Destor
12-08-2005, 01:28 PM
I stole this off of the TNA boards:
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Who is TNA's audience? A Torch article
Who The Hell is TNA's Audience?
By:By Jeremy Maes, Opinion Specialist
As of this writing at TNA.com, Sabu versus Abyss leads the voting for "Match I Want to See" at Turning Point. There is really nothing wrong with this unless you follow TNA. Here on the Torch forum and other wrestling forums there is little to no talk about the upcoming barb wire match by self proclaimed TNA fans. Yes, forums make up a portion of the TNA fans and even detractors but they are the audience TNA have chased down recently.
All of the buzz has been about Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Christian Cage and the majority of the X-Division. Glancing at different threads and forums there is no one talking about Abyss or Sabu. Go to the TNA section of the PWTorch forums and there is not one thread devoted to Abyss, Sabu, the Barb Wire match or, just for the hell of it, James Mitchell. So how can this match be listed above all the other match ups for Turning Point if the base audience is not even being mentioned?
Christian Cage versus Monty Brown is in second place with AJ Styles versus Samoa Joe ranking a close third and could change by the time this is published. There are two things wrong with this situation. Christian was brought in as a big name free agent that was to give TNA some credibility. So, naturally you would think the old faithful audience of TNA would be excited to see Christian take on Monty Brown, a TNA staple. On top of that shouldn’t the fans Christian brought with him to TNA be up for the match up and clearly show their enthusiasm?
Then there is the problem of AJ Styles and Samoa Joe being the third place vote getter so far. So much of TNA has been built around AJ Styles as the face of TNA, at least to a certain extent, I mean Jeff Jarrett is still around, that anything but first place should send up a warning flag. AJ has had many four star matches on TNA PPV and has been able to overcome bad, bad booking and come out with plenty of momentum. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that as good as AJ Styles may be he isn’t a legitimate draw? ROH 's attendance didn’t drop off when he was forced to wrestle only for TNA, ROH 's attendance did not go up once he returned and TNA buyrates haven’t fluctuated depending on AJ's spot on the card or his matches. This isn’t a character assassination or anything to that degree; I'm just trying to figure out who is TNA's audience.
Samoa Joe gets a good pop from the Orlando fans and is an Internet darling but he shares the burden with AJ of being in the third spot. Maybe he isn’t holding up his end of the bargain due to TNA's absurd decision to turn him heel even though the Orlando audience repeatedly cheers for him. It’s a confusing scenario for viewers at home watching Impact; you have Mike Tenay and Don West expounding on the nefarious ways of Samoa Joe as the crowd cheers him. All the while Joe ignores the audience until he can’t take it and jaws at one single person. He even wears the bloody towel of a heel wrestler he ran off TNA television. So, um, why should the crowd boo the bad ass?
Are we, the viewing audience of TNA fooled by the overzealous Orlando crowd as they cheer for Lance Hoyt, AJ Styles and the usual cast of TNA characters? Id there a significant buzz around TNA wrestlers that Internet fans buzz about or has the blanket been pulled over our eyes? Who the hell is TNA's audience? What TNA fan is voting for Sabu and Abyss when there is no discernable buzz about either man other than how they routinely put on two-minute squash matches and two star matches on PPV? Do TNA fans want workrate, gimmick matches, deranged monsters? What? What do you want to see in TNA? It is confusing not only for myself but it has to be confusing for TNA management.
They have been throwing out so many different angles, matches and storylines in the hopes of finding their core audience and they get repaid with conflicting results. For every Abyss versus Jeff Hardy vilified match there is a Chris Sabin / Sonjay Dutt heralded match. The strong characters have poor matches while the underdeveloped characters have strong matches. So they get pushed and developed but then fans vote for Jeff Hardy and Abyss again? It’s an example, but it is an example of the confusion TNA faces.
Maybe I haven’t learned as much about wrestling fans as I thought I had. I thought we all wanted strong matches with decent characters with little gimmicks getting involved. Judging by the response TNA gets on their web polls I am totally wrong. So I ask, who the hell are TNA fans and what the hell do they want from TNA?
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www.pwtorch.com (http://www.pwtorch.com)
http://www.talktna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9382
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I think this shows just how ass backwards the core TNA audience is...
*edit* post 3,000! what a terrible waste...<!-- / message -->
=====================================
Who is TNA's audience? A Torch article
Who The Hell is TNA's Audience?
By:By Jeremy Maes, Opinion Specialist
As of this writing at TNA.com, Sabu versus Abyss leads the voting for "Match I Want to See" at Turning Point. There is really nothing wrong with this unless you follow TNA. Here on the Torch forum and other wrestling forums there is little to no talk about the upcoming barb wire match by self proclaimed TNA fans. Yes, forums make up a portion of the TNA fans and even detractors but they are the audience TNA have chased down recently.
All of the buzz has been about Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Christian Cage and the majority of the X-Division. Glancing at different threads and forums there is no one talking about Abyss or Sabu. Go to the TNA section of the PWTorch forums and there is not one thread devoted to Abyss, Sabu, the Barb Wire match or, just for the hell of it, James Mitchell. So how can this match be listed above all the other match ups for Turning Point if the base audience is not even being mentioned?
Christian Cage versus Monty Brown is in second place with AJ Styles versus Samoa Joe ranking a close third and could change by the time this is published. There are two things wrong with this situation. Christian was brought in as a big name free agent that was to give TNA some credibility. So, naturally you would think the old faithful audience of TNA would be excited to see Christian take on Monty Brown, a TNA staple. On top of that shouldn’t the fans Christian brought with him to TNA be up for the match up and clearly show their enthusiasm?
Then there is the problem of AJ Styles and Samoa Joe being the third place vote getter so far. So much of TNA has been built around AJ Styles as the face of TNA, at least to a certain extent, I mean Jeff Jarrett is still around, that anything but first place should send up a warning flag. AJ has had many four star matches on TNA PPV and has been able to overcome bad, bad booking and come out with plenty of momentum. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that as good as AJ Styles may be he isn’t a legitimate draw? ROH 's attendance didn’t drop off when he was forced to wrestle only for TNA, ROH 's attendance did not go up once he returned and TNA buyrates haven’t fluctuated depending on AJ's spot on the card or his matches. This isn’t a character assassination or anything to that degree; I'm just trying to figure out who is TNA's audience.
Samoa Joe gets a good pop from the Orlando fans and is an Internet darling but he shares the burden with AJ of being in the third spot. Maybe he isn’t holding up his end of the bargain due to TNA's absurd decision to turn him heel even though the Orlando audience repeatedly cheers for him. It’s a confusing scenario for viewers at home watching Impact; you have Mike Tenay and Don West expounding on the nefarious ways of Samoa Joe as the crowd cheers him. All the while Joe ignores the audience until he can’t take it and jaws at one single person. He even wears the bloody towel of a heel wrestler he ran off TNA television. So, um, why should the crowd boo the bad ass?
Are we, the viewing audience of TNA fooled by the overzealous Orlando crowd as they cheer for Lance Hoyt, AJ Styles and the usual cast of TNA characters? Id there a significant buzz around TNA wrestlers that Internet fans buzz about or has the blanket been pulled over our eyes? Who the hell is TNA's audience? What TNA fan is voting for Sabu and Abyss when there is no discernable buzz about either man other than how they routinely put on two-minute squash matches and two star matches on PPV? Do TNA fans want workrate, gimmick matches, deranged monsters? What? What do you want to see in TNA? It is confusing not only for myself but it has to be confusing for TNA management.
They have been throwing out so many different angles, matches and storylines in the hopes of finding their core audience and they get repaid with conflicting results. For every Abyss versus Jeff Hardy vilified match there is a Chris Sabin / Sonjay Dutt heralded match. The strong characters have poor matches while the underdeveloped characters have strong matches. So they get pushed and developed but then fans vote for Jeff Hardy and Abyss again? It’s an example, but it is an example of the confusion TNA faces.
Maybe I haven’t learned as much about wrestling fans as I thought I had. I thought we all wanted strong matches with decent characters with little gimmicks getting involved. Judging by the response TNA gets on their web polls I am totally wrong. So I ask, who the hell are TNA fans and what the hell do they want from TNA?
===========================================
www.pwtorch.com (http://www.pwtorch.com)
http://www.talktna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9382
===========================================
I think this shows just how ass backwards the core TNA audience is...
*edit* post 3,000! what a terrible waste...<!-- / message -->