Mike Rickard
Rickard's Ramblings: WWE vs TNA, TNA wrestling video game, RAW ratings woes, and Naturals no more?
By Mike Rickard II
Dec 17, 2006, 16:13

After a long week in court, there’s nothing like rambling on about the latest happenings in the wild and wacky world of professional wrestling.  Help me wind down from lawyer mode to smark mode as I ask a few questions of you, the intelligent wrestling fan.

CROSS EXAMINATION

1.     Where is the WWE getting the thirty wrestlers for the big Battle Royal on RAW this week?

2.     Why is the WWE having a three hour episode of RAW when it has enough problems producing two hours of watchable television every Monday?

3.     What’s more pathetic, Sylvester Stallone appearing on this Monday’s RAW to promote his new film Rocky Balboa, or WWE agreeing to have him on the show?

4.     Shouldn’t the WWE get some kind of Nobel Prize for its ability to clone Divas?

5.     How hard would it be for TNA to turn Kurt Angle heel if he’d broken Don West’s jaw rather than placing him in the Anklelock?

 Where fools rush in-TNA’s resident money mark, Dixie Carter is reportedly surprised that the WWE hasn’t responded to TNA’s recent WWE bashing such as the Voodoo Kin Mafia and their Million Dollar Challenge to TNA.  While the WWE’s attorneys have reportedly made it clear that TNA cannot say the names of WWE licensed characters such as Triple H or “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels,  there’s been no other public reaction from Vince McMahon or anyone else at Titan Tower.  For all the talk about Carter being an avid fan, her reaction demonstrates a clear ignorance of Vince McMahon and the way he does business.  Vince rarely acknowledges competitiors and when he does, he’s clearly the underdog (a classic example is the Billionaire Ted skits during the WWF’s losing days in the Monday Night War).  While Vinnie Mac no doubt is aware of TNA’s existence, he’s got absolutely no reason to consider them a real threat to the WWE right now nor any reason at all to acknowledge them by responding to their attacks.   If Carter really believed McMahon would respond to TNA’s challenge, then she has a lot to learn about the wrestling industry and that’s cause for concern for TNA fans everywhere.

How much is too much? Tonight’s Armageddon PPV marks the WWE’s third PPV in just four weeks (November 26^th’s Survivor Series, December 3^rd’s December to Dismember, and  December 17^th’s Armageddon).  Call me crazy, but weekly PPV’s didn’t work for TNA; how does the WWE expect them to deliver?  While there’s some validity to the argument that PPV’s are just a natural evolution of the house show, that’s a tricky argument to make.  Back in the days of the territories, many promoters made their money by running weekly house shows.  There’s an argument that PPV’s have largely become the modern day equivalent of house shows i.e. the place where big matches take place and feuds are settled.  That was true in the 1980’s and part of the 1990’s but it’s no longer true due to the advent of main event programming on free television.  PPV has lost much of its novelty as the place to see matches you won’t see anywhere else (although there are exceptions like the Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and Hell in a Cell).  Making them special seems like a pretty obvious solution but running two or three PPV’s a month isn’t the way you do that.  While the WWE may make some extra money in the short run with a quantity over quality approach, it’s just going to hurt their PPV buy rates in the long run if they over saturate the market. 

Then and Now –When people talk about how the WWE is holding its own in the ratings, I can’t help but laugh.  The Nielsen ratings for the December 4, 2006 episodes of Monday Night RAW (remember, the WWE categorizes RAW as two one hour shows rather than a two hour show for purposes of manipulating the show’s value) were 3.1 and 2.9.  Compare the WWE’s flagship television show’s ratings over the last twelve years

*While 2006 isn’t over yet, RAW has fluctuated between highs of 4.5 (late January) and a low of 3.3 (the August 27, 2006 RAW).

While television’s ratings have been splintered due to the spawning of a multitude of new channels, there’s no denying the fact that RAW’s current ratings are nothing to get too excited about.  Between the years of 1995-2001, you had Monday Night Nitro earning equal or greater ratings than RAW (until the decline of 2000-2001) which means you had about the same amount of people watching the rival wrestling company’s flagship show.  Is the WWE so bad that they can’t bring in any of WCW’s former fan base?  Apparently so. 

Impact Video Game- last Thursday’s episode of Impact saw the debut of a teaser trailer for the long-rumored TNA Impact video game (Midway Games has talked about releasing a video game based on TNA Wrestling since 2005 but until recently, the game was little more than vaporware).  If you’ve followed the game’s glacial development, then you’ve no doubt heard that Samoa Joe and A.J. Styles (reportedly big-time gamers themselves) have been involved in the game’s production, offering their insights into what makes for a good wrestling game.

Unfortunately, the preview offered nothing more than a brief look at the game’s graphics which leaves fans wondering how good (or bad) the game will be.     Since the days of WWF Wrestlemania for the Nintendo Entertainment System, fans have been less than overwhelmed with licensed wrestling games.  While there have been some really good wrestling games, there’s also been some really bad one.  For every SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain,(PS2), there’s a Wrestlemania 21 (Xbox).All too many times, wrestling games focus more on graphics than they do on game play, leaving fans disappointed.    The big question of how good the game will be is equally matched in importance as to whether or not TNA will be still be in business by the time the game is released.

Naturals no more? Don’t be surprised if you don’t see the Naturals in TNA much longer.  TNA management is reportedly frustrated with the team’s inability to catch on despite a sustained push by TNA.  The recent episode of Impact saw Shane Douglas wash his hands of his “Newly Franchised” Naturals, undoing months of build-up where Douglas was seen taking the Naturals under his wing and guiding them back to greatness with Spartan training.   Considering the time spent on both television and PPV building the angle, it seems foolish to just dump the program without getting some sort of benefit.  Is this a case of TNA cutting their losses or similar to the WWE’s routine practice of dropping floundering storylines without a second thought of saving them?