I can't believe Jeff Hardy is TNA World Champion...again *SPOILERS*

[slik]

So what does everyone think of the state of TNA?

Have they made progress and are they pushing homegrown talent more? Have they cut back at all on overbooked finishes? What should they do to improve in your opinion. (Jeff Hardy is not TNA champ btw, j/k on that)

[Shisen Kopf]

Lol TNA needs to hire Bobby Jaggers junior. They'll sell out the silverdome or superdome

[Lock Jaw]

TNA was best when Christian Cage was around (and champion)

[road doggy dogg]

I think if TNA wants to ever seriously compete they need a complete change in the fundamental product.

By that I don't mean "better booking" or "better talent" or "better ANYTHING", because face it they are so many leagues behind the WWE right now (I'm trying to be objective) that minor fixes here and there aren't going to all of a sudden make then relevant. They need to rethink the industry as a whole and take a whole new approach.

I don't have the answers for what that approach needs to be, but I think the entire "sports entertainment" medium as a whole is an incredibly outdated model. If the WWE didn't have such a huge legion of followers then it would be doing just as badly. Like if no wrestling company existed today and WWE was trying to start anew it would fail miserably.

In the pop culture landscape of 2014, the entire notion of fake fighting with decades-old tropes captivating a modern consumer is laughable. There are so many other forms of entertainment to compete against that it's ludicrous to think that most people would latch onto something as admittedly ridiculous as pro wrestling. Our culture as a whole was pretty fucking weird in the 80s and 90s and didn't know what to make of things we saw on tv and so pro wrestling with its pre-existing fan base just kinda existed there and kept on going. Video games were a brand new thing that weren't really vying for peoples' attention, and movies and tv shows weren't nearly as much of a social phenomenon as they are today. Wrestling kinda lucked out with a real lack of anything else good to watch.

Nowadays though I mean... Compare the latest Call of Duty, or Game of Thrones, or superhero blockbuster movie, or NFL game, to wrestling. How does this industry still even exist?! It's fascinating to think about.

And then take that a step further. So okay, WWE has a rich history and extremely polished production and have embraced the social network thing etc. they've been at the game and know how to properly book events and your, logistics aren't prohibitive. Okay, I buy all that. Now, think of some company without ANY of that trying to compete with all those other mediums. It just doesn't make sense. Who would honestly sit down and willingly make the conscious decision, "I'm going to watch a goofy ridiculous fake fighting show that's NOT EVEN THE CONSENSUS BEST FAKE FIGHTING SHOW AND ITS NOT EVEN REALLY CLOSE instead of Orange is the New Black or Breaking Bad". In 2014 how many people make that choice?

And again that's not to knock TNA specifically, I'm talking more vaguely as "not WWE". Sure there will be the die-hards that will watch any pro wrestling because they have a passion for the industry, but it's such a niche demographic that it will never be wide scale.


Back to my original point, if a company like TNA wants to compete and turn a profit and be culturally relevant they have to do something drastically different. They can't just keep using the same tired tropes that the industry has milked dry for decades and expect the more pop culturally savvy 21st century a audience to keep lapping it up. The whole idea that "bad guy made fun of our city even though it's blatantly obvious he's trying to be a bad guy!" is exhausting to watch. Why even go through the motions? Why try to create these characters that are not even half as interesting as those seen on TV shows

I have no idea where this was going. I just can't even fathom how a normal suburbanite would even bother watching a second-tier wrestling promotion, even if the product was honestly better than WWE's. Maybe I'm just cynical idk. LOLTNA

[DAMN iNATOR]

Lol TNA needs to hire Bobby Jaggers junior. They'll sell out the silverdome or superdome

Superdome would be their only hope. Silverdome is being torn down :(

WM III - 3/29/1987 ● 93,173 fans...

#memories

[blake639raw]

RDD gets it. :y:

[Innovator]

Can you imagine any wrestling company waiting for a payoff like (Spoiler for assholes who haven't seen Breaking Bad) the Ricin or "I watched Jane die"?

[road doggy dogg]

no really, HUGE SPOILER incoming
WRESTLING SPOILER
http://www.memegene.net/media/created/9fh06x.jpg

[Mr. Nerfect]

RDD brings up some awesome points.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Every time I see the card of a TNA PPV, I think to myself "Things could be so easily awesome going forward from this," but then it just goes all LolTNA.

[erickman]

talking about hardy with the hardy boys reuniting poor abyss losses another partner. they need to get a mask for matt and the hardys and abyss can be a faction be team hardcore or something.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Matt Hardy coming back, provided that he is now clean, is actually a good thing for TNA, I think. I mean, it's absolutely shitty that TNA let Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian get away, but The Hardys will only help the tag team picture.

The timing behind bringing in Matt Hardy last time was really shitty, because Jeff Hardy was a part of Immortal at the time. It meant that Matt had to come in as a bad guy, and there just wasn't a point behind that.