I haven't written anything on my blog about professional wrestling in quite some time. Not since May of this year, as a matter of fact, when I put together a review of Chikara Pro Wrestling's "The Ghost of You Clings" event which was held in Porterdale, Georgia (be sure to check it out for yourself, if you haven't already, via this link - The Truesdales Went Down to Georgia). I still watch wrestling several days a week, so don't start thinking that I've given up on paying attention to the goings on of events inside (and outside) the squared circle. I've hung around through what have been some fairly dark days for the wrestling business as it relates to the in-ring product and I'm not about to abandon ship now, seeing as how things are mostly on the up-tick - for World Wrestling Entertainment, at least. Not so much for their competitor, Total Non-stop Action Wrestling.
If you read the title of this blog entry, you already have an idea of where I'm going with this topic. I want to say first and foremost that I do not have a desire for TNA Wrestling to close up shop. I'm not one of these fans who thinks TNA needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth because of decisions made by the higher-ups in the company. Far from it, honestly, as I would love to find myself again in a situation like I did when I was in high school where I had to pick and choose which show I was going to watch on which night (RAW or Nitro? Smackdown or Thunder?). What's more, were TNA to fold that would mean there's one less spot for men and women to work and earn a living doing something they love; that's bad news (potentially of the dream crushing kind), no matter how you look at it.
This is not an attempt to throw dirt on the still-warm body of a company that is, as of this writing, the closest competition WWE has in both the national and global professional wrestling market. The problem is that they're number two (there are a lot of number threes - Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla are the most well-known among them but quite a few regional independent companies have made strides in growing their audiences lately) and they're losing ground to number one (that being WWE). I mean that metaphorically as well as literally.
Over the course of the past couple years, WWE began a process of revamping their talent development system, which typically gets referred to simply as "developmental". There was a point in time where WWE maintained relationships with several smaller entities such as Ohio Valley Wrestling, Deep South Wrestling, and Florida Championship Wrestling. They eventually severed ties with OVW (which, ironically enough, is now used by TNA as their version of a developmental system) and DSW, then converted FCW into what has become the definitive incarnation of their NXT brand (which itself went through several iterations before settling into its current state).
From a tactical perspective, this all made sense. FCW was based in Tampa, Florida which is also where quite a few members of the WWE roster call home. (PRO-TIP: If you make a lot of money, it's a good idea to live where there's no state income tax.) The facility FCW occupied wasn't enough for WWE, though, as they wanted to hone their talent using training techniques typically reserved for professional athletes as well as state of the art production equipment for producing TV and web content. Enter Full Sail University, a "technical college" for lack of a better phrase based in Orlando specializing in educating students with a desire to work in the fields of entertainment and media.
WWE began taping NXT at Full Sail in the summer of 2012, and the product was an immediate success with wrestling fans even though it wasn't readily available in the United States (and still isn't; NXT is broadcast internationally but US fans can only see it by way of the Hulu Plus streaming service). Why was it so successful? In my eyes, it was for two reasons.
1) A renewed focus on in-ring action as opposed to excessive talking, promos, and backstage segments
2) An opportunity for fans like myself to finally see top independent stars compete under the bright lights of WWE
Obviously there's no good to putting all this effort into developing talent if there's no talent to work with. This is why WWE made the brilliant move to begin signing some of the best talent available on the independent circuit. Guys like Chris Hero, El Generico, Pac, and a host of others. They may not be on television anytime soon but their being signed means they also won't be on a competitor's programming thanks to developmental deals with WWE making them exclusive to the company.
I am a confessed huge fan of NXT. I dig the show and its format, so much so that there have been times where I've woken up early on the day a new episode gets released just to watch it before I have to get ready to go to work. It's very reminiscent of the kind of wrestling TV shows I watched as a kid, and the talent featured there is fantastic.
The icing on the cake of WWE's Florida initiative was the assembly of the WWE Performance Center (also in Orlando), a pro wrestling mega-gym that's about as robust as could be in terms of serving as an all-around training facility for up and coming WWE Superstars. The Performance Center features exercise and recovery suites, 7 training rings, production areas, and more.
With the opening of the Performance Center, WWE's position in central Florida became cemented. This is relevant to the discussion here because there was a point in time in the history of professional wrestling where large companies existed all over the nation in a territorial system. Borders were established and promoters mostly kept to within their own confines. This system was destroyed, most would agree, when Vince McMahon, Jr. began taking the best talent from each territory and bringing them into his World Wrestling Federation. It's fitting, then, that McMahon would continue his reign by claiming central Florida for his own.
Why Orlando? Because that's where TNA lives - well, lived, I should say, seeing as how they've effectively been run out of town by the Goliath that is WWE.
TNA Wrestling started out more than 10 years ago as a subsidiary of the National Wrestling Alliance, and at that time was called NWA-TNA. The company started off by running weekly pay-per-view events from Nashville, Tennessee which is still considered to be their base of operations. In 2004, they made a bold leap towards advancing themselves as they moved into a sound stage on the property of Universal Studios Orlando which they referred to as the Impact Zone. It was a great opportunity because it meant they would have access to a self-contained production facility. Even better, because of the fact that the stage was connected to one of the most popular theme parks in the world it meant TNA would have easy access to an audience. Not necessarily always a pro wrestling audience or one that was paying for tickets (I believe the only events held in the Impact Zone for which tickets were sold were pay-per-views), but tourists who couldn't resist the allure of participating in an actual TV taping. No one complained because butts in seats look better than empty seats on TV, obviously.
Around March of this year, TNA announced that they were going to be leaving Universal, choosing instead to take their TV tapings on the road. That's not a bad idea, so long as the company can afford to endure the costs of travel related to mobile production - money, in other words, and that's where TNA either is or isn't in trouble these days depending on what you read.
[SIDE NOTE: According to BestOfOrlando.com, there are rumors that a restaurant currently in operation inside the Universal CityWalk (which is a shopping and dining district situated between the Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure theme parks) will be closing soon; this space would then be renovated in order to become a combination of a pro wrestling-themed restaurant and a physical location for the WWE Hall of Fame.]
When the announcement was made that TNA would be leaving the Impact Zone, the stated reasoning for the move was that it was a cost-cutting measure. In addition, they reduced the number of live pay-per-view events for 2013 from 12 down to 5 and there have been quite a few terminations of personnel, both on-air talent and people working behind the scenes. No big deal, right? Plenty of companies have had to tighten the old belt here lately as the economy in this country still isn't out of the tank yet.
It was revealed within the past two months that TNA has recently been several weeks to a month late in paying some of their talent. That's bad, and from a historical perspective it's been an indicator of the beginning of the end for wrestling promotions as this happened in both ECW and WCW. We all know how things turned out for those two companies.
You need look no further than the audiences that attend TNA's live events for validation of my statements. I challenge you to watch an episode of Impact and count the number of people you see in the crowd wearing WWE-branded apparel or how many kids are sporting a replica WWE championship belt. Now look at how many people in the crowd are wearing TNA apparel. It's a lopsided ratio if ever there was one.
This would come off as an iffy move from the standpoint of a company forcing its fans into a mold (which isn't anything new in terms of wrestling; for years WWE has policed signs fans bring into their TV tapings - I know because I've had several signs confiscated), but if I were in charge of TNA's live events I would push for a policy which states no one comes into our show wearing another company's gear. (A great way to respond to negative comments about this would be to offer that patron a free shirt featuring the logo or likeness of their favorite TNA wrestler - free stuff tends to silence complainers and when you're already purging millions of dollars a year on talent dropping a $5 shirt every so often isn't going to hurt.) I'm sorry but you don't give the competition any sort of a freebie, not even so much as a logo on a t-shirt.
Like I said earlier, TNA is considered to be the #2 company in the world but they're not gaining ground on the competition. You can blame that on any number of things, from their overall strategy to hiring aging stars (Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sting, Scott Steiner - I could go on but you get the idea) as opposed to focusing on the continued development of young talent, to trying too hard to make their product something that's too similar to WWE. The bottom line is that unless they right the ship soon, the whole thing is going to go under and it will go down in history as being one of the most tragic demises in the whole of professional wrestling.
Notice I'm not being so bold as to suggest ways of fixing this debacle. I think it can be done but I'm just a fan with a blog, remember - what do I know?
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