
Frank The Clown approves.
TNA decided to come to Dekalb this past Saturday night and I will say, it’s much different than WWE in many ways. TNA tends to interact with fans more by giving away backstage passes and the experience is much less grueling than WWE. The show lasted just over two hours (half the time of WWE) and prices, obviously, are much cheaper.
The thing is, the product of TNA is still, horrible. While the wrestling is pretty decent, the acting in promos and backstage events are terrible. Sometimes, wrestlers can’t be taught how to act. It’s something that happens naturally.
In Dekalb, about 500 fans showed up in a place where the capacity is around 6,000. That is bad. TNA draws well overseas but when it comes to the United States, they can’t sell out a 2,500 seat arena. The closest it ever reached were the events in Hoffman Estates in 2008 and last year, in which, I attended both times. The Sears Centre might seat around 6,000 fans as well and both times, the crowd was about half full. Wrestling events always draw well in the Chicagoland area. If this was, say, Iowa, TNA gets 100 fans maximum for this past Saturday’s event.
With all of the budget cuts going on, TNA has shown everyone that they are struggling. They put nearly their entire budget into guys like Angle, Nash, Hogan, Bischoff and Sting over the last four years. You figured, Bischoff may help a little bit but when he came in, he was merely a shell of himself. He had a great run in the mid-90’s with WCW and that was his peak as far as being a promoter. Dixie Carter still rolled the dice and paid for it heavily.
TNA in Dekalb and everywhere else is a loss for them. It’s costing them more money to travel and pay wrestlers because they aren’t drawing enough fans to turn a profit. Merchandise sales help any company but with all of the traveling, TNA still has to pay the place they are holding their event in and giving a share of their sales to them. I saw some good matches on Saturday with Samoa Joe against Magnus and the Wolves against the Bromans (yes, TNA is that bad to have a tag team called that).
The only thing keeping TNA alive right now are their TV deals in the United States and Europe. If those deals aren’t around, TNA isn’t worth the change in my pocket. Some people might have thought five or six years ago, that TNA might have a chance to compete. All of these years later, it’s much worse than it was back then. Wrestlers like A.J. Styles and Samoa Joe have been the only bright spots all of these years and even now, Styles may not be back.
Stick a fork in TNA.