During the 31st of January 2013, TNA teased a huge announcement during Impact. Usually when TNA (or wrestling companies in general) tease a major announcement, it turns out to be a damp squib to say the lease. Amazingly, this wasn’t the case. Dixie Carter announced that TNA would be leaving the Impact Zone to travel on the road.
Anyone who watches TNA will know exactly how important this move is for the company. The Impact Zone can be hot occasionally and doesn’t look too bad on camera (mainly due to the fact that Bischoff knows how to dress a TV studio to look better than it is from his WCW experience). However, due to the fact that fans are basically seconded from the theme park, the crowds can be…completely and utterly apathetic. I was going to try and be a bit more charitable in my description, but I decided that it was a waste of time. To the viewing audience the Impact Zone can severely damage the product. Bad matches and bad segments can be carried by crowds that are hot. Great matches can be totally buried by no crowd reaction.
A hot crowd can create the illusion that what is going on in the ring is worth watching to the audience watching at home. For instance, the shows that will be aired over the next few weeks will be more watchable purely because the audience are pretty much guaranteed to be hot. Taking the show on the road to a new live crowd every week will help that a lot as they’re not burning out the same fans week after week after week to the point that they become completely unresponsive to what the company is portraying in ring. If the people in the arena don’t care, it dilutes the chances of people caring about the product.
Over all this is a really positive move for TNA. But we’ve spoken enough about the positives. There are also negatives.
Exposing your product to a live, paying audience takes away control you have from taping. For instance, last year at the Wembley tapings Garett Bischoff was booed out the building and the segment had to be reshot multiple times till the crowd finally acquiesced and didn’t boo him straight to hell. If that had been on live TV TNA’s plans to continue to push Garett as a plucky babyface…or whatever they were trying to push him as being, ‘cos he was heel to me damnit!
Another example of this is at Bound For Glory. The match was built as the last step of Jeff Hardy’s road to redemption (let’s ignore that they built this over two weeks as opposed to the whole BFG series). Aries was turned to be the dastardly heel. Unfortunately for TNA, the crowd didn’t quite take to it. Hardy was booed to high heaven while Aries was treated like the babyface. The problem is that Hardy is TNA’s equivalent of John Cena, and given that TNA’s audience skew older a live crowd might not be into him as much.
If TNA have their babyface champion being booed on every live show who they’ve just signed to a big contract to keep him from the jaws of the WWE this could be a create a slightly awkward situation for the company.
The bottom line is though that this is a move that TNA absolutely had to make. If they get it right (a massive if given TNA’s track record it should be said) it will really add to the product and make it much more compulsive TV if the live crowd is into it.
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Ringsidehustle.com 
Jeez, TNA did something right? That’s a surprise.
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I’m with you man, I think this can only be good for TNA. Throughout the history of the business, the major players have almost always started out with studio wrestling, then took it on the road to improve.
You have to give them credit. When the fans really demand something, TNA delivers. WWE should take a note there 🙂
Very well put together piece, fun read. Take care.
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Definitely. The Aries title win was a great example of that. The continual burial of James Storm not so much (and I;m not even a massive fan of Storm, but he’s mega over with TNA fans and should be being utilised as such). WWE jsut screw the fans and push Blackberg, Ryberg and Cena.
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Glad you covered this! Awesome work.
I agree with everything you said. This is the best thing to happen for TNA and wrestling in general! There on the up and up! Now they must sort out the world title champion problems! haha
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I wonder if Louisville could be a city they come to with OVW there?
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I have already decided that I’m buying a ticket for that first show on the road in Chicago when they go on sale on Friday. That first show should sell well. I think it has been a long time since Hogan has appeared at a wrestling show in the Chicago area so that alone should bring in some fans. His last appearance might have been a 2002 RAW before his WM match against Rock. I have never seen guys like Hogan, Sting, Angle, Samoa Joe, and Rob Van Dam so I’d like to see them once.
And speaking of “hot crowds” like you said in the column, Chicago is a great crowd for the first night on the road. After one night, TNA will already start to find out if going on the road was a good idea or not.
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It’s a safe place to go. Chicago crowds have a reputation for being hot. Hopefully they can go where they’re going to be hot first and draw a bigger audience for areas that might be a little more questionable!
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For what it’s worth, I read that VIP tickets for the show sold out in less than 24 hours.
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Happy to see TNA are making steps in the right direction. I like watching both products, sure TNA has less quality in some sense but I like the fact that they haven’t really tried to compete with WWE and seem to be trying to build for themselves.
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I prefer TNA actually. I think the action i nthe ring tends to be better and it feels more natural. Sure, Aces and Eights is a complete carcrash, but generally Impact elicts a reaction from me. Other than boredom that is…
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I know what you mean, like sometimes I feel that the WWE can seem pretty childish and that makes me annoyed, which is when I really like TNA, but now I think TNA travelling will liven things up because the crowd can make it seem worse than it is sometimes
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Good read. Laid out the importance of them getting out of the Impact Zone and the potential problems and benefits it can create.
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