Originally posted by Tyler DurdenWhy would Paul Heyman be any better than Vince Russo? Heyman had some good ideas back in the early ninties, while Russo had some in the late ninties. But the ninties are over! I couldn't care less if it is Heyman or not.
At this point I wouldn't even start watching TNA on a regular basis if they hired The Rock and Stone Cold at the same time.
They need to do something new and fresh. And I don't mean Samoa Joe or AJ Styles, because they aren't fresh and/or the solution as well.
Difficult to say those guys aren't game changers when the booking of both of them has been hidedous(for the most part) since Russo came back in '06. TNA has had their two highest buyrates for The first Joe-Angle Match and their match at Lockdown back in '08. I think if Heyman comes in and books Joe like he booked Taz it could work out very well for the promotion. Joe Vs RVD at Bound for Glory with a good to great build could pop a big buyrates at least by TNA standards.
In short, The Big Surprise COULD POSSIBLY, MAY BE, WE DON'T KNOW, WE CAN'T CONFIRM, SOMEONE OVERHEARD SOMETHING AND TOLD US AND NOW WE'RE TELLING YOU IN A TOTALLY UNCONFIRMED WAY (Order our Elite section!) that TNA could quite possibly be abandoning pay per views and instead doing live specials on Spike TV.
That has a some heat to it since one of Dixie's Tweets over the weekend was that Spike TV was on board with the plan for The Big Surprise.
@TNADixie Just got off phone w/Spike prez Kevin Kay. He is all in and agrees this will change TNA on every level. 6:53 PM Jun 11th via Echofon
One one hand, PPV was one of TNA's few actual revenue streams, but on the smarkiest other hand, since hardly anyone bought their PPVs, maybe losing that business model entirely is a smart thing.
If someone could locate TNA's PPV business numbers, I'd be grateful because now I'm mighty curious how many PPVs TNA actually sells in a given month (specifically, is it more or less than WCW at its lowest ebb?)
From what I understand they make little or nothing on PPVs. Their business model is all about TV and the Universal agreement. It is probably better to get more air time on Sunday Nights for a 3 hour show just for the advertising money. Considering how bad the economy is and the low interest of wrestling, its a good idea. Mania's number was lower then last year's Mania which is surprising due to the off chart builds for it. PPV is probably a noose around their neck right now, so might as well get rid of it instead of trying to compete. Hell, I'll tape the Sunday Night comedies now that my DVR is working right. Its Sunday Night Football that could kill them, but depending on the game, they might get more people to flip over.
Hey! I'm the one that does the OVW reports around here! No, just kidding, although I was about to write something Sunday about the "ECW" match from the show, and saw you already covered it pretty well there.