TNA vs. ROH, TNA vs. WCW, TNA FAIL

[Warner2BruceTD]

Hammerstein & The ECW Arena are buildings that ROH runs. Rahway Rec Center is a small dump that Jersey All Pro runs.

TNA sold out Hammerstein last time, but ROH routinely sells that building out, too. The other two shows will draw under 1,000 paid. Rahway Rec Center doesnt even hold 1,000.

My point, is TNA is doing PPV numbers so small, that sometimes they can't even be estimated. They almost never draw 1,000 fans paid unless its Hammerstein. They briefly turned profits a few years ago, but now are running deep in the red again. They have lost tens of millions of dollars since they started up--meaning the only company to lose more money in the history of wrestling is WCW (and TNA is quickly gaining, and depending how long Dixie Carter's dad wants to lose money, will surpass WCW).

Meanwhile, ROH has never had a money losing year (although the profits are very small). They draw slightly less on the road, but run the same buildings as TNA and sell out the same ones. The taped PPV's they were doing during the Gabe Sapolsky era were doing almost as many buys as the live, big budget TNA PPV's that always lose money. The ROH PPV's were profitable, due to the low costs assosiated with producing a taped show (and a MUCH lower payroll).

SO MY QUESTION IS THIS....

Is there any reason to think, that if ROH moved from HDNet to just about any viable basic cable network, could they draw the same 0.8's & 0.9's as TNA, and could they outdraw TNA on PPV when you factor in the millions of additional eyeballs that would be exposed to the product?

The same amount of people are willling to plunk down money to see them live, and almost the same amount of people were buying the PPV's that had a FRACTION of the promotion.

I mean, what is the difference between TNA & ROH? A better network. The fact ROH can draw the same on the road, paying guys a few hundred per night, while TNA pays MILLIONS to their roster, is mind blowing.

TNA is the biggest fail in wrestling history. ECW didnt lose a fraction of the money, and at least was influential. And they drew better ratings & buyrates than TNA while facing competition from two gingantic companies.

WCW was comically bad at the end, but at least kicked ass and was the #1 promotion in the world for two years.

So...

-Could ROH outperform TNA if they got lucky with a TV deal, and...

-Is TNA the biggest fail in wrestling history?

[SHOGUN]

-Could ROH outperform TNA if they got lucky with a TV deal, and...

Absolutely. Athletic wrestling without shitty booking should go over well.

-Is TNA the biggest fail in wrestling history?

I'd argue that Glacier was a bigger fail, but in terms of companies, yes. Talented roster, but they are pretty much following the exact same formula that destroyed WCW to the letter. That defines insanity.

[Warner2BruceTD]

UFC & TNA are on the same network, and attempt to attract the same demo.

UFC tops out at about 1.5 million ppv buys, bottoms out at 250k-300.

TNA tops out at 30k (doing a second rate ECW reunion show), bottoms out at unmeasurable numbers (under 10k).

[IamMedellin]

I believe ROH could initially grab a rating on par with an Impact taping.

I'm not that familiar with the ROH product, but I've heard great things; TNA has done more to turn away wrestling fans than it has draw them in...

the only reason I even check in with TNA is to see Velvet Sky's sexy ass and see the occasional Gen Me/MCMG match

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

If ROH had been on a respectable cable network over the same time TNA has had, ROH would be at least getting consistent 1.5's by now.

[dave]

Here's an indicator that TNA is a failure.

I, a big wrestling fan, can get SPIKE TV, but choose not to spend the money.

I, a big wrestling fan, have never considered ordering a TNA pay per view. Not even once.

While I am not W2B4TD hardcore, they should have at least lured me once. But not even close.

I respect Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan - but they're just painful to watch now.
Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman are 14 years ago.
Mr. Kennedy (errr Anderson), Jeff Hardy, RVD and Kurt Angle should just go back to the WWE where they belong.

A.J. Styles to me is a mid-carder. Samoa Joe - haven't seen enough of him, so it's hard to say.

The Dudley Boys (errrr Team 3D) should also go back to WWE.

I watch ROH on HDNet every so often. I like that they're a bunch of young guys, with a few vets, working their asses off.
ROH really depends on the in-ring work and they tend to deliver.

I agree with Paul Heyman - TNA should just fire everyone over 40 and start over.

[SHOGUN]

Team 3D is garbage now. Have been for a while to be honest...

[Warner2BruceTD]

Think about this...

ECW ceases to exist in any form, yet an ECW themed ppv outdrew anything TNA has done in roughly two years.

[FedEx227]

Here's an indicator that TNA is a failure.

I, a big wrestling fan, can get SPIKE TV, but choose not to spend the money.

I, a big wrestling fan, have never considered ordering a TNA pay per view. Not even once.

While I am not W2B4TD hardcore, they should have at least lured me once. But not even close.

I respect Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan - but they're just painful to watch now.
Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman are 14 years ago.
Mr. Kennedy (errr Anderson), Jeff Hardy, RVD and Kurt Angle should just go back to the WWE where they belong.

A.J. Styles to me is a mid-carder. Samoa Joe - haven't seen enough of him, so it's hard to say.

The Dudley Boys (errrr Team 3D) should also go back to WWE.

I watch ROH on HDNet every so often. I like that they're a bunch of young guys, with a few vets, working their asses off.
ROH really depends on the in-ring work and they tend to deliver.

I agree with Paul Heyman - TNA should just fire everyone over 40 and start over.

It's not just the roster though. It's from the top down, simply put there's nothing that's going to make TNA viable. Dixie has no idea how to run a wrestling company, she has undying loyalty to god awful wrestling "writers" like Russo, they are already in the hole. It's not a viable company at all. There's no more chance to start over, it really just has to die.

[Warner2BruceTD]

It's not just the roster though. It's from the top down, simply put there's nothing that's going to make TNA viable. Dixie has no idea how to run a wrestling company, she has undying loyalty to god awful wrestling "writers" like Russo, they are already in the hole. It's not a viable company at all. There's no more chance to start over, it really just has to die.

I agree, in its current form it just has to die. But as long as the Carters are willing to lose millions, if they truly decided to clean house and bring in fresh minds, it could be viable at some point. But like Heyman has said, "restarts" don't work because people watch for one week, then go away again.

If they did convince Heyman to come in, and he was given the absolute power he wants, and he slowly weeded out the old guys, I have no doubts he can make stars out of some people. And it might not even be the AJ's and Joe's like we all assume.

I don't even think Heyman should book the product. He needs to produce the product, and lay out broad booking themes while a fresh mind like Sapolsky or even a Scott D'Amore handle the details. The D'Amore era TNA was the most well booked era, by far.

Heyman would be better served in the VKM/Dana White role, making final decisions and deciding who needs to be pushed. But more importantly, focusing on the production end. Keeping it current and hip, and going after fresh demos. Presenting a cutting edge product. He can't do both, trying to do everything in the ECW days burnt him out and that was a tiny company in comparison. Let the geeks like Sapolsky or D'Amore write the mid card stuff and handle the day to day.

I think a Heyman/Sapolsky/D'amore/Tenay braintrust would at the very least give a focused direction, as long as Heyman had all the power and called all the shots.

[FedEx227]

The one thing they have on their side is the undying support (for some fucking reason) of SpikeTV. Which gives them a viable chance to have someone come in and take over because they already have a pretty decent built in revenue stream.

[IamMedellin]

whoa....whoa...

I thought heyman was always known as one of the great creative minds in wrestling, and as a horrible finances man...

I agree Heyman would be ideal in a VKM role as you described it in terms of production and creative, being the final say and almost as an editor for angles...

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

The one thing they have on their side is the undying support (for some fucking reason) of SpikeTV. Which gives them a viable chance to have someone come in and take over because they already have a pretty decent built in revenue stream.

Spike loves'em because its an easy obtainable rating for them on the cheap.

I agree with everything W2B said in regards to how to make TNA better, but it won't ever get better. I gave up. It is a carbon copy of WCW in its latter stages and that was some terrible wrestling programming, save for some mid-card matches.

I think its beyond repair right now. The brand name itself is damaged goods.

[Liquidrob]

Dana White is a mouth piece, he is no Vince

[Warner2BruceTD]

ROH Glory By Honor IX, iPPV from this past weekend:

The show did around 1,400 buys on iPPV, which would be the highest, by about 100, that ROH has done since moving to this format. My feeling is the appearance by Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin may have been the difference. Clearly that was the biggest thing on the show from a live perspective. The company can make a few thousand dollars profit on that number because doing an iPPV isn’t very expensive. You can’t turn around your business with it, but it’s not like doing a regular PPV live where you even running bare bones are going to lose money on anything less than 40,000 buys.

Even on iPPV, ROH is doing shows that turn a profit.

TNA hasnt hit 40k for a ppv in forever, so they're PPV's always lose money.

Some TNA PPV's do as low as 10k, which means ROH is doing about 1/10th of what TNA does on internet ppv's with literally a fraction of the promotion.

I think it's very safe to say, if ROH had millions of eyeballs to promote to on basic cable, they could match what TNA is doing on a fraction of the budget.

I'm not so much pumping up ROH in this thread, as I am tearing down TNA. It's pretty embarrassing that you can make the case that a tiny company like ROH with weak TV is outperforming a multimillion dollar investment on strong national TV that employs Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair.

A huge issue when it comes to the future of PPV is people viewing on illegal streams. Because the smaller companies draw almost exclusively from an Internet audience, their fans are more savvy. Plus, fans know smaller companies (basically anyone but WWE and UFC) don’t have the resources to shut down streams. Just on two wrestling download websites, more people (and this would include after the fact viewers) had viewed this show illegally than purchased it (more than 2,000), and TNA’s No Surrender had after the fact had 13,000 downloads, which is likely well above the number of legal buys the show did.