As the new week started, news started to leak out of TNA’s potential sale – and although (at time of writing) nothing has been finalised, the details coming out seemed to indicate that the company destined for a warehouse was veering into yet another PR crisis.
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Television can be a very useful tool for a professional wrestling promotion. Back in the day, it was one of the main vehicles that companies had to sell tickets to live events. As wrestling evolved, television shows became a tool to increase awareness and sell pay-per-views as well. With success comes ratings, and the inevitable addition of extra coverage, which leads us to the conundrum that we face today.
Spoilers have been part and parcel of wrestling for its entire life. Especially when matches didn’t air live on TV, there has always been a group of fans looking to be ahead of the curve and figure out what’s happened before it’s broadcast to the masses. (Friendly tip: there’s none included in this article!)
A lot has been said of TNA’s ongoing woes – hell, it’s been the story of their existence. From their very first show in 2002, there’s always been a millstone around the company’s neck: financial issues, controversy about recent hires (or firings), question marks over the company’s televisual future. Last week, news crept out about how TNA were relocating… to a warehouse?!
Following wrestling online, it’s a certainty that you’ll have witnessed arguments between groups of fans. Whether it’s on message boards, Twitter, Facebook, or even in the comments of YouTube videos, every day there’s debates between fans about wrestlers, storylines and promotions. That is not unusual – however, there are certain groups of fans who make the entire process a farce.
A little over ten years ago, I started attending wrestling shows on a fairly regular basis. At the time, I was living in a former mining village in England, and save for the odd show here and there, wrestling in that part of the world was was limited to local wrestlers who may or may not have been trained, and nothing more.
This month marks fifteen years since WWE bought out WCW. In the time since then, there’s been books written about the demise of WCW, how WWE has struggled to adapt without competition, and many words said about the general state of wrestling post-WCW. Whilst it’s obvious that the big dog isn’t as big as it once was, it’s not exactly fair to say that the entire pound isn’t as loud as it was in 2001.
When I first joined the internet back in 1998, wrestling was in the midst of what’s been nostalgically labelled as the Attitude Era. Whether you were a fan of WWE or the about-to-die WCW (or even ECW), there were likely guys on the roster who weren’t being pushed as much as you wanted them to. Although it was unlikely that they would ever usurp the top-line guys like Steve Austin, the Rock or Hulk Hogan, it was nice to have someone in the midcard to cheer who wouldn’t always be turned into a joke simply because they had supporters.