TNA Updates/Spoilers/News/Rumors

[Sgt. Josh Underpants]

IAN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP.  You're just as bad as Jack now, you're implying the use of logic as well.  Haven't we all learned that this can never lead to good.  Please Ian don't make people on the internet think

[! JDM The Professional !]

Ratings

1.2

Early indications are that last night's episode of TNA iMPACT! drew 1.65 million viewers on average over the two-hour show, which would be the highest viewership TNA has achieved since February 18 of this year. The rating and quarter-hour numbers are not yet available.

UPDATE: The actual rating for TNA iMPACT! was a 1.22 (1.2), the highest rating since the February 18 show. The main jump in the ratings was in the male 12-17 demographic, which jumped from a 0.97 to a 1.21. The rating among males 18-34, 18-49, and 12-34, as well as the overall adult 18-49 demographic, did not increase and in some cases even dropped.



YAY!! SUCK THAT TNA HATERS! The ratings have been rising and rising, going from .8's to 1.0's now to 1.2's.

Lets hope it sits on this amount for a while

Regards,

JDM

[Duckman]

Exactly the same ratings as they were before they moved to Monday and fucked themselves in the ass.

They've REBUILT their audience since the Monday-Thurday disaster. 

They haven't actually improved at all from the ratings they had before Hogan and EB came in

Got to be sure you're quoting facts and figures correctly man.  This is a bit of a misleading post because TNA are now BACK at the level they were alway at before the move to Monday. 

If they start improving from now, then you and Ian can break out the party stremers and 'We Love Dixie' t-shirts.

Peace

Duckman

[! JDM The Professional !]

Exactly the same ratings as they were before they moved to Monday and fucked themselves in the ass.

They've REBUILT their audience since the Monday-Thurday disaster. 

They haven't actually improved at all from the ratings they had before Hogan and EB came in

Got to be sure you're quoting facts and figures correctly man.  This is a bit of a misleading post because TNA are now BACK at the level they were alway at before the move to Monday. 

If they start improving from now, then you and Ian can break out the party stremers and 'We Love Dixie' t-shirts.

Peace

Duckman

Yes indeed they have rebuilt their audience on a Thursday night just as it was before the move.

In the end, after the move their ratings sucked, dropping to as little as a .8 if I recall correctly. I am happy to see the ratings hit 1.2 again.

And Sam, I already am prepared for the Dixie love-a-thon!

Here's my proof



Thanks to Russ for modeling the new shirt for me

Regards,

JDM

[Duckman]

The ratings dropped to a 0.4 at their lowest.

This is the problem with following TNA.  There's too much smoke and mirrors to try and put over 'success' when they're really just exactly the same as they have been for the past few years.  No better, no worse, no progress.

Still, nice t-shirt.

Peace

Duckman

[Rob]

Still, they aren't making the longest running weekly episodic television show on cable....

[Ian "Wolfie" Trumps]

The ratings dropped to a 0.4 at their lowest.

This is the problem with following TNA.  There's too much smoke and mirrors to try and put over 'success' when they're really just exactly the same as they have been for the past few years.  No better, no worse, no progress.

Still, nice t-shirt.

Peace

Duckman

I constantly say that nobody should invest too much time in ratings as a source to talk about the success of anything. Proven this with how WWE has half the audience it had 10 years ago in ratings yet has a tremendous and growing international appeal.

And just for the record Sam...TNA didn't drop to a 0.4 EVER on Monday Nights. Just so we can clear up this ratings thing once and for all in head to head this is what they scored...

[Duckman]

God I hate talking about TNA.  Must rememeber to stay out of this shit in future.

Peace

Duckman

[Ian "Wolfie" Trumps]

Yeah and to be honest you keep having these snipey shit remarks. As I said like 2 months ago. We get the point you dont like TNA, we get the point you dont like talking about it.

Just because I have one opinion which you dont agree with doesnt make my opinion invalid about TNA nor does it make it valid

No need to post the above comment yet again...discussion on TNA is just as important to the wrestling forums as WWE, ROH or whatever else.

[! JDM The Professional !]

[Jonny Worldbeater]

I'm confused.

When did Taker be the guy that set the bar for workrate and excellent matches? HBK I understand.. the dude is probably the best ever. Taker... he's been in more shithole clusterfuck matches that sucked than any other big time performer over the years.

Vs Bundy sucked. Vs Gonzales sucked. Vs Roberts sucked. Vs A-Train and Big Show sucked. ALL matches with big show were poor, actually. His Mania match with HHH wasn't even that great, and outside of Kane v Taker I, most of their matches have sucked or been average at best.

Taker's had good feuds and matches with Lesnar, Mankind, HBK, Angle and.... no one else really. He's a spectacle, but HBK was what made those matches so damn good.

Lynn vs RVD will probably be a better match than HBK/Taker, it just won't be on the same grand scale as Mania. But RVD/Lynn in the 90's were better than either Taker/HBK match, and they'll probably have a better match than HBK/Taker if it gets more than 7 minutes.

But Taker is a spectacle, like Andre was. He's never set the bar for workrate matches of A+ caliber.

I thought Orton vs Taker and Flair v Taker were both boring to watch.

Batista was better than I thought it would be, I admit that. And the matches with HBK were good (then again, go find more than 5 matches in HBK's career that sucked).

Taker's a gimmick, a spectacle, much like Andre was. People LOVE to see them both, but it doesn't mean they were the best workers that put on the best matches.

I've been offline for the past couple of days, but I've been meaning to get back to this discussion, so I'll just try to make my points as clearly and concisely as I can so that the thread can stay relatively on-topic, and because I don't really wanna get involved in flame-war that seems to have emerged lately.

So first of all - in regard to Maddox's query - I just wanted to clarify terms here, because it's a common misconception that 'wrestler' and 'worker' mean the same thing, because while it is describing the same job, there are a few fundamental differences between 'wrestling' and 'working'. I think it's been best described as something similar to this:

'Wrestling is just the moves you do. Working is what you do between the moves, and in fact it's the reason you do them'

Basically, wrestling is just about being technically sound, but working is pretty much everything you do beyond that. It encompasses the ability to cut a promo, pull off an angle, have a good match, suspend disbelief, look like a star, draw a crowd and perhaps most importantly to entertain. A good worker has to be able to captivate an audience pretty much every time their in front of a camera or stepping through the curtain. There's guys who could be considered great workers who weren't ever great wrestlers in their day, like say Hulk Hogan or Jake Roberts, and there's guys who were great wrestlers and can't go anymore but are still great workers, like Ric Flair or Bret Hart.

Taker and Shawn both have all those things down probably more than anybody still going in wrestling today, so that's why I would say they're the best 'workers' still in the business, and the proof of that pretty much speaks for itself when you look at their work over the last 5, 10, 15 or 20 odd years. They have a perfect understanding of how wrestling works and the psychology of the industry, and they know exactly how to use that to get the most out of it for the good of the business and themselves. Just take a look at the build to the Taker/Shawn Mania matches for proof of that.

Guarantee the majority of those angles and the reason they worked so well was down to Shawn & Taker.

Now, as far as in-ring skills are concerned, I don't think anyone with any remote understanding of wrestling would disagree that Shawn Michaels is one of the best wrestlers to ever lace the boots, and while Undertaker may not exactly be Lou Thesz when it comes to his in-ring skills, you can't look at his track record and say he isn't a great wrestler. No average joe could've gotten the kind of matches he's gotten out of guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Kane, Jeff Hardy, Edge or Batista, just to name a few.

And the other thing to consider is that for many, many years, all Taker had to work with was a bunch of big lugs that few really could drag a decent, much less great match out of. In a way, I think perhaps he doesn't get as much credit as he deserves for just how good a wrestler he really is. In fact, I have a video right here of a few people like Taz, Mick Foley, Michael Hayes, Pat Patterson and Jim Ross saying something similar.

The guy was very much a spectacle more than he was a wrestler, but that's kind of the point. Wrestling IS spectacle. It's not a legitimate sport or competition, it's Rocky. It's a drama with sporting elements. The whole purpose of professional wrestling is to be a form of entertainment, and that's what both Taker and Shawn excel at, and why they're considered two of the best at it.

It really isn't dude. As good as Van Dam & Lynn might be even today, they're not even remotely in the same league as Shawn & Taker.

Why?

Now, in regards to Ian's argument, I think I can best sum it up like this:

If there is a pro wrestling Hall of Fame and it has any measure of credibility, the fact is that it's pretty much guaranteed that Shawn & Taker will be in it at some point, and for good reason, whereas Lynn and Van Dam probably wouldn't even get a look. It's not even really a matter of opinion, it's just a fact.

Jerry Lynn is a great wrestler, he has a pretty good understanding of ring psychology, but his ring game isn't really on the same level as Taker and Shawn who have performed and excelled on the biggest stage there is, and of course Lynn isn't even close to the larger-than-life personas of either guy.

Rob Van Dam is a pretty decent wrestler, though it's safe to say he's a bit overrated, and his psychology and selling have never been his strongest suit, and he does a lot of spots. He takes a lot of great bumps, sure, like the famous RKO or the Tommy Dreamer piledriver, but then he can just shake those bumps off like nothing a few minutes later and never gives the impression of genuinely being hurt. And a lot of his spots, while impressive - though somewhat tamer as time has gone by - tend to take something away from his matches, whether it's the Chris Hero deal where popping for his moves makes it impossible for him to be a heel, or the feeling that he does stuff just for the sake of doing it, or just plain making the match feel fake. The guy's got a ton of in-ring charisma too, but he's never really been a great promo either, so while he has his pros and cons, he's really not overall on the same level as either Taker or Shawn.

It's not a knock against either Jerry Lynn or Rob Van Dam, and in fact I like both guys, but the fact is that there's a good reason (a lot of good reasons in fact) why both Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker are Hall of Famers in the minds of pretty much everybody and Lynn and Van Dam probably never will be.

Anyway, that's my perspective on the argument. I hope you take the time to give it  a good look over and can get where I'm coming from.

Thanks for reading.

[! JDM The Professional !]

JB, that was an awesome post by you mate, good work on that and thank you for contributing to the ongoing discussion.

Now, I see exactly what you mean with the Jerry Lynn/RVD vs. Taker/Michaels thing.

HOWEVER,

These two guys are great in ring, and, when the two are given the chance to compete against one another, they can do great things. I'd suggest for anyone whose a fan of wrestling, to go check out Jerry Lynns and RVD's old matches. Then you'll know what I mean. I am very excited to see these guys wrestle that's for damn sure!

Of course, by no means will it be as big as a Taker/Micheals match, but main eventing a TNA pay per view, it will be awesome!

Regards,

JDM

[Jonny Worldbeater]

JB, that was an awesome post by you mate, good work on that and thank you for contributing to the ongoing discussion.

Now, I see exactly what you mean with the Jerry Lynn/RVD vs. Taker/Michaels thing.

HOWEVER,

These two guys are great in ring, and, when the two are given the chance to compete against one another, they can do great things. I'd suggest for anyone whose a fan of wrestling, to go check out Jerry Lynns and RVD's old matches. Then you'll know what I mean. I am very excited to see these guys wrestle that's for damn sure!

Of course, by no means will it be as big as a Taker/Micheals match, but main eventing a TNA pay per view, it will be awesome!

Regards,

JDM

Completely agree, dude.

[Drama Queen]

Something has been bothering me about the whole ECW thing and I couln't quite put my finger on it... well I think I found it...

comparing the rematches IS completely different because Taker and HBK were still regulars (even if on a part-time basis) in the same company and the rematch was being built well into Maina. (I will go on record as saying I did not approve of the rematch at first, but I did not realise it would be HBK's retirement so in the end it made sense to me)

TNA are bringing in a ringer. To do something that was done a decade ago. It's an argument that neither JB nor Ian brought up but to me it makes it QUITE different.

Just not as appealing to me I guess

[! JDM The Professional !]

1.2

Thursday night's episode of TNA iMPACT! drew a 1.21 cable rating, with 1,626,000 viewers.

That's almost exactly what last week's show did

Yipee



So no main event at Hardcore Justice. Maybe if our wishes come true, we will get RVD vs. Abyss earlier than expected

lol.

Regards,

JDM