Ummmm...not literally, but in the ratings, the 1st TNA show that is to go heads up against WWE on Monday from here on out scored a stinker.... 1.0!!! vs 3.4 for WWE RAW (also down).
A 1.0 rating for an advertised Hogan/Abyss vs Flair/Styles and the return of RVD (albeit not really advertised) is even worse than their old regular Thursday time slot. Dixie must be clueless to all the self serving conmen and this has to been deemed an absolute FAILURE!
TNA is really surprizing us (well, themselves moreso) by NOT advertising the return of Sting, Jeff Hardy and the arrival of RVD and Shannon Moore.
In alot of ways, Impact was "the better" show, but everything gets lost. I mean they had Hogan, Flair, Sting all in the 1st 15 minutes with BLOOD!
How in the world do you screw up the 1st appearance of RVD?!? Have him beat Sting in 15 seconds, but then get LAID "the heck" OUT for the NEXT 10 minutes!!!!! That's how...wow...I was speechless after he scored the pin!
Jeff Hardy's new look - well his hair that is - looks GOD aweful...who is his barber? Boogie? How can you get past his hair??? That said, he looked good closing out the program.
Everyone has said it before...."so much talent, but nobody cares about anything they are doing!" Where's Samoa Joe - yeah the fat overweight Samoan? Wasn't he much more over 4 years ago?
Anyway...your thoughts?
As for WWE...McMahon vs Cena really didn't take place, but that was expected.
Watching Randy Orton LOSE to DiBiase (and Rhodes) clean in the middle was/is bringing Orton down 5 notches.
1st time I will give kudos to Triple H for NOT SPOTLIGHTING himself in WrestleMania...maybe he'll even lose to Shamus?? <<< Let's not get TOOO far ahead of ourselves <<< hell hasn't frozen over yet!
Kill the guest host gimick after Austin...please!
TNA was by far a much better show. But to be honest, I don't like WWE's variety show, so that wouldn't take much. But the Sting turn was the highlight of the night. I know a lot of people are griping about how RVD got overshadowed, but I don't think the Sting turn would have worked as well otherwise. He had the fans chanting "you suck" at him and had them eating out of the palm of his hand. The way the Impact Zone fans are, him just attacking Hogan (or somebody else they weren't so hopped up about) wouldn't have had the same impact.
But you're absolutely right about two things jade -- the 1.0 is a HUGE disappointment, and TNA screwed up in not advertising stuff like Hardy, RVD, etc. Surprises are nice, but TNA needed to advertise better they were coming out with guns blazing.
People who are expecting a repeat of the Monday Night War are kidding themselves. WCW was a company with decades upon decades of history and a built in fan base to build on. TNA is only a few years old. TNA right now has by far the better talent, although their booking is maddening. WWE is a gigantic media conglomerate; nobody is going to step in and overtake them, no matter how bad their product sucks.
It'll be fun going forward. But to be honest, TNA really just started to hit a peak in November and December when guys like AJ, Joe, Daniels, Wolfe and Angle were stealing the show. They took some major steps backwards once Hogan came in. I really wish they'd let the wrestlers just do their thing -- wrestle -- and get away from all the Hogan and Russo crap that goes on. They're never going to compete with WWE by being WWE lite, but if they focused on being a wrestling product and not another sports entertainment company, they might be able to lure back some fans who left when WCW went out of business.
I give it less than a year before Vince has bought TNA, and monopolized the market, yet, once again.
wrestling was on monday night????
Thanks to DVR I watched both shows in their entirety. I was very unhappy with both shows. For the first week of the Monday Night Wars, I gotta say it really sucked. Hopefully with Austin on Raw next week the 2 shows will both step their games up.
The only real surprise to this new "Monday Night War" is how Bischoff/Hogan and their merry band of leaches were able to CONvince someone else to open their checkbook and give them control. Did Dixie already forget about WCW?
2nd week results are in!!!! Raw recoveries a tad back to 3.7 and Impact falls to 0.8
Those in charge of TNA hot shot a lot of stuff last week (for 2 weeks) not holding ANYTHING off for the PPV, making the TV show the #1 priority...guess what - it doesn't matter cause they are losing viewers in spite of all the NEW (and expensive) NAME talent that are coming in.
I remember Hogan saying that he would leave if he couldn't turn TNA around...not sure what "turn around" meant, but maybe he meant "turning back the clock" (ie Nasty Boys...where's Beefcake?). Will he leave before Dixie Carter is bankrupt? Or will he be "polite" and just leave her in a sea of RED????
Last week, the 1st week of the "wars" (somewhat coined by Hogan and Bishoff as coming after the "big" dog), I flipped channels and caught bits and pieces of TNA's show which I thought overall was a better show. I even TAPED (VHS...yeah I'm old school or poor school) it but didn't even watch it. Glad they had a Thursday replay which garnered the SAME 1.0 rating on Monday. That said, the Thursday replay (old time slot) was a 1 time deal and not continual going forward <<< I hope I'm wrong!
This week, with a Lakers/Warriors game on ESPN and RAW, I didn't even bother to watch TNA.
What about you?
I watched TNA and taped Raw. TNA was a MUCH better show. Here is the biggest problem: they had a huge main even in Hardy/Styles and did absolutely NOTHING to advertise it. No hype on last weeks show, no advertising on Spike TV, heck, they didn't even mention it on their web site until Sunday. They didn't give viewers any reason to turn in.
Here are two things I took from Monday:
1. WWE is down to its core audience, and that's it. It really doesn't matter if they decide to build the show around John Cena and Batista or Carlito and Chris Masters. The show is going to draw somewhere between a 3.4 and 3.7, no more, no less.
2. TNA and Spike TV need to do something to bring back the wrestling fans who left when WCW went out of business. They've got a huge uphill battle on their hands and they're going to have to be much more aggressive. They aren't going to take WWE's core audience; they need to find fans elsewhere.
I can't believe how little effort they've made to advertise the fact that they've signed Jeff Hardy, who was the biggest star in wrestling the last two years. There should be commercials on Spike featuring profiles of wrestlers -- established names like Kurt Angle, RVD and Jeff Hardy, and also of younger talent like Generation Me, Desmond Wolfe and AJ Styles who are doing things on TV you won't see on WWE.
But, just like always, TNA's problem isn't its wrestling. TNA has more talent on one show than WWE has on both brands. But their management really has no idea how to sell the product (not to mention how to tell a story).
Jaderock -- I'm sure you'll agree with me on this. I don't think moving to Mondays was TNA's best move. I think it would have made more sense to go live on Thursdays first and test the waters with a live show. There's something to be said for being live every week. They should have taken that step before going to Monday nights.
RAW was fairly weak (what I watched of it).
I liked seeing Stone Cold again but no stunner and the constant bleeper was annoying.
Since when is a-- no longer allowed on a PG program? I noticed they allowed it once (open a can of whoop), but censored later uses.
3.7 rating RAW (Retirement show for HBK -- disappointing)
0.6 rating TNA - disasterous
No Reruns = no chance to watch them
Next week TNA starts at 8pm which will help alot for 1 hour...My prediction: The Band, Hogan and Flair will be splattered all over the 1st hour and "disappear" on the 2nd hour; therefore, confirming what THEY'VE KNOWN ALL ALONG that RVD, Hardy, AJ and the X guys can not DRAW!!!
Well said Ace! HBK had some of the most memorable matches I have seen as a fan of wrestling for over 25 years. I expect him to make sporadic appearances over the years as a "special attraction" or "big surprise" but never return to a full time schedule. His retirement leaves RAW with an unbalanced roster on the babyface side. Thus, we have the slow face turn of Randy Orton moving ahead.
Part of TNA's overall problem is its writing. Vince Russo still works for them, and last night, you have a 8-woman elimination tag where there are keys to 4 lockboxes. Tara won one key, but lost the title (she got her spider back). Typical Russo nonsense. Dixie really is dumber than the average mark to keep this cretin around.
Raw wasn't much better, which isn't saying much. The ratings will probably relay the same story as the last 2-3 weeks. WWE rolls on.
Officially, Impact changes its time slot
Impact will now run every Monday from 8-10 p.m. with a replay every Thursday from 9-11 p.m.
The time change is effective immediately. As in tomorrow.
--
That is good news for TNA...I missed the last 2 weeks without the replay.
This move should help with an unopposed 1st hr in the ratings.
Spike officials announced that Impact will return to Thursdays starting 5/13. TNA Reaction will be airing Thursdays at 8 p.m. starting in late June as things are scheduled.
So the "war" is over and all can go back to the same old same old, except Dixie Carter continues to bleed the color red!!!!!
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