TNA's PPV Plan column

This is written by one of the few guys blogs about wrestling i actually enjoy so i thought id share with you because in my opinion he's very much dead on with this.

Once the news came out that TNA was completely overhauling their PPV schedule, everyone was talking. Some positive, some negative, and some wanted to reserve their judgment. I had my own opinions of this change, but I wanted to wait until after Genesis to talk about it.

Speaking of Genesis, it really wasn't a very good show, and should not be representative of a "Big 4" PPV. I don't think anyone considered Genesis to be one of the top 4 important PPV's of the year for TNA anyway. The main event was good, Joe and Anderson was alright as was Storm and Daniels, but I was not very entertained by the show at all.

Now as soon as I heard more about it, it seemed to me that this plan was a spur of the moment decision by TNA, this didn't seem planned ahead of time. A few weeks, maybe a month or so ago, was when I read a report that TNA would be cutting Against All Odds and No Surrender, which was good news to me. The new plan is much more than that.

I'm in favor of cutting PPV's as a whole. With WWE, I was in favor of them removing Over The Limit, bumping Extreme Rules back a month and having no March PPV. That's all fine and dandy, but of course they had to stuff Over The Limit into October, making that two October PPV's for no reason at all.

And I believe it was much more important for TNA to do something with their PPV's because let's face it, they really don't sell too well. Yeah, Bound For Glory and Lockdown and such do bigger numbers for TNA, but on any off month, not so much. One of the reasons I say this change was spur of the moment however, is because they kept Genesis on as a main PPV.

They were already hyping up Genesis, so they couldn't scrap it, but I can't imagine a world where anyone would consider Genesis to be a more important PPV than Destination X. They just introduced the stipulation that every year at Destination X, the X Division champion would get a shot at the TNA championship, and then suddenly WHAM, it's gone? Who made that decision?

And now there's a 4 month gap in between Slammiversary and Bound for Glory. That's a major lull in the product that I do not know if TNA can sustain it. Because as far as I can assume from reading the results of the tapings, I don't believe they'll be building up these secondary "One Night Only" PPV's. So if that is the case, how can you get people interested in any of the matches or returning wrestlers we haven't seen in a long while if you don't build them up or feature them on TV at all.

Also, taped PPV's are a pretty ridiculous thing in this day and age, especially 4-5 months in advance. Yeah, it cuts costs just taping a couple in one shot, but there are a lot of people with the mindset of "why waste $15 when I already know what happens". There's no element of surprise. I do however agree with the In Your House-like model they've adopted though, with the secondary shows being cheaper, I just don't know if it will really turn a profit for them at all, or even do better than they have been doing, by not only taping shows and potentially losing buys, but by jacking up the price of the "big 4" shows.

Even though Genesis last night felt like a 3 hour Impact pretty much, one absolutely huge positive is that the 3 remaining major PPV's this year will not be taking place at the Impact Zone. Hopefully they decide to branch out the secondary shows and Impact shows as well to other places, because at this point the Impact Zone is a black hole, it completely sucks all the life out of the show. There are plenty of cities that would come out in droves to see a TNA show if they ever decided to come there, and I'm pretty sure the travel costs can be made up for by the ticket and merch sales, but for some reason they just love their bubble of tourists down there. But for now, it's a step in the right direction that will hopefully infuse some life and energy into the big shows.

For all the questions we have on this change, and as I addressed there are A LOT of them, it was a given that TNA had to make some kind of change, and the good thing is they did, and they did it drastically. For all the speculation and the doubts I and many other people have, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. Let's hope it works out for the better.

Source: http://nodq.com/columns/360210178.shtml

I don't think it's fair to use genesis as the yardstick for TNA's new PPV format; I see it as the last of the monthly PPVs, rather than the first of the quarterly(ish) ones.

What is true is that TNA really needs to push the boat out on PPV from now on, and make each one seem like a mega event by building storylines on tv until the audience is desperate to see issues resolved and is willing to pay for that privilege. This requires the kind of forward planning that I'm concerned they aren't capable of.

crippledtart wrote:I don't think it's fair to use genesis as the yardstick for TNA's new PPV format; I see it as the last of the monthly PPVs, rather than the first of the quarterly(ish) ones.

I would agree with this. And in the grand schemes, I dont think Genesis would have been TNAs first pick for a big 4, however its just the way that the calender falls I guess.


I dont really get the pretaped PPVs at all. The only way they could work is if they were for some non cannon belt - in other words a belt that was defended only on these non live PPVs.

I think the better way of doing this would to have had 6 PPVs and a few mega shows during the year along the gimmick lines they are doing (but not as many).

To some extent, the Gut Check Open Fight Night was kind of a precursor to this idea.

I do like that TNA are trying new things, however, as Crips and others have said, it looks like gut reactions rahter than long term booking.

On another thread (I think the Genesis one), someone mentioned about Aces and 8s rumbling on to the next PPV, being Lockdown.

I guess that Lockdown isnt happening now? Even though the British events are called the Road to Lockdown!

I'm quite intrigued to see if the first special ends up revealing anything from their TV plans. If the first special is meant to be airing in April, and Aries fought Joe, does that mean theres a chance they may be coming into a feud around then? I doubt it, but may be interesting to note.

If it was six or eight I'd have said this was a genius idea, but four is so few

Crikey - The Wilkerson is awake at 8am? I know Glasgow has frozen over but hell as well?

What are the four PPV's I was assuming lockdown, slammiversary, BGF and genesis?

I think in some respects it's a good move for TNA...in theory, they can now concentrate on getting their big four PPV's right, promoting them correctly and really making them feel like a massive deal to the viewers.

This move also feels a lot like putting all your eggs in one basket though and should one or more of these PPV's bomb I worry for TNA's long term stability.

I don't get the idea of taping the one night specials months in advance.

Instead of possibly using them to further feuds in between the 4 main paper views, they will now be stand alone shows that will have no relevance to what's happening storyline wise at that time (unless TNA have their booking plans laid out months in advance which I can't see being the case).