TNA: A company in shambles

In just a few months, TNA has gone from a company on the brink of explosion to an organization that has been so depleted and mismanaged, viewers are confused as to what time their television show is even on.

Last night’s announcement that TNA is moving back to Thursdays – after just two months on Monday nights – was the latest in a troubling few days for the company.

Over the weekend, TNA fired on-air personality Bubba the Love Sponge for undisclosed reasons. Bubba, on his radio program (syndicated nationally on Sirius XM Howard 101) said that his release was due to what TNA perceived as “racist remarks.”

This, of course, from a company that pushed a large black female wrestler with the name “Kong.”

TNA misused Bubba from the get go. The guy hosts a show that is listened to by millions, everyday, with a rabid fan base who would be dialed in to TNA if he wanted them to be. If Bubba were featured in a prominent role – say the lead manager of a heel stable (which is what I think they were trying to do, but never gave it a real push) then it would be a topic on his show, probably daily. Everyday, millions of people would listen and hear and get interested in TNA wrestling.

But instead, they tried to force a backstage interview role on him – which served no real purpose – and then just lumped him in with “The Band” without any real explanation.

It’s strange for me to write this because honestly, I’ve been entertained by TNA’s product. The show a few weeks back where RVD won the world title from AJ Styles was one of the most compelling wrestling programs on free television that I’ve seen in a while. But for some reason, Monday’s never worked for TNA.

Last week’s dismal 0.5 rating was the last straw, and rightfully so.

“The fans have spoken and with their input we have determined the best timeslot to maximize the TNA audience is on Thursday nights where we are confident it will be among the most-watched shows with young men,” said Brian J. Diamond, senior vice president, sports and specials.

iMPACT will air at 9 p.m. on Thursday’s (a taped show) with TNA ReACTION, a documentary type program, will air at 8 p.m. The night will be known as “TNA Thursdays” on Spike TV.

A decade ago, can you even imagine the backlash had Raw or Nitro scored such an embarrassing rating? It says something about the company when the Thursday replay scores higher than the original broadcast.

Ultimately moving back to Thursdays was not only the right choice for TNA, it was a necessary one for survival. Clearly, the audience was not ready for TNA as a competitor to WWE’s power branding. TNA will continue to carve out its niche on Thursday’s, hopefully build a larger fan base, and then maybe, MUCH farther down the road, give Monday’s another shot.

And at that point, it’s do or die.

The TNA brand already looks weak and watered down after putting its tail between its legs and scurrying back to Thursday’s. It’s going to take a while to build up the audience’s confidence again. Once that happens – if that happens – they have to sustain it before it can grow.

The strategy really should be simple – do whatever you can do to be different from WWE. But that doesn’t mean take it over the edge. We don’t need to see color in EVERY match – that’s overkill and after a while, people get sick of it. Blood doesn’t enhance a match if it happens on 2-3 matches per card.

Reality-based storylines that are cutting edge and a little risky will work. That’s different from WWE.

For the sake of the business, I hope that TNA survives and thrives. It’s good for the audience and for the wrestlers to have an alternative. Five years ago, if you weren’t working for WWE, you weren’t making a good living in this business (in the United States, anyway). That’s no longer the case. Options are best for the marketplace, both for the consumer and the talent.