What Would Vince McMahon Do With TNA?

[Bob-O]

As the news stories pile up about TNA struggling to pay their employees on time and in a general state of financial peril, I find that most people eventually end up with "...ya well, it's only a matter of time now before Vince buys them..."

Maybe YOU'VE never said that, but you can't honestly tell me you've never heard the notion. It makes sense, too. Vince likes to buy tape libraries, his massive collection has made him a lot of money! Not to mention how owning the entire history of your industry is a great way to rewrite it.

He literally keeps them locked in a cave.


The shelves are bowed from people climbing them

For the most part, all of his purchases have made sense in one way or another. Whether said promotion had a huge following like ECW, or were a big part of the sport's history like Crocket and The AWA, some were clearly just to get old footage of a few people like the Von Erich's in WCCW and smaller promotions like Mid-South and FCW. There was that one time he was mostly out to prove a point... yeah, you know the one.

Now, let's look at TNA for what it is and what it's been. A promotion that has no exclusive following, comprised of guys that Vince didn't want anymore or never wanted to begin with, and has (arguably) never turned a profit. They've never been competitive ratings-wise, they don't sell ppv's, and they don't move merchandise. People have made it clear that throughout it's entire history thus far it hasn't been any good. It's just convenient.

"Bu-bu-but BAH-Bo... they've got the Hogan and the Hardy and the STINGER... The Dam Vam was an AMBASSADOR for them! They got the Dudleyz!"

...and Vinny already owns all of their good stuff. I'll boldly state that Kurt Angle is the only person who's done anything remotely memorable with TNA on a level that WWE could possibly use for profit. Not to say that couldn't change, but that's where we stand today, and the future isn't looking bright.

I mean, sure, it's silly to say that WWE wouldn't be interested in it just for the sake of somebody else NOT having it. But I think it's also silly to think that Vince has Joey Styles refreshing Craig's List every ten minutes to see if it pops up. I just don't know what he'd DO with it. I think it's more conceivable to think (hope) that WWE's rewritten history of wrestling will just leave them out all together.



Also, he'd have to pay Jeff Jarrett, and it's a known fact that Vince McMahon HATES paying Jeff Jarrett.

[cero2k]

i think they would buy it, but not as a big thing like with WCW, this would be under the water, then they close it. they suddenly start hiring some guys like Joe, Styles, Roode, they've already made mention on guys like Joe in wwe.com, they would likely consider getting some of them, especially if they can milk out stuff like Joe vs Punk. They would push to get Sting and Angle to get some last matches out of them, HOF for Sting and WWE can have the bragging rights of 'Sting retired in WWE'

[Big Red Machine]

It's a good point. The only thing I can think of is some footage for new Dudleys, New Age Outlaws, RVD, and Sting DVDs, but aside from Sting, I don't know if that would be even sell that much. It's not like one of the territories where Vince gets early footage for a ton of major stars whom he might want to make a DVD about. Maybe if they pick up guys like Roode and Storm, but I can actually see a majority of TNA's big names going back to ROH.

[cero2k]

It's a good point. The only thing I can think of is some footage for new Dudleys, New Age Outlaws, RVD, and Sting DVDs, but aside from Sting, I don't know if that would be even sell that much. It's not like one of the territories where Vince gets early footage for a ton of major stars whom he might want to make a DVD about. Maybe if they pick up guys like Roode and Storm, but I can actually see a majority of TNA's big names going back to ROH.

it's also quite likely that one of those outcasts that they leave out find themselves another millionaire with no knowledge of wrestling and make a call to Bruce Tharpe, " Hey Bruce, how's the NWA? good good, boy, we got a proposal for you"

and history repeats itself once again.