Yeah, I have no allegiance to WWE or TNA, just various guys within each company, so I flipped channels back and forth all night going with whatever got me more interested, and I have to say TNA held me almost all night. I did watch Edge vs. Jericho on WWE since I'm a big mark for both of them, but that's really it. TNA wins my vote this week.

I am not going to go so far as to say it's a bad thing for the bottom line, but the WWE entrances are where they lost me a lot of times. When someone's music hits on Raw, I know I have a good couple of minutes to flip over to TNA and see what's going on before anything I haven't seen before is going to happen on Raw. Of course, most people like repetition and familiarity and want to hear "Sweet Home Alabama" every two hours the rest of their lives, so again, overall it's probably fine. WTF do I know, I liked ECW better than the Attitude Era.

i must be a wwe fanboy, cause i tried watching tna on dvr afterwards and ended up ff'ing through most of it. i dont know what it is, but i find it pretty boring. maybe its the horrible production that is too distracting.

Hernandez > Abyss. The only thing Abyss has going over Hernandez is he is American so can just use Hulks exact American Hero gimmick.

He was actually extremely over a the breakup of LAX and had a world title shot which he cashed in against Sting back when Sting was in MEM. He basically dominated Sting the entire match, had him up for the border toss for the win when Angle and co came in and beat him down. He got to retain the world title shot briefcase from feast or fired but they just never pushed him as a main eventer after that match and they just burned off the title shot during the PPV where AJ won the world title (iirc).

He is certainly one of the better big guys in the industry and to see him leaping out of the ring onto a dude on the outside is a spot i could happily watch time and time again.

You loved a feud continuing past the logical ending point? Angle had the US ARMY CURB STOP ANDERSON! IT'S OVER!

Styles/Hardy was great, except the fact the champ got pinned clean by a guy who hasn't wrestled a TNA match in years and the champ is supposed to face Abyss this week, great (non)buildup for the PPV.

X-Div was okay, didn't like the flip off the ladder since every heel was standing next to each other to catch Red.

He can no sell chair shots now but not bat shots?

That whole angle was lame and I'm trying to ignore it, but obviously the feud is between Angle and Anderson and it's not settled until they actually have another 1-on-1 PPV match. I'm hoping Anderson just pins him clean and that ends it. He's been much more entertaining than Angle lately.

Yeah, but Angle got his revenge last week when he beat him down, got his medal back, had the army triple beat him down, Angle Slammed him, and had the Army carry him away in victory.

And I really want Anderson to use the mic as a weapon. Ref looks away, he calls for the mic, uses it, 1-2-3.

welcome to the dark side my friend.

Duck for cover! there's a lot of wwe nut huggers in this thread

Meltzer did say he actually liked Impact more than Raw this week. I definately wouldn't say it's a home run show but the last two weeks does seem like it's a more memorable show than Raw.

FWIW, I don't have any allegiance to either brand. I watch for the guys I like (ie HBK, Jericho, Edge, Bret, Vince etc) and flip over when there's people I don't want to watch. When I see HHH vs Orton or Cena vs Big Show on my TV, I would rather watch Pope/Desmond/Angle/Anderson any day of the week. I definately like a lot of the talent in TNA a whole lot better than I do at WWE, like for example the X division (Generation Me, Motor City Machine guns, Amazing Red, Doug Williams etc). This Raw wasn't very good at all, I would say Impact was a much better show. But again, it really depends on who you like watching so everyone will have their own opinions.

I think your average fan would see HHH and Orton and see them as very big stars and would not give TNA a chance, to each his own. There is no wrong answer here. It's TNA's job to actually make some of their talent to be perceived as bigger stars so people will watch their program. That's what they've been trying to do with AJ Styles and the Pope, etc.

fwiw i think wwe is pretty terrible atm...the only things they have going for them right now are hbk/ut, y2j/edge, cm punk and miz. everything else is pretty unwatchable. even austin during the final segment last night was boring as ****.

my frustration with tna is largely from the fact that they have all the tools needed to be at least competitive. so much talent up and down the roster in ring and on mic, and that even with wwe still being stale, tna can't even put up a competitive product night in and night out

Lol, only Flair can bleed during a promo to start a show

Not seen it all yet but so far Impact > Raw. Then again Raw is the WWE's third brand

There's a lot of talent that WWE is wasting by not having a lightweight belt. Instead of having these guys feud over a belt, they're getting buried in boring matches to the upper tier guys. Or they're having matches no one really cares about because it doesn't amount to anything.

Bourne
Kofi
Yoshi Tatsu
Ziggler
Cody Rhodes
Zach Ryder
Shelton
Carlito
Santino
Matt Hardy
Christian
etc.

You'd think WWE would realize this with the success of the X Division....

austin didn't even stunner anybody

I think WWE missed out on a great segment. I was fully expecting CM Punk to come out and crash the party on Austin with Raw ending on a stunner on Punk.

i was expecting a swerve where austin was revealed to be the leader of the stem business

Raw and Impact ratings in!!!

3.7

0.8

I'll let you guess which is which.

Yeesh, I gotta say I dunno what Spike is expecting (I'm sure they got a way better number when they had RAW) but it decreasing can't be good.

Raw usually does around 3.6 so its not like TNA is losing loads of viewers to Raw because of Stone Cold.

Fwiw Impact was better than Raw imo. With Jeff's trial tomorrow if his charges are dropped and they can finally start pushing him hard in advertising i can see them getting a good bump in figures so its not like TNA doesnt have an ace up their sleeve.

So they are locked in for Pope against AJ next month, but they can promote an RVD vs AJ match for the number one contender at Lockdown too and with some saturated coverage of Flair, Hogan, RVD and Hardy there has to be a pretty sizable group of WWE fans who would give them a chance and they could probably pick up a nice bump in PPV buys and Impact viewers.

But yeah, as much as TNA has said last Monday was a big day for them the reality is a lot of their success at least in the short to mid term will be decided in a South Carolina court tomorrow.

I also agree with whoever has said Impact should go out an hour earlier. They can pick up a lot of Raw viewers in that hour and with a well booked show can retain a lot of them with the promise of some solid main events and the same fans wont be flicking back to Raw until their second hour so they will be able to catch both main events. The fact is on Jan 4th their strongest hour of the 3 was the first and picking up a third of the Raw audience, retaining 10% and adding it to their usual 1.0 in hour 2 works out to a really solid average of around 1.7-1.8. Picking up viewers as if half your show is a lead in to your competitor isnt as backwards as it sounds because picking up viewers is the only measure of success in TV.

Austin on Twitter:

man, twitter is so cool. i've never read austin's book, but apparently he has a great wrestling business mind.

What makes you think that WWE would just stand idlely by with a finger up their ass as TNA is picking more of Raw's viewers every week and let TNA's ratings keep going up?

USA network has been hounding WWE to go 3 hours every week and wants WWE to start at 8. In the past WWE has always been hesitant to move to 3 hours because it would really water down the Raw shows (we'll be seeing a lot more of filler stuff like the piggie james segment and Evan Bourne squashes, etc). WWE creative has been dreading this move to 3 hours because they are overworked as it is but if TNA moves to 8 and finds success, Raw would move to 8 to counter. WWE has now been more open to making the move to 8.

Prowrestling.net had a report on their site saying that despite what WWE has been saying publicly that they don't consider TNA competition, privately they have been monitoring TNA very closely. According to the report, for every 5 monitors that they have in the back at least one of them is monitoring Impact to see what they are doing.

If the ratings keep dropping for TNA, they can still make the move to 8 but I highly doubt WWE would just sit idlely by and watch TNA grab some of their viewers. WWE has the open door to move to 8 as well if they so choose to.

True but its like a fencing match, you have to advance even when you know your opponent will block and counter.

This isnt a one step move to make TNA great but its an obvious first step and it will give them momentum when WWE does start to react to them.

Plus its not like they have anything to lose. Even the worst case scenario of WWE extending to 3 hours at the same time to match them still has positives including WWE spreading themselves thinner than they do now and it still means TNA's last hour with their main even draw isnt going up against WWE's main event draw in their last hour.

Right now TNA is taking on WWE toe to toe and whilst too early to say definitively the early indicators are its harming them. Maybe they extend Raw to 3 hours, but TNA can extend to 3 hours BUT they can fill that 3 hours easier than the WWE simply because they only have one show and they have built their belts and the three divisions (heavy, x div and women) well enough that they can build a 3 hour program with a lot going on that isnt filler.

This is a really good article i was linked to recently:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2..._fact_gladwell

It basically sums it up how TNA vs WWE will be much easier to win (for TNA that is) if they stop fighting the WWE on equal ground and that includes forcing the WWE out of their comfort zone of 2 hours from 8/9 ct. They can do a lot of things the WWE cannot do as a smaller privately owned show and we are seeing examples of this with them carving themselves out as TV-14 to WWE's PG.

So yeah, the WWE will react and ignoring how this is always great for us as viewers TNA actually wants the WWE to react to them if for no other reason than it proves they are hurting them.

impact lost me when we had a 2 minute shot of sting walking and tazz and tenay trying to fill time...bush league

If I have to watch another 2 extra hours of wrestling every Monday it would be like rubbing my nuts against a cheese grater. I have to watch Roh, that's one hour and I won't miss that. I'm not sitting down to watch all 6 hours of TNA and Raw. Most likely I'll just check the threads and see what's good/bad and keep flipping back and forth. Like Vinny Mac says, no chance in hell!! that I'll be watching all 7 hours of wrestling on Monday.

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