Official Impact Wrestling 12-08-20 Thread: Can't Be Elite Without Making An Impact Part ll

[Playaz Eyez]

The funny thing is TNA's best 12 month cycle in their history creatively (on a week to week basis) was under Hogan and Bischoff from BFG '11 to BFG '12 when Bruce Prichard had the book. Even Meltzer and them awarded Impact the best show of the year and he absolutely hated TNA at that point (probably because of Bischoff shytting on him at every turn). The problem is that LOLTNA had already settled in on the internet after Hogan and Bischoff's first 18 months.

TNA's real downturn had nothing to do with Hogan and Bischoff and everything to do with Dixie refusing to let Russo go (despite his booking tanking their PPV market) and Dixie's dad trying to saddle Viacom with Dixie when they wanted to buy the company. That was literally the only sticking point. Had he just sold TNA there and then they'd probably still be #2, a distant #2 like AEW or the other property Viacom owns (Bellator) but #2 regardless.

Nah, Hogan and Bischoff definitely had something to do with it. All Dixie did was continue to poor gas on the fire. When Hogan and Bischoff came in and started the “New Monday Night Wars” and instantly brought in every former WWE guy and old far past their prime WCW guys and started spotlighting them over the homegrown TNA guys.

 

[ÆTHER]

Nah, Hogan and Bischoff definitely had something to do with it. All Dixie did was continue to poor gas on the fire. When Hogan and Bischoff came in and started the “New Monday Night Wars” and instantly brought in every former WWE guy and old far past their prime WCW guys and started spotlighting them over the homegrown TNA guys.

This had been happening for years before they came in.

• Washed Kevin Nash with no knees ran roughshod over the entire X-Division by himself before Hogan and Bischoff.
• Finished Mick Foley was TNA World Heavyweight Champion before Hogan and Bischoff arrived.
• The Dudley Boyz at their fattest and least productive had a stranglehold on the Tag Team division despite their run coinciding with almost all of TNA's great homegrown teams from AMW to Beer Money, LAX and MCMG. The only ones they missed off the top of my head were Triple X, Styles/Daniels and Bad Influence.
• The Main Event Mafia was before Hogan and Bischoff and they never got their comeuppance.

They were still Spike's #1 show and comfortably cracking a million viewers every week.

Everything you're talking about was done by mid-2011 guy.

• Nash, Hall and Waltman were gone, Nasty Boys, Sean Mooney, Orlando Jordan and all those weird and unnecessary characters that came in with Hogan and Bischoff were long gone.
• They'd set up the BFG Series that had Roode looking like TNA's breakthrough babyface star before Storm pipped him to the title and he turned heel.
• The World Title spent a year going from Angle to Storm to Roode to Aries.
• Angle was used alongside AJ to put Kazarian and Daniels over who had been brought together and given significant TV time over multiple segments every single week for the rest of their run.
• Samoa Joe was the only homegrown talent who you could really argue was misused during that time and even he was put in a position to do some great work with Magnus in the tag team division.
• The X-Division was brought back to the forefront after Aries came back and caught fire and he was so hot that year they bumped him up to the World Heavyweight Title without him even losing the X-Division belt.
• Almost all of the ex-WWE/WCW guys who remained like Anderson, RVD, Team 3D, even Sting had all been integrated and they were just regular members of the roster at that point and fighting it out in the mid card and upper midcard of the show.
• The only non-homegrown guy who was consistently at the top of the card was Jeff Hardy and he was by far their top merch seller so why wouldn't he be?

There's a big difference between when you lost interest in the company and the company's downturn. They were damn near 3-4 years apart. Hogan and Bischoff had a terrible start, a strong middle and a forgettable end but TNA's business remained consistent throughout because the reality is that they came into a company that was already heavily dependent on TV money and the people who were most vocal about TNA didn't spend money on the product and hadn't spent money on it in years anyway (largely because of Russo's booking). TNA recovered their viewers when they went back to Thursdays. Damage from the failed Monday Night War was minimal in the long run beyond memes and shyt.

What hurt the company was the botched attempt to go on the road and Spike cutting TNA loose after Viacom couldn't negotiate the purchase of the company. Money lost on the attempt to go on the road without proper planning and marketing is what led to them low balling AJ and losing the Spike deal put them in a position where international TV money became the main revenue stream and they had to cut costs which led to the show becoming progressively indy over time. One of TNA's biggest international deals (India) was gotten off the strength of Hulkkk's name.

You're doing that thing people do when something falls off where they retrospectively assign the thing they didn't like about an artist/product/company as the reason that thing fell off. You're just projecting. If Viacom bought TNA they wouldn't have fallen off, they would have still had the money and TV exposure to compete for talent ,they still would have had their 900 000 - 1 100 000 weekly viewers in the US on top of their TV deals in 100+ countries and Hogan and Bischoff would have been remembered as that time TNA tried and failed to step up to WWE.

Even if they didn't bring in Hogan and Bischoff:

• Viacom still would have wanted to own the company.
• Bob Carter still would have tried to negotiate to keep Dixie in power.
• Viacom would have still refused.
• Spike would have still told Impact to kick rocks.
• TNA would have still entered a TV market that didn't want wrestling even WWE struggled with their shows outside of Raw and Smackdown and Smackdown was airing on the worst day of the week on Friday nights (shyt they're airing there in 2020 too).
• TNA's options would have still been WGN and Destination America.
• They still would have picked Destination America because they were the ones who wouldn't have made them wait a few months to debut.
• DA's sponsors would have still baulked at wrestling and they would have left that network. ROH was on Destination America essentially for free and without any of TNA's baggage and they weren't spared when Impact left.

TNA left Spike as their top rated show. Putting up higher numbers than any show today that's not Raw or Smackdown. The Hogan/Bischoff downturn you're talking about didn't reflect real life. Bischoff and Hogan weren't successful by any stretch of the imagination but TNA's regression had nothing to do with Hogan and Bischoff and everything to do with Viacom wanting to own the content on their networks and the Carters not selling at the right time.

 

[Kevin_Nash]

Washed Kevin Nash with no knees ran roughshod over the entire X-Division by himself before Hogan and Bischoff.

Let me set the record straight on this one:

When Big Sexy decided to help out the X-Division in 2006, other than Joe and AJ, everyone else competing in the X-Division at that time were interchangeable, void of personality vanilla midgets. Nobody really gave a shyt about most of those guys, and honestly, you could have put Ciclope in the ring, called him Sonjay Dutt, and no one would have batted an eye.

- Jay Lethal wasn't doing anything that could get people to care. After I got involved? Not only did he develop a character and personality that got over, but he's been successful in his own right elsewhere and eventually a World Champion. Not to mention that promo with Flair is one of the best ones in TNA's history.
- Sonjay Dutt developed a character that made him stand out from others
- Petey Williams developed a mini-Scott Steiner gimmick and showed he was more than just a dope finisher (which unfortunately is spammed out of control these days)
- Aries would have been a Main Eventer sooner if not for issues he had with TNA Management
- Sabin was lost, and because of my motivation, he regained confidence and not only became a champ again, but reformed Motor City Machine Guns under my guidance

People should be saying "Thank You Mister Nash" for getting the X-Division over.

 

[Playaz Eyez]

 

[Wacky D]

why do people take pride in not watching TNA?

dumbasses missed out on alot of classic chit throughout the years, but the same people will break their backs to watch bad WWE shows year-in and year-out.

wrestling fans are a certain kind of stupid.

Bruh Moose vs Omega would be dope af. Cody vs Willy Mack
Page vs Rich Schwann.

ROH did the bolded not too long ago.

when willie mack came over there to challenge cody for the NWA title.

 

[Flex Luger]

why do people take pride in not watching TNA?

dumbasses missed out on alot of classic chit throughout the years, but the same people will break their backs to watch bad WWE shows year-in and year-out.

wrestling fans are a certain kind of stupid.





ROH did the bolded not too long ago.

when willie mack came over there to challenge cody for the NWA title.

Shytting on Impact is the “cool” thing to do apparently. Especially on the internet.

 

[Hater]

 

[Wacky D]

Hell yeah. I wish that her WWE run was longer. She could've had a Hall of Fame career.

kong IS a hall of famer and one of the goats.

she didnt have to be in the corny ass WWE divas division to accomplish that.

i think if they got Kong young enough she woulda went down as the female Sexual Chocolate...def a multi time champ but ultimately still disrespected and under utilized.

you say all this, but yet you still disrespect TNA's entire history.

and still watch the WWE.

so much time has gone by since that and they still got him in NXT looking like some young new upstart

thats swerve's fault.

he was the face of MLW and forced his way out just to do this chit.

dont feel sorry for him at all. court bauer prolly laughs at his dumb ass on wednesday nights, and twice as much if he wrestles on fridays.

Hogan/Bischoff basically directly coincided with Impact’s downturn. They were legit an alternative to the WWE until they came in and made them WWE-lite.

THIS

BUT impact has had some great runs since then, that people ignore.

This had been happening for years before they came in.

• Washed Kevin Nash with no knees ran roughshod over the entire X-Division by himself before Hogan and Bischoff.
• Finished Mick Foley was TNA World Heavyweight Champion before Hogan and Bischoff arrived.
• The Dudley Boyz at their fattest and least productive had a stranglehold on the Tag Team division despite their run coinciding with almost all of TNA's great homegrown teams from AMW to Beer Money, LAX and MCMG. The only ones they missed off the top of my head were Triple X, Styles/Daniels and Bad Influence.
• The Main Event Mafia was before Hogan and Bischoff and they never got their comeuppance.

the difference is, the older guys that TNA pushed in the late '00s were wrestling icons that people wanted to see.
granted, they went overboard in some cases - like foley being champ and too much dudleyz, but even that stuff was pretty strategic. like when lockdown came to philly when foley was champ - it was ECW vibes all around, and the dudleyz celebration in the arena after the show went off the air, lasted long as hell and ended up with them kicking it in the concession stands with us.

theres a huge difference between stuff like that and the main event mafia dominating as opposed to the bullchit that hogan/bischoff came in doing. they were bringing in mid-low midcarders and having them going over top TNA talents, like when they had chris daniels jobbing to val venis on PPV like it was nothing. then they came in redecorating the furniture and chasing all the real TNA fans away, especially whdn they LITERALLY chased off the fans that regularly attended the shows every week.

i can def believe it when people say that hogan/bischoff purposely killed off TNA.

 

[stro]

People blaming Hogan/Bischoff for bringing in ex WWE guys to push ahead of home grown talent is lmao. That has been TNA's thing literally since day one. Every period of TNA from Asylum era to today hot shots whatever recently released WWE talent(s) into the title picture and main events at the expense of their homegrown stars. Some periods they were better at eventually using it to put over their own guys in the end, but it certainly wasn't a Hogan/Bischoff/Dixie issue, that shyt is just in TNA's DNA.