Return of Jeff Jarrett

[isrs4life]

I like the news I heard he will be in the king of the mountain match at
Slammiversary and I think he still has it in the ring

[El Canuck]

I really don't think Jeff Jarrett having one match (an asinine reverse ladder match at that) in a promotion no one here besides yourself gives a shit about deserves it's own thread.

[Greg_McNeish]

Why not? Are we concerned about bumping the 15 month old threads at the bottom of the first page onto the second?

Anyway, Jarrett has said that this will be his last match in TNA, so enjoy it while you can.

[El Canuck]

Considering that no one here watches TNA or comments on it (unless it's about TNA fighting off it's inevitable doom) in any capacity besides Isrs and Isrs alone, what in the name of Frank Gotch would we need a whole thread about one man having one match in TNA for?

[Greg_McNeish]

Same reason TNA has its own subforum.

[El Canuck]

[Benf_uk]

Has it occured to you that the reason no one discusses TNA is the disparaging way it is referred to by some people around here? Their product is on the up even if there are questions about other areas of the business.

[El Canuck]

It has and I have noted that reviewers are showing praise towards the product now, however, as I've also said, it's too little, too late to be putting on a good product all of a sudden. The name is tainted, their TV provider has little to no interest in keeping them on (and it was already a big drop for them to go from Spike to Destination America) and they've been continually falling behind on paying their base workers. TNA is circling the toilet bowl man, even if that turd suddenly turns to gold, it's too late to stop the flush.

[Greg_McNeish]

Flushing a golden turd sounds like a plumbing nightmare. I've had to plunge too many toilets in my day not to cringe at the thought.

[Red_And_Yellow]

Has it occured to you that the reason no one discusses TNA is the disparaging way it is referred to by some people around here? Their product is on the up even if there are questions about other areas of the business.

Their product is on the opposite of up.

[Greg_McNeish]

How do you figure, Red? I'm no fan of TNA, and have always thought their product was garbage, but I haven't seen or heard anything of late to make me think it's actually getting worse. The business, yeah, but the product?

[Red_And_Yellow]

It's impossible to analyze the product without looking at their business. TNA's numbers have declined since they started on DA and they are about to do a PPV that may not reach 1000 buys. Whether what's going on "on camera" is good or not, the business metrics show TNA is declining.

Perhaps I took a wrongful assumption in the phrase the product is up. When I think product is up, that means the business is improving and is either growing or has potential for growth. Nothing about what TNA is doing on camera suggests any sort of improvement whatsoever.

[El Canuck]

Exactly Red. The bottom line is that TNA have done so poorly on the business end that it doesn't matter one lick anymore what they put on a TV screen. They. Can't. Draw. Every time they've had a chance to make a lasting impression with an audience they've blown it so spectacularly that they've completely exhausted any goodwill that all but their diehards were willing to give them. They're putting on a good TV show now? Well, they can't pay their damn crew and I'm pretty sure they won't accept a decent TV product in lieu of payment. In my eyes, if a company is as poorly mismanaged as TNA has been, I don't quite care what they're doing on screen, because they can't keep jack shit together backstage.

[Greg_McNeish]

Ah, okay. Rejecting the premise that the aspects are separable. Good to know specifically what the contention is.

[El Canuck]

Not at all, I'm aware the aspects are separable, but a good product on the screen now, at the end, is trivial. I feel bad for the guys and gals in the ring, because their work is going to waste because they're contracted to work for company managed by a group that couldn't pour piss from a boot if the instructions were written upside down on the heel. Wealth and nepotism gave Dixie Carter opportunities that far more deserving promoters/bookers could only dream of and she blew Every. Fucking. One. Of. Them.

TNA got a great ring product though. Good for them. It's just a shame that Dixie Carter has made it a completely moot point by now. She's a great lesson to teach the kids though about fucking reality. "Hey kids from the lower and middle classes, if you work really hard at doing what you love you might just do well enough to eke out an existence. Do you see this person over here with all the intelligence of a traffic cone though? She was born into great wealth and with no qualifications she can be put in charge of a million dollar business that has the exposure and marketing capacity to draw thousands and stand amongst the best in the industry. She can afford to hire the best wrestlers not signed to WWE and despite that, squander that business and burn it to the ground and barely bat an eye while hard working schmucks like you try to draw a few hundred fans to a fucking Bingo hall in the middle of Fucking, Nowhere booking a bunch of noodle armed nitwits who think baggy, pleather pants and Hot Topic T-shirts qualify as wrestling gear. Welcome to America (and Canada), kids, where it ain't about what you know, it's about what loins you sprung from, what those loins are worth and who those loins know."

Dusty Rhodes was the American Dream.

Dixie Carter is the American Reality.

[Red_And_Yellow]

TNA's show has been largely received as positive and while I'm not watching, that's a great thing for them. If it's becoming known for being good, that's a good thing.

The problem stems from 13 years of mismanagement that has led the wrestling fan base to not care about them. Hell, even TNA hardcore fans, like fans from TNAMecca and TNAsylum, are debating about whether to even buy the PPV on Sunday. It has a legitimate chance to be their last PPV ever.

The reason I'm skeptical on this return for Jarrett is that I think it's pretty much showing that GFW is going to go down the same path.

The thing that bugs me is there is room in the USA for a 2nd wrestling promotion that can be mainstream if run properly. Except that no one wants to step outside the box. ROH is far and away the #2 promotion in America by every business metric and they just don't have the resources of Panda Energy to make any significant impact unfortunately.

[El Canuck]

Exactly Red. They had the roster, the patience from networks and PPV providers that offered them great international exposure, a core fanbase in North America an the UK and a major financial backer. TNA has been around longer now than WCW was it's own entity away from the NWA and they had all the mountain of knowledge they should have learned from in the wake of WCW's failure. Despite having all these tools and materials at their disposal to make a working, functioning machine they have failed in a colossal fashion far worse than WCW ever did. That's what is so heartbreaking about TNA. They should have succeeded, they have had every opportunity to succeed where better people have not and they pissed every last bit of that away.

It's too little, too late to be putting on a good product now. It makes no difference anymore.

[GooberBM]

Well, ROH has stalled out their own development for the last 3 years. From the day they got picked up by Sinclair until the day they got their tv deal on DA, they did nothing but step on their own toes. It was pretty debatable, until Spike finally walked away from TNA, which company was mismanaged worse.

As has been noted before, Jeff Jarrett is trying to do things differently, not just because he's pooling talent from wherever he can get it (the American indies, Japan, Mexico at some point, and all the company affiliations he's developed already), but that he's actively trying to encourage cooperation between as many people as possible and GFW. That's the thing everyone else doesn't get: If you're not WWE, NJPW, or CMLL (and if we're being completely honest even NJPW and CMLL), you HAVE to cooperate with other companies or you're going to die.

NJPW has been propping up NOAH's business basically since Misawa died. NJPW and CMLL have their cooperation deal that brings Fanatasticamania to Japan every January and they send guys to Mexico (Young Lions and established stars alike) periodically during the year. The US indies are all morons for not actively working together to improve their business.

Even the territory system was kind of messed up that way. They shared the talent, as guys got big and would work other parts of the country, but they were so busy defending their own turfs that they never realized (in time) that staying in your own little box will get you killed if someone else grows bigger. Vince was the first to try it and make it wildly wildly successful and the rest was history. But he did it by accumulating all the best workers from all the other territories and building a super roster.

At any rate, any company that's going to grow into a real business that can succeed has to be able to earn the trust of the fans. TNA obviously cannot. I'm skeptical that ROH can grow any bigger than they are, because they have burned nearly as many bridges as TNA. And it's fun that people are hyper skeptical of GFW because they're the horse to bet on, honestly. That is the strength of brand loyalty, that people still think ROH can make something more of themselves than they are. But ROH would be wise to figure what TNA never did: You are what you are at this point, after 13 years. It's time to maximize what you can bring in now, and drop the fantasy of being "The Alternative". Cause you're not

[GooberBM]

Think about it this way, there are four reasons you have tv:

• To make money from your tv deal
• To make money by convincing people to come out and see the great action of (company)
• To make money by convincing people to pay money for (wrestler)'s awesome merchandise
• To make money by convincing people to come to or buy the next big (ppv) show

TNA was agonizingly bad at this, but ROH isn't much better at it. ROH's tv product was so hard to follow, compared to their ppv and dvd schedules that after a year I stopped trying. ROH still hasn't REALLY figured out how to produce merchandise for it's roster, and after 13 years, if you said they were going to book a venue that could hold more than 1500 people, I'd bet they couldn't fill it. And ROH is hard to see in person if you're not in NYC or the midwest

Whereas GFW is running (probably) cheap shows in minor league baseball stadiums that aren't charging as much for rent as an arena. They're only pulling a few hundred people but they're running a fast paced show that starts at 6 and is over by about 8, with an intermission in there. You get in, get to watch some wrestling, then can still go somewhere buy dinner and get home at a decent time. Then you can consider that they're running their first tour which ran in the south, and their first tv taping is out west. A more diverse set of people can think about giving them money than ROH.

GFW is running a very sustainable business model that has a real opportunity for growth, as long as they take their time and don't try to get too far ahead of themselves. That is not something ROH can say, even with their new tv deal on DA

[El Canuck]

That's all well and good and I agree with everything you're saying Goober, I'm just not sure what you're responding to.