The offical TNA thread - News, Spoilers and the rest...

Riddle101 · 29-10-2014 1:39am

I'm kind've weary about whether or not WWE really did offer Kurt Angle a full time deal. I mean it wouldn't be beyond the realms to believe that Kurt Angle put that story out himself about the full time deal to save face and make it look like he rejected WWE.

gnfnrhead · 29-10-2014 7:56am

Riddle101 wrote: »

I'm kind've weary about whether or not WWE really did offer Kurt Angle a full time deal. I mean it wouldn't be beyond the realms to believe that Kurt Angle put that story out himself about the full time deal to save face and make it look like he rejected WWE.

With him being away for so long, they would want to get their moneys worth out of him. A Jericho or RVD type deal wouldn't do that. They would need him to be full time, at least initially.

A Lesnar type deal was obviously never going to happen.

The thing I find odd is how they could afford to seemingly re-sign Angle, but not the likes of Styles, Bad Influence, Sabin etc. who would cost a lot less, but bring in the same number of fans.

rossie1977 · 29-10-2014 12:24pm

gnfnrhead wrote: »

The thing I find odd is how they could afford to seemingly re-sign Angle, but not the likes of Styles, Bad Influence, Sabin etc. who would cost a lot less, but bring in the same number of fans.

styles in wwe might cause some buzz the others would not. angle was a name during the ae who mainevented a wrestlemania and known to 99.99% of wwe fans and if he was fit you could program him with the likes of lesnar, bryan, rusev or cena off the bat.

moot point anyway because like riddle said i seriously doubt wwe offered him any deal let alone a full time one. angle is in far worse shape now than when he was let go 8 years ago. i don't see how its possible he would pass a physical to undertake a full time schedule.

Concannon7 · 29-10-2014 3:11pm

Riddle101 wrote: »

I'm kind've weary about whether or not WWE really did offer Kurt Angle a full time deal. I mean it wouldn't be beyond the realms to believe that Kurt Angle put that story out himself about the full time deal to save face and make it look like he rejected WWE.

This. No way on earth did WWE offer him a full time deal. I mean we always hear he left WWE because they were worrying for his health and wanted him working less dates but now we hear they only wanted him working full time. My personal believe is at this moment in time they have no interest in Angle.

Garseys · 29-10-2014 3:40pm

Any update on their TV Deal yet? It's getting awfully close to January....

Machismo Fan · 29-10-2014 3:51pm

Garseys wrote: »

Any update on their TV Deal yet? It's getting awfully close to January....

Apparently they're close and the news has been a deal will be announced soon for a few weeks now but until a deal is signed anything can happen.

rovert · 29-10-2014 9:39pm

The story is twisting and turning and we've got ourselves Website Warz.

Via WrestlingInc

I reported earlier that TNA Executive Vice President John Gaburick was in New York City supposedly finalizing a television deal for TNA. I heard this from a reliable source, however TNA executive Bob Ryder - who was one of my very first wrestling interviews from back in 1997 during his Prodigy days - strongly rebuked my report on Twitter, writing:
More sloppy reporting. If you label something "exclusive" it should be accurate. Wrestling "journalism" isn't what it used to be.

Dave Scherer later reported on PWInsider that Gaburick is at TNA offices in Nashville, TN.

I reached out again to my source, who said that the report was accurate except for the fact that Gaburick was not currently in New York City, but was there this past weekend and on Monday. They were also looking to set up more TV tapings in New York City, since the TV announcement is imminent and they wanted to be able to lock in a date with a venue as quickly as possible. The company apparently wants to shoot new TV as soon as possible once the deal is announced.

I reached out to another source, who confirmed my report and said that Dixie Carter will be making an announcement this Friday.

Dave Meltzer commented on my earlier report on the F4WOnline Board, writing:

"Gaburick is in Nashville today. That said, most of the story is not inaccurate. But it's not a story yet.

"PWInsider should be careful about being used for denials on these things. If the deal falls through, they are right. If it doesn't, it'll look bad in a week or two."

The next two days could be mental Wrestling news with the WWE Financials and the fallout.

rovert · 06-11-2014 12:05am

Welp:

Bad sign for TNA Impact's immediate future on Spike

The Spike website is listing the movie End of Watch for the Wednesday, November 26th time slot -- the first week that would have had "Best of Impact Wrestling" programming that was orginally talked about for the remainder of the year.

It's been reported that Spike will continue airing Impact in December and this is only a one night thing. However, Spike also said that they have not determined whether Impact will air on either Dec. 24 or Dec. 31. A Spike official said that the change was made because 11/26 (Thanksgiving eve) is usually a weak night for television.

The Wednesday, November 19th show is the final original episode as TNA has no events scheduled in November to do new tapings. However, there are plans not announced for future tapings.

rovert · 06-11-2014 12:16am

Actually:

Update 11/5 6:35 pm ET: F4WOnline reports that a Spike TV official said that Impact is being pre-empted that night because it is a weak night for television given that it's the Thanksgiving holiday. Impact will reportedly return to its normal timeslot the following week.

CastorTroy · 06-11-2014 1:04am

Is it true the wrestlers can't take other bookings while on downtime? Like can't wrestle indies.

Riddle101 · 06-11-2014 1:09am

CastorTroy wrote: »

Is it true the wrestlers can't take other bookings while on downtime? Like can't wrestle indies.

Bully Rey and Devon seem to be able to taking bookings on the Indies, and i've heard about other wrestlers taking bookings recently too. It seems TNA has become more relaxed towards wrestlers taking bookings outside of TNA now, ever since the problems began.

rovert · 06-11-2014 1:27am

CastorTroy wrote: »

Is it true the wrestlers can't take other bookings while on downtime? Like can't wrestle indies.

Nah it is pretty much open season. I've heard different things about appearing on iPPV and TV but terms of just basic Indies TNA talent have flooded the scene from American to the UK to Japan.

montyrebel · 06-11-2014 4:14am

Dont think it is true, for example Magnus is wrestling Belfast this saturday

Stereomaniac · 06-11-2014 4:30am

Is it the show that I heard someone mention here recently, Matt Sydal is appearing it as well?

montyrebel · 09-11-2014 8:13pm

no matt was here a few weeks back, the show last night had Magnus, Drew McIntyre and Mason Ryan

Machismo Fan · 09-11-2014 9:58pm

Anybody watch British Boot Camp? Thought Mark Andrews and Kris Travis had a really good match.

Furious-Red · 09-11-2014 10:58pm

Machismo Fan wrote: »

Anybody watch British Boot Camp? Thought Mark Andrews and Kris Travis had a really good match.

Watching it now , only up to that match . I thought that red head one in the womens match was surprisingly good. The tag match before that was a bit meh . The opener was decent i thought

rovert · 09-11-2014 11:29pm

Explain me this were the winners actually picked in the final episode?

Machismo Fan · 10-11-2014 12:10am

rovert wrote: »

Explain me this were the winners actually picked in the final episode?

There's another four episodes left in the series. They picked the six winners that go on to the US.

Cherry_Cola · 10-11-2014 12:19am

Good show.

I wasn't a fan of how they dealt with announcing who got through as it killed all suspense knowing 6 people were going through anyway. Not to mention that Grado was a cert.

rovert · 10-11-2014 12:20am

Machismo Fan wrote: »

There's another four episodes left in the series. They picked the six winners that go on to the US.

Ah I thought this was final episode.

I did watch the first series btw. :P

Machismo Fan · 10-11-2014 12:22am

I thought they picked the right people. I would've picked Dar over Brown but then Dar went through anyway because of Kris Travis having to pull out so it's a moot point.

Furious-Red · 10-11-2014 1:07am

Mastiff vs Brown really surprised me actually, Mastiff can seriously move for a big lad

rovert · 14-11-2014 3:33pm

Might as well ask did anyone see the PENULTIMATE IMPACT while I am asking about Knockouts Knockdown.

This is such a great line.

https://twitter.com/ChrisRiddle/status/533224458790899713

Machismo Fan · 14-11-2014 4:15pm

The next to last iMPACT! was just a show really. The Wolves losing the tag titles irks me to no end but realistically for TNA at the moment it doesn't really matter.

CastorTroy · 14-11-2014 10:04pm

Was watching it thinking imagine if WWE did that with the MitB case. Everyone just forgot he had it until this week.

gnfnrhead · 16-11-2014 7:44am

I don't have any major issue with the Wolves losing. They have beaten pretty much everyone so dropping the titles should keep them fresh, assuming more shows in the somewhat near future. Are the UK shows still the only ones they have planned?

Is Joe's injury a real one, or did he use up all his contracted matches or something?

CastorTroy wrote: »

Was watching it thinking imagine if WWE did that with the MitB case. Everyone just forgot he had it until this week.

I remembered he had it, I was just convinced they had forgotten he had it :pac:

Machismo Fan · 16-11-2014 9:17am

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Are the UK shows still the only ones they have planned?

Yep. PW Insider reported yesterday that they'll announce the new deal next week (which I'm pretty sure is the first time they've put a time frame on it) and then they'll run shows in New York in early January but the Wrestling Observer has been saying it's due in the next week for the last month now so take it for what it's worth.

CastorTroy · 16-11-2014 4:49pm

Just caught up with the last 2 episodes of British Boot Camp. Knew Grado would get through and it was all for show, but from what I saw I didn't think he deserved it over Samuels. I was sure Samuels would go through with the way Al Snow asked him to take on Grado. True Grado was more over with the crowd and all.
Otherwise I would probably agree with the picks.

Watched the WrestleTalkTV after each one as well and was surprised to hear both Spud and Marty Scurll say they had never heard of Richard Parliament before he showed up there.

I did enjoy watching the judges reactions in the background during the matches. Think there were 2 moves which involved using the apron as a weapon and you could see the judges were shocked/surprised. At one point Al even stood up after seeing a move

Machismo Fan · 16-11-2014 4:53pm

CastorTroy wrote: »

I did enjoy watching the judges reactions in the background during the matches. Think there were 2 moves which involved using the apron as a weapon and you could see the judges were shocked/surprised. At one point Al even stood up after seeing a move

Gail Kim singing along to Like A Prayer was a highlight.

rovert · 16-11-2014 5:22pm

I will do a big catch up on the show later this week. Can't believe the Owenss were as bad as people have described. Them messing up basic drills has to be a work.

Speaking of works Kay Lee Ray who is really good and deserving don't get it twisted was a surprise pick to most people as she beat Nikki Storm. I assume Nikki wasn't chosen as Storm has a lot of WWE interest. She was a Rosebud on Raw and Smackdown but I heard about WWE's interest about 2-3 months ago. WWE specifically went to a SHINE Women's Wrestling show in Florida last month just to scout her. I'd asked around if WWE is in the process of signing her/did things go well at the WWE tapings this week but Nikki isn't telling anyone anything. Which is part of course of the WWE signing process for non-Americans as WWE tells Wrestlers to saying nothing until their Visa comes through. I guess we will know the truth in six months time.

Machismo Fan · 16-11-2014 5:39pm

Kay Lee Ray was easily the most impressive of the four in the Finals match they had.

jaykhunter · 18-11-2014 11:31pm

I'm trying to get the TNA airing situation straight:

This week: tomorrow's impact will be the final "proper" TNA show to air
Next week: there's a film airing next wednesday (26th) instead of impact. The week after: (presumably a best of) tna show will air? I thought the "best ofs" were cancelled?

gnfnrhead · 19-11-2014 12:31am

jaykhunter wrote: »

I'm trying to get the TNA airing situation straight:

This week: tomorrow's impact will be the final "proper" TNA show to air
Next week: there's a film airing next wednesday (26th) instead of impact. The week after: (presumably a best of) tna show will air? I thought the "best ofs" were cancelled?

Think it is only pre-empted on the 26th. Back to whatever they had planned after that.

CastorTroy · 19-11-2014 1:02am

So no Turkey bowl this year? Inconceivable

jaykhunter · 19-11-2014 1:23pm

So best of iMPACTs are still going to air in December?

rovert · 19-11-2014 1:32pm

jaykhunter wrote: »

So best of iMPACTs are still going to air in December?

Meltzer said no over the weekend.

DON'T BE STRESSING, JAY.

Seemingly TNA has signed a new deal with Destination America and told SPIKE you are grand lads were are off. IMPACT after October 1st might been airing for free. All SPIKE is seemingly doing is giving TNA a shop window to get a new deal elsewhere. With a new deal done they no longer need that shop window.

Hopefully TNA announces something during tonight's show if not before. Very much a wait and see situation.

Machismo Fan · 19-11-2014 1:40pm

I'd guess the best of's will be produced anyway for international TV but there is very little reason for Spike to air them at this stage. They'd likely do a better rating with a Cops rerun anyway.

jaykhunter · 19-11-2014 2:13pm

Cheers Rovert, just trying to get the all the information straight (even if it changes tonight!) Whatcha mean by "IMPACT after October 1st might been airing for free."?

It's a little bit of a shame that they won't have a "season finale" on Spike. Concession of a bulk-taped show. A bit like the WWE Mag/Powerslam closing, it's business as usual for 99% of the magazine.

rovert · 19-11-2014 2:22pm

jaykhunter wrote: »

Cheers Rovert, just trying to get the all the information straight (even if it changes tonight!) Whatcha mean by "IMPACT after October 1st might been airing for free."?.

Instead of SPIKE paying TNA a rights fee to air IMPACT they are either doing it for free or as a part of a barter deal. That's only been speculated now.

Machismo Fan · 19-11-2014 2:26pm

rovert wrote: »

Instead of SPIKE paying TNA a rights fee to air IMPACT they are either doing it for free or as a part of a barter deal. That's only been speculated now.

It would make sense as to why they planned to do best of's instead of taping TV. Without money from Spike they would've been footing the entire cost of TV tapings themselves (thus why they weren't planning to do it).

In fairness to Spike, they've been as fair to TNA on the way out as you could reasonably expect.

Machismo Fan · 19-11-2014 2:37pm

https://twitter.com/TNADixie/status/535078306883059712

The link is just to their newsletter sign up but they'll be announcing today.

rovert · 19-11-2014 3:07pm

TNA writes very good "misleading" press releases they will push all these exciting programming opportunities across the Discovery Network much like they did the Viacom Network. Whether that gets delivered is another story.

Remember when they spun taking Impact off the road and moving back to Orlando by implying IMPACT365 was more than just a few half hearted Youtube videos?

Machismo Fan · 19-11-2014 4:57pm

They wouldn't be great press releases if they didn't make things seem better than they were.

So how much do we think they're going to announce today? Just a new TV deal or some spiel about a new era in TNA to go with it? Personally I'd attempt to load the announcement with as much as possible.

Machismo Fan · 19-11-2014 5:49pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpP2mL7ceHc

(Silver Spring, Md.) – Discovery Communications announced today that it has signed a multi-year deal with TNA (Total Nonstop Action) IMPACT WRESTLING to bring the popular league to homes nationwide on Destination America, the only network dedicated to celebrating the people, places and stories of the United States. Destination America officially enters the ring with its first world premiere of IMPACT WRESTLING in January 2015. The series features some of the biggest names in professional wrestling, including Jeff Hardy, Bobby Roode, Kurt Angle, Bobby Lashley and Gail Kim. The partnership includes the U.S. premieres of additional TNA WRESTLING series and specials and provides Discovery Communications with international broadcasting rights in select regions, to be announced at a later date.

“Our partnership in this uniquely entertaining franchise with TNA IMPACT WRESTLING provides a significant addition to Destination America’s programming strategy,” said Henry Schleiff, Group President of Destination America, Investigation Discovery, American Heroes Channel, Discovery Fit & Health and Discovery Family Channel. “The enduring, cross-generational enthusiasm of pro wrestling is felt by millions of fans around the country, from coast-to-coast and throughout the heartland. We are delighted to bring this beloved American pastime to the one and only network dedicated to celebrating the unique spirit of the U.S., Destination America.”

“Our knockout partnership with TNA IMPACT WRESTLING continues Destination America’s mission of bringing our viewers the best of all-American entertainment, and going center ring with one of the world’s foremost professional wrestling leagues fits perfectly within our DNA,” said Marc Etkind, general manager of Destination America. “Wrestling has created a fiercely loyal, passionate and widespread fan base, and we look forward to being part of the TNA family.”

“We are very excited about Destination America being the new network for IMPACT WRESTLING and the partnership with Discovery Communications both domestically and across the globe. Their commitment to promote and grow our brand in innovative and compelling ways was instrumental in knowing we had found the right home,” said TNA President Dixie Carter. “Together we will create an experience that takes our fans on a new journey that will push the envelope of technology, including where we take our cameras, going deeper into our superstars’ lives and showing the reality of what it takes to create a weekly professional wrestling show, all while showcasing the very best male and female athletes in the world.”

Since launching in 2012, Destination America has become one of cable’s top five fastest-growing networks*, earning 10 consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth in Prime among P2+. With top series that explore unique American cultures and ways of life – including Mountain Monsters, A Haunting, Hillbilly Blood, Buying the Bayou, Buying Alaska, Ghost Asylum and BBQ Pitmasters – Destination America’s programming spans the nation from Alaska, Hawaii and Colorado to Louisiana, West Virginia and communities in between. To find Destination America, the new home of TNA’s IMPACT WRESTLING, go to destinationamerica.com/watchda.

TNA is a privately held sports entertainment company based in Nashville, Tenn., specializing in TV properties, events, merchandise, music, and the management and promotion of professional wrestlers. TNA annually delivers more than 500 hours of original content to millions of fans around the world.

gnfnrhead · 20-11-2014 1:49am

How big is that network? I never even heard of it, but the same could be said for 95% of American networks.

Hopefully the break doesn't effect the show quality. The last couple of weeks have only been good (basically going through the motions) but the weeks before that were great. Hope they get another set of NY shows before the UK shows. Two of their best markets would be a great start for them.

Riddle101 · 20-11-2014 1:55am

gnfnrhead wrote: »

How big is that network? I never even heard of it, but the same could be said for 95% of American networks.

Hopefully the break doesn't effect the show quality. The last couple of weeks have only been good (basically going through the motions) but the weeks before that were great. Hope they get another set of NY shows before the UK shows. Two of their best markets would be a great start for them.

From what I hear it's a small network, even smaller than Spike tv. Fans on other forums are saying it's going to be worse now. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

jaykhunter · 20-11-2014 2:40am

Has 60% of Spike's reach. Expect a massive decrease in viewership. I imagine it's also a channel difficult to find in cable. Some time to retool can be a really good thing. I wish wrestling in general had an off-season to structure itself and not an endless week to week.

rossie1977 · 20-11-2014 1:41pm

Riddle101 wrote: »

From what I hear it's a small network, even smaller than Spike tv. Fans on other forums are saying it's going to be worse now. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

spike is one of the biggest cable networks in the states and does roughly the same prime time viewership as syfy (which airs smackdown)

saw this on another forum and it gives a rough idea of the availability

USA Network (RAW) - 86.38% of US homes
Spike TV (TNA until now) - 85.50%
Syfy (SmackDown) - 85.33%
E! (Total Divas) - 84.48%
Fox Sports 1 (UFC) - 75.13%
UniMas (Lucha Underground) - 57.8%
Destination America (TNA in 2015) - 52.20%
ROH - 38.1%

jaykhunter · 20-11-2014 2:22pm

that's excellent Rossie, thanks!

The offical TNA thread - News, Spoilers and the rest...

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