I'm kind of surprised a competitor of Netflix didn't pick up TNA. Even Netflix itself. Probably much cheaper than producing your own show and it does have a built-in audience (albeit a small one).

The world of post-professional wresting has not been kind to Kamala, the Ugandan Giant. He was fun to watch in that character.

From Wrestling Legend to Double Amputee, Kamala Keeps Fighting | Bleacher Report

Death blow for an already struggling business.

Only slight more half the HH in the U.S. get DA.
That's more than 1/3rd less than Spike.

Those 0.4 ratings immediately drop even further even if every single existing viewer follows them over ... because nearly half of Spike TV households can't even get Destination America.

For some perspective, Sinclair (39% of all HH) is far closer to DesAmerica (53%) than DA is to Spike (90%).

That article is awesome.

Is it really? I think a lot depends on what they decide to do with TNA. All I basically know this channel as is shows about Alaska and shows about ghosts. What would they lose by letting TNA go head-2-head against WWE on Monday night? Will no one watch their Alaska shows if they get moved to Tuesday? Does TNA have broadcast rights to their British Bootcamp thing? Do they own rights to their content or does Spike? If (and it's a big if) TNA can get primetime coverage, who cares.

I like Lucha Underground the most right now. Too bad I'm watching the Saturday broadcast because I don't have El Rey. I can't every find ROH because I'm asleep at 2 AM. If they stay the same direction they have been going and DA allows them to be on prime time, they will survive.

Because it's basically half the coverage.

Spike was, give or take, a top 25 cable network. I doubt this one is even a top fifty network. As in them running 4 free promos an hour (or whatever) means little, since there's pretty much zero audience for those promos.

This is a "national TV deal" in name only.

Let me try this a different way.

In order to pull a 0.4 (or whatever), with only about half the households available to them, they have to post a 0.8 in those households. Effectively to remain just the poor draw they've been they have to suddenly become twice as popular.

*yes, I'm rounding to "half" because it's easier to illustrate. The actual difference is about 53ish million to 92ish million.

I don't think the 53 Million number is even accurate tho, since that is the number of cable households that could have access to it, but not necessarily the number who have it, since it's not in a main tier.

I know I have the channel, but the move to Wednesday night basically killed the show for me, since there's too many problems caused by trying to DVR it.

They won't have the same TV audience, and they won't get the same U.S. TV rights fees, but they can make more money with fewer stupid wrestler contracts, fewer house shows on the other side of the country drawing 150 people, and with a bunch of international TV deals they signed right before negotiations fell apart with Spike. It will be different company, like a more sports entertainmenty ROH, and less whatever the hell they were trying to be with Hogan and Sting, but they bought themselves another few years, and maybe by then, over-the-top distribution of this stuff through Netflix or whoever is more of a thing. A glorified Indy on TV with some brand recognition is better than the alternative.

Bob Carter needs to win Father of the decade. I wonder if he even pretends to act like Dixie has a brain in her head when they're together.

That one seems to actual households in, not just the hypothetically possible ones.

It's on moderate tiers with both Dish & Direct I believe, that's 33% of TV households now. From there, it isn't a stretch to figure that around 1/3rd of cable customers have a tier with DA in it, which would give them the 52-53 percent of households mark.

Might be a good time for TNA to do a full reboot. Let everybody know that the writing staff is different and their storytelling will be different. The wrestlers will definitely be changing up quite a bit as I'm sure not all of them are coming along.

I thought they had one main chance back when they could have signed Paul Heyman. The fans were willing to buy in at that point. They need to try and create that "moment" for the new buy-in if they can.

Did anyone buy the ppv tonight..

I watched it. For a one match card (and that match to be an ECW level clusterfuck), it was a hell of a match

I've been as big a WWE hater as you'll find the past 6 months but tonights show & especially the final match, was awesome.

Was a good show overall, the ending, meh.

Something I might have wanted to see 10 years ago.

Does anyone really pay for PPV on WWE anymore? I'm assuming 95% of their business is WWE Network buy-ins at this point. Would be interesting to see a firm number.

Not to mention the Network was free in November. So in essence, everyone could have watched the PPV for free.

Just saw the Foot Locker commercial.. they're even breaking kayfabe during commercials for the show now?

CM Punk was fired on his wedding day, how Punk almost died, Punk's texts from Vince McMahon, what he told Triple H - Wrestling News

CM punk was on the art of wrestling podcast and "told all". Lots of newsworthy claims here. It's in iTunes and YouTube now, and a redditor did a recap already.

Since the podcast went up, he's crashed his own site and the site host of the podcast. It's *impossible* to download now.

Stitcher can't serve it up, either.

Amazing interview. So much new info came out as well. I really believe what he is saying. I don't think he cares enough to create a "work".

Hearing a lot of the stuff that goes on in the back really doesn't surprise me. It's all the things we've heard over the years, only it seems worse. It makes me want to stop watching WWE altogether, such an unprofessional, hateful and spiteful company.

It's also an indirect reminder that there's a ton of good wrestling out there from other companies.

Dana White ‏@danawhite 6m6 minutes ago

Welcome to the UFC @CMPunk!

Probably going to get battered, and frankly I hope that happens. He kind of rubbed me the wrong with with his podcast with Colt. For someone that doesn't care about money he sure cared about being the highest paid guy at all times. Did anyone else notice that or am I just an asshole?

Eh, him I like and have some investment (interest) in, so I'll hope he does well.
Do I think he's the easiest guy on earth to get along with? Nah, but neither am I.

Good for him.

Kind of weird that he wanted Punk but never Bobby Lashley, who had actual competitive amateur wrestling experience, and looks good in almost all of his MMA fights until he gasses out. I guess Punk is more famous.

And it's maybe just a James Toney thing where he wants to embarrass somebody who thinks he can just walk in and do what they do.

Nah, White and Punk are pretty good friends. I don't think White would have signed him if he thought he was going to embarrass himself. I don't think he'll be Lesner, but if he gets into a good camp he might do OK. Hell, he might get into a camp and realize it's not for him, who knows.

So is tonight a big night for WWE? There's a show at the Bilo Center tonight, happens about 3-4 times a year. There seems to be about twice as many trucks and buses here tonight compared to other visits. I have to estimate about 30-40 semis parked behind my office high rise and I've seen 5-6 tour buses as well.

Not that I know of. Could it just be the difference between a Monday Night Raw vs. a Smackdown taping or house show? The TLC PPV is Sunday - maybe they brought a lot more stuff on the road and plan to just keep it with them until Sunday?

Ya, that's true. It still does seem to be a big shift for the UFC. They've usually shied away from the "celebrity" fighters that were so big in Japan. Punk must be the first guy without any competitive combat sport experience to make his MMA debut in UFC.

I totally get the bucket list/desire to do MMA thing. It's just crazy that instead of going the small promotion fight v. a journeyman guy thing and see where it goes from there (like Batista did), he's going to fight a UFC Middleweight fighter. There's no tomato cans to throw at this there.

The thing is, the guy does have extensive training in a bunch of disciplines. It's not like Joe Sixpack walking in off the street and saying they want to be a fighter. Now, how good he is at any of those disciplines is anyones guess and I'd venture to say he's probably not at the level of most UFC fighters. But as I stated earlier, I don't think Dana signs him if he thinks he's going to be a joke.

Yeah, probably just the usual RAW setup.

It looks like Alberto Del Rio is signing with Bellator. He was 9-5 in MMA before signing with the WWE. He fought as a heavyweight, so maybe we'll get Del Rio v. Lashley.

I believe tonight is the Slammy Awards. Not sure what that entails or if that would require the extra vehicles.

http://www.impactwrestling.com/news/...PACT-WRESTLING

Looks like Destination America is making Impact Wrestling (TNA seems to be gone with new design) as their flagship program giving them as much space as they want. The marathon day of shows makes me think that they do have archive footage from TNA from Spike.

Not so sure about the Friday time slot but WWE gave it up moving smackdown to go against the NFL so why not. Saturday replays seem interesting also as they plan "a whole new viewing experience featuring extra content and never-before-seen footage." or basically tell the viewers, watch the Saturday night show.

I like the new logo, with the 6-sided ring around the I. Excellent brand reinforcement.

If you have the wwe network and can watch it..... Watch nxt r-evolution. All the way to the end. Then watch it again for me.. As I missed it in the hospital.


You know how Vince McMahon said wrestlers aren't reaching for the brass ring anymore?

Triple H just tweeted he's missing a whole box of brass rings after the show.

It's apparently that good

Just read the recaps, man oh man are there a lot of indy names around there right now. Not just the big ones either, I mean guys like Shawn Spears and Sami Callahan.

It was an amazing show! There's no way TLC on Sunday will even come close to comparing I'm sure. Zayn-Neville was just pure all out awesome. Some of the best storytelling I've seen in a pro wrestling match in forever.

NXT has been a better product than the main roster for awhile now it seems.

Of course. That's what happens when you can book a roster full of very good, smart, hungry guys without the need to (a) fill 5 hours of tv a week and (b) cater to advertisers and 7-year-olds.

It seems much more organic - with the WWE trimmings mind you - but being unencumbered by a need for ratings and $$$, it shows you what's possible if you make the product all about...gasp...wrestling.

That's a good point and a large part of it, but Vince is still a big part of the problem. (Allegedly) Charlotte was supposed to be in a 10-15 minute tag team match with Natalya getting the win over Charlotte's partner on Raw... time got compressed (because clearly there was so much storyline progression happening during the Slammy's, but whatever), and it got condensed to a quick singles match. HHH won't solve that issue, but he wanted Charlotte to win, Natalya actually said Charlotte should get the win, and Vince overruled them so Nattie (who's basically a joke right now) got the quick squash win over a Flair who's supposed to dominate the division for the next 5 years.

There's always going to be a main event ceiling, less storyline progression each show because there's 25 hours of wrestling a month instead of the 4-7 that NXT does, and some of the NXT gimmicks (Bailey, Emma, Tyler Breeze, the Vaudevillains all come to mind) are unlikely to carry over well to the main roster, but it's crazy that most of the good long matches this year have occurred down in the hour a week show rather than the 5-hours a week the main roster gets. I'm not saying you need to go back to WCW Nitro with awesome cruiserweights just "wrestling for the sake of wrestling", but people like Cesaro, Big E, Tyson Kidd, heck even Summer Rae and Nattie have gone down to NXT and had awesome matches. So when you put them out there on Smackdown or in the middle 90 minutes of Raw why not let them go for 10 minutes instead of having quick squashes that end with roll-ups, distraction finishes and DQ wins.

The head NXT writer did get "promoted" to Smackdown recently, and they're claiming they'll start doing some more important matches on that, so maybe we will start getting some real storylines with the 2nd/3rd tier guys. Or maybe Sasha Banks will come up and be the backup dancer for The New Day and Sami Zayn can get in a feud that goes nowhere with a bunny or El Torito.

I think if you go back over the last few years you can find dozens and dozens of 10+ minute matches on RAW and Smackdown involving Cesaro and Ziggler and Kofi Kingston and a million other guys that can work. They just all blend together because they wrestle each other so often, for no reason, every single week. I think that's the top issue, overexposure. Both too much TV, and the persisting Monday Night Wars thinking that every guy has to be on every single show. There's nothing worse in wrestling than when a company is trying to drag out interviews and matches to kill time. Wrestling works best I think instead, when you're trying to cram as much as you can into a single hour.

If NXT had to fill 7 hours of TV a week and a PPV every month, those guys and those matchups would wear thin very quickly.

Point of clarity - that was no Natalya squash by a long stretch. If anything, Charlotte dominated that match and lost via quick rollup and was the one made to look strong.

Wrestling for wrestling's sake can be boring. We've all seen the moves before. It's all about the story they tell.

Anything that means something will be interesting. IMO the WWE has a very difficult time making matches feel important. They're mostly just stuff to kill time between interviews.

So pretty much Kofi Kingston against anybody will be boring, because no one moves up, and no one moves down. The same applies to most midcarders. It doesn't affect title contention. They just wrestle a match, and probably wrestle again at the next show for absolutely no reason.

I just think the storytelling is so much better. You can tell that it's a smaller crew coming up with them because they make sense from week to week. The main roster seems like it has tons of writers changing their mind constantly and then Vince screwing it up even more later on.

The Neville-Zayn feud was better written than anything WWE has done in awhile. The long build-up of Zayn to this moment. The storytelling during the match and the attack at the end. People actually cared about the match. Is there any story in WWE right now that people care about?

I'd change that to mostly just stuff to kill time between promoting some product or service.

They just have nothing interesting going on these days. Most of the feuds were just thrown together randomly and offer nothing compelling. It's a generic formula of have the bad guy attack the good guy one night for no reason, throw them in some 6-man tags with guys in similar situations for a few weeks, then have them battle at a PPV.

The only real feud they've had over the last few months was Rollins and Ambrose and they ended that in the dumbest way possible.