What would a Paul Heyman run TNA look like today?
 

If Paul Heyman had taken control of TNA when Dixie Carter had offered him the job and he had been empowered to take full control of TNA Creative what would it look like right now?

Like a big budget ECW, in that it would feature more home grown talent than Ex-WWE guys. I think a lot more guys would be talent raided too, Heyman can make guys look better than they are and maximise the impact of already established guys, like Funk. I don't think it would be worse off, not sure how much better it would though.

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His "theory" is very sound and on paper it makes a lot of sense. The question is, and this is the dilemma, will more people buy a PPV card headlined by Zema Ion vs Magus, or a PPV headlined by Jeff Hardy vs Bully Ray (two guys who feuded together over a decade ago)? A feud between Ion and Magnus would be amazing, huge spots, awesome displays of athleticism and they could heavily hype the crap out of it... but would it get more ratings than what they're getting now?

They only average a reported 10-15K buys for most PPVs, not even sure if that's profitable, so any initial dip wouldn't be the end of the world, the PPVs are there to hype the free TV anyways.

Right now, that is an easy answer. The whole point is that you slowly begin to put the focus on the new guys and build them up to where they can headline a PPV over the old acts.

WWE hasn't really raided TNA. AJ Styles, James Storm, Bobby Roode, etc. have turned down the WWE.

Samoa Joe too.

I don't really think that there are a lot of guys they seem interested in from TNA, which is bizzare because there's a heap of guys that could make money, the guys you listed though I don't blame them for not jumping with the schedules they have.

It would look like TNA but with Heyman in charge

Depending on what dirt sheets you read, they aren't interested in Joe, which I can understand when you see the unmotivated version. Sure he said they were going to bring him in as Umaga though.

RIP Umaga

William Regal: "Umanga"

Probably something similar to the "Smackdown 6" period but on a wider scale.

The stuff he wanted that got rejected by management had the potential of making TNA a viable alternative to the WWE although not at a WCW-level type threat. They didn't like the idea of him being the boss of creative nor the need to toss 1-2 years away as pure downtime to build for the future.

Internet marks would likely complain a lot less....

To be fair, that "downtime problem" is something they needed anyhow instead of kneejerk instant gratifying moves like trying to compete with RAW or treating every WWE castoff as an instant game changer.

they'd still find a way

They always do.

By this theory he shouldn't be associating himself punk and lesnar who are nearing the back end of their 30s

it would be diff and atleast watchable imo

heyman is right u cant recopy what wwe did or has now.U have to find something new cutting edge and market the shit outta it instead tna just gives us more hogan ,angle hardy sting etc

Yea, the thing about taking these young guys and building them up is that there is a very real chance that as soon as they become bigger names, they'll just go to the WWE. There are guys who are loyal to TNA but you don't know if the guys you plan to build the company around won't just leave for the WWE when they get a chance.

TNA has the advantage of a really small working year, even now that they've started touring it's just a fraction of what WWE does, so the guys that James Steele mentioned, who are all TNA main-eventers, are making decent money for working a handful of dates a month and are allowed to work outside of the company to make more if they want. Someone like Magnus or a guy on his level would be more inclined to jump ship, not sure if it applies to all lower card talent but a lot of the guys who left were paid by appearances. Heyman locked guys into guaranteed contracts in ECW, he couldn't always pay them but he was smart enough to do it, and it's not like Panda energy couldn't afford it. You want to build guys up and keep them, pay them.

I have a feeling Heyman would sign Dead Presidents, Irish Airborne, Brain Damage, Drake Younger, and other CZW guys who <del>aren't as loyal to the company as John Zandig, DJ Hyde, or Jon Dahmer</del> want to make decent money for their performances and take fewer bumps as they grow older.

AND Paul Titan, Internet darling extraordinaire! Also perhaps Rammsteinmad's wrestling character if he is US-based.

The booking would probably be different, but not necessarily any more interesting than it is right now. Sometimes what looks good on paper doesn't matter if it's executed poorly on stage. I can appreciate Heyman's constant need to put over the young talent is a good one in concept, but it doesn't always work if that same young talent do not have a big enough stage to shine on. In TNA, you could push Magnus to the moon, but it won't make him a big star in the business. The Hardy's, Ray's, and Sting's of the world are already stars because they made their careers on the big stage(WCW, WWF). WWE can push whomever they want because the fans basically behave as though they are the only game in town, otherwise TNA would be more popular as a promotion. Prime example.....Fandango or whatever his name is, defeats Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania, this would never work in TNA, but in WWE it works because everyone saw it happen and the idea is that you now take Fandango more seriously(or at least that's what is suppose to happen).

We need to only look at history to prove this point. WCW became huge basically because of the names they hired away from the WWF(they had the money to do it), and then how they eventually used them. In the process we got guys like DDP, Goldberg, Chris Benoit, Booker T, and to a lesser extent Sting(he was already a star but rose a new level with the crow gimmick). Heck even Jericho was basically built in WCW. Without the big stage that those older guys created, we never would have the younger ones at all.

TNA's problem is and always will be money. They don't have enough money to hire away the necessary talent from WWE to cause a stir and create the big stage that they need to make guys like AJ Styles and Booby Roode household names like DDP, Goldberg, and Booker T eventually became. They don't need Heyman or new bookers, or even Hogan, they need money.

TNA has pretty much unlimited finances to an extent, Sting is reportedly on 500K a year, Flair was on between 2 & 400K aledgedly, and a lot that is/was paid by Panda Energy rather than TNA. ECW made stars, the amount of talent that was raided from there was ridiculous, even if when they joined the big two they were going in as midcard guys. TNA has always presented itself as WWE-lite, for me that was always their problem, they had/have an amazing roster of talent but fail to capitilise on what made them different, they had an actual tag division at one point that people cared about, womens matches that drew them their highest ratings consistently and the X division. Even the six sided ring was unique. When I catch TNA now it just looks like a watered down version of Smackdown.

Yes I know they're bankrolled by Panda and Spike to a certain extent, but it's not enough. They need to have enough to where say CM Punk's contract comes up they can say, whatever WWE is giving you, we'll make it more and a lighter schedule. Despite what he's said about TNA in the past, that's probably enough to have anyone thinking twice about things. Now they can't go all the way to giving them the ridiculous clauses that Hall and Nash had when they jumped, but they need to be able to compete money wise. But that's just one thing that can get the ball rolling. Better booking would make the show better for sure, but it won't improve its ratings or attendance, whereas bad booking probably stands to hurt them. So it's a tough situation to be in for sure. They've had spans of good shows in the past, but did it help? Not so much. No wrestling promotion can book perfectly on a consistent basis, so you largely have to depend on momentum. I'm sure ECW was great, but it didn't help matters that they had very little money and therefor, no big stage for everyone to see this great booking that Heyman supposedly did. So they ended up going under as well.

I don't even think it's needed for them to offer more money, the schedule they have, even if a guy is working full time is considerably lighter than WWEs, it's the reason guys like Sting/Hardy etc cite for staying put. You start handing out ridiculous contracts and it does end up like WCW again, how can you justify putting a guy over on 200K a year when you've got someone on 800K doing nothing, it creates a glass ceiling. Better booking would increase both ratings and attendance, if it's a quality product it will attract a bigger fanbase, as it stands now TNA has a core fanbase that doesn't really fluctuate, it spikes occasionally when someone signs then drops back the usual 1.2 or whatever, they need something or someone different to help seperate them from WWE. ECW wasn't a masterclass in booking, it had some amazing stuff for sure but it also had some terrible stuff, but it also suffered from being a very niche product with erratic timeslots, it's hard to invest in a ongoing show if you're not sure exactly when it's on or its on in a bad timeslot. Heyman can book, he can't handle money, look at his run on Smackdown or even the start of WWECW.

One other thing I was thinking about, wasn't Paul Haymen really bad with money and keeping his guy's "in check" in ECW. That's why Mike Awesome left right, he was owed a lot of money by Paul. Same thing with the talent, a lot of guys showed up drunk and drugged up, couldn't even work. What I think makes WWE so great is that Vince and his higher ups keeps his talent in check. It's his money, it's his company, if you don't do what he likes.... Future Endeavored. TNA is just a tax ride off for Daddy Carter who bought the company for his lovely daughter.

Yeah he singlehandly ruined the Jew/money stereotype. All the shoot interviews from original ECW guys put over the working atmosphere though, Heyman would build the stuff around the guys rather than trying to force a character on someone, which paid off for a lot of talent. The drunk/drugged thing, it wasn't exclusively an ECW problem, but it was more or less self regulated there, unless someone was becoming a problem for the company they were left to themselves.

"build the stuff around the guys," that seems like it is so easy, and yet it works so well. Why is it such a foreign concept in modern WWE?

I wonder how tna feels when they hear the fans doing wwe chants, a la the what chants, and the yes, chants.. Gotta be somewhat crushing when ure "fans" can't even chant anything started in tna

I dunno, they had their audience chanting "I'm an asshole" so yeah, TNA.

I could get into IMPACT more if it wasn't for Hogan. I can't stand Hogan being in the center of every fucking storyline and making most of the wrestlers look like bitches who won't stand up to a crippled old man.

I desperately want a TNA crowd to start doing Fandango's theme on the next live show they do.

Gut Check is fucking stupid. The forced drama and overproduced "DECISION" is ridiculous. Only good thing about it is that Al Snow gets on TV.

Oh yeah, they fed Joey Ryan to Rob Terry. #TheFutureIsNow

To answer the original question, it would be better. Much better. Heyman has a great mind for wrestling.

Better... probably only slightly bigger than it is now though. Bringing a wrestling company near WWE's level is easier said than done no matter how good it might be.

Lol that would be epic.. And I agree about the hogan thing, whoever said it.. The man just can't let the spotlight go.. He has to be involved, and seems like about 80 percent of the time he is closing out the show, one way or another. They have a lot of potential, and a lot of young, super talented guys. Heyman would do wonders to tna

I think TNA has gotten as big as they are going to get. They have had the biggest stars short of The Rock & Stone Cold in their promotion, and they have consistently had the same level of ratings for awhile now. TNA has been around for 10 years, and their reputation/identity has been set. They will only grow if WWE and wrestling in general explodes again.

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Hate Rob Terry.