This isn’t to say that Total Nonstop Action is as popular
or as influence as the Extreme outfit was. It isn’t. Even at the end of its
life ECW was doing things that would influence the wrestling business at large and
had access to numerous wrestlers who would go on to greater significance in
other promotions. If TNA were to shut down tomorrow some of their roster would
move on to work in other places and probably achieve more than they have under
their current employer but there’s nothing being done by TNA that’s going to
influence any other wrestling promotion.
Yet I still make the comparison between ECW and TNA.
Because the situations are similar.
TNA’s contract with Spike TV expires in October. A new deal has yet to be announced,
which means it’s not been struck because if it had been Dixie and co would be
crowing about it. The situation’s very ECW. Without a new TV deal TNA isn’t
going to survive, because once a wrestling promotion has made the leap into
producing regular television shows and become reliant on the level of notoriety
and revenue that brings it’s very difficult to reformat.
This will be particularly true for TNA, who have never
really been anything other than a promotion built around the idea of weekly
broadcasts. Even when they started out with their weekly pay-per-views in 2002
this was the case, they were just making themselves available via a (slightly)
different medium. If ECW, a company that had for a significant amount of time existed
running monthly shows at a single venue, couldn’t overcome the lack of TV
exposure and the inability to pay debts that that entailed TNA doesn’t stand a
chance.
 |
| This is not exciting wrestling programming in 2014. |
TNA has, bafflingly, a small but incredibly passionate
and loyal fanbase. But that still won’t be enough to save them. Unless said
fanbase organises some sort of Kickstarter project to keep TNA funded. But that’s
unlikely and would require an obscene amount of money to work. To be honest I
think most of TNA’s loyalists are smart enough to know that TNA simply isn’t worth
that amount of bother. Maybe they could find a new home, but at this point that’s
looking pretty unlikely too thanks to their humdrum viewing figures and
uninspired creative direction.
There’s a very real possibility that Spike have, for
whatever reason, decided to go with Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling as
their new provider of wrestling programming. I imagine there’s some sort of
contractual stipulation in place that allows a new deal being announced before
a current one is expired. The closer we get to October the likelier I think it
is that GFW are set to replace Impact. Ideally with a show called Feelin’ the
Force.
This brings up the question of why Spike would want an
untested group like Global Force over an established entity like TNA. The
argument for TNA is that it can be relied upon to attract a regular viewing
figure to the channel every week, and that it’s had success in the past which
could, in theory, be regained at some point in the future with enough work. The
argument for Global Force is that it’s something new, which means it can be
presented as fresh and exciting without being tied to the preconceptions that
come with TNA. Company founder Jeff Jarrett has a business history with Spike
and, perhaps most importantly, could argue that he has plans and ideas that
will attract fresh eyes to wrestling on Spike TV, something that TNA has failed
to do in their years of struggle to present themselves as a worthwhile number
two promotion.
Spike probably wants to keep wrestling on the channel. It’s
relatively cheap to produce and will always get viewers. I suspect they’ll go
with GFW. TNA have demonstrated that they only know how to tread water. With
GFW there’s a chance of change for the better. And who doesn’t want that?
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