doesn't. The few times that Raw is pre-taped, it generally doesn't go down in viewership. Spoilers are not the problem. It is the poor product that TNA is putting on that is the major problem.