TNA Impact Set to Go Live Weekly This Summer

In a very odd case of timing being WWE just announced RAW is going to 3 hours, TNA has announced that Impact Wrestling will be broadcasting live every Thursday this summer beginning on May 31st.  Both announcements came within minutes of the other, but in this case it has to be considered a definite positive move by TNA.  The live broadcasts will continue throughout the summer, but no word on what will happen beyond that.  TNA issued the following release on ImpactWrestling.com:

NASHVILLE, TN - (May 17, 2012) -- TNA IMPACT WRESTLING President Dixie Carter and SPIKE TV President Kevin Kay announce today that the highly-rated “IMPACT WRESTLING” will be going Live! from Universal Studios beginning May 31st and continue through the summer. This announcement coincides with the recently announced new, one-hour earlier time slot change of 8:00-10:00pm/ET every Thursday night beginning May 31st.

“We are excited to take IMPACT WRESTLING Live! all summer long, and have our first Live! summer show launch our new 8:00pm/ET time slot,” says TNA President Dixie Carter. “Summer of 2012 is going to be remembered as the most momentous time in our company's history-to-date. Stay tuned."                                       

TNA is no doubt losing some interest by taping weeks worth of TV at a time, and the results being readily available online before the shows air.  Now that TNA is going live, it is up to them to create some buzz that will make it "must see" TV.  Back in 2010 TNA tried moving to Monday Nights, but that idea was way too soon and bold as they weren't ready to compete on Monday nights.  Now 2 years later, TNA is trying a lot of new concepts like the "Gut Check" and "Open Fight Night" ideas that are at least attempts to be fresh.

Going live is something Eric Bischoff was very successful with in WCW, and hopefully he realizes that the other half of the equation is creating buzz and interest.  The one other piece to the puzzle will be getting Impact on the road regularly so the atmosphere can be much more upbeat than the Impact Zone in Orlando which sees TNA on a very regular basis.  Hopefully TNA is realizing and attempting to fix their current problems, but there will be a long road ahead that will hopefully lead them to success.

Who will topple Immortal?

In the past few months, since their formation at last October's "Bound for Glory" PPV, Immortal has dominated TNA both in and out of the ring. Despite Mr Anderson's unexpected world title triumph over "The Anti-Christ" Jeff Hardy at this month's "Genesis" PPV, the huge heel stable holds the TV, Tag Team and X Division belts.

With most of TNA's gold around the waists of Immortal and with Bischoff stacking the odds against Mr Anderson, in order to ensure a speedy transition of the World Title back to Jeff Hardy, who will rise up and topple the despotic supergroup?

The first option I would instigate to garner fan interest would be to have cracks emerge between Hogan's boys (Bischoff, the Hardy Brothers, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss) and Flair's Fortune (AJ Styles, Kaz, Beer Money). With Fortune now holding all of Immortal's gold and with Styles clearly begging for a chance to be the "top dog" in the company once more, a division would be easy to accomplish storyline wise and could be further fuelled by Flair and Hogan's long standing bad blood. This option would accomplish many things in TNA: elevating Fortune to be THE dominant group in the company; prove the younger guys have the edge on the relative veterans of Immortal; and a great way to remove Hogan/Bischoff from the company (at least from an on-screen role).

The second option I could see TNA more likely to go with would be the return of another powerful group: Main Event Mafia. With the brilliant storyline that is straying between real life/fiction between Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett, TNA seems to be edging towards a full blown war between Angle and Jarrett's "security blanket" Immortal. As Kurt is heavily outgunned at the moment, it would make sense for him to call on people he trusts to have his back and assist in the destruction of Jarrett/Immortal. Who better to fit this criteria than Scott Steiner, Sting, Booker T, Kevin Nash (?) and maybe even Samoa Joe? With this option TNA does run the risk of undermining the abilities of its younger stars like Styles, Matt Morgan and the MCMG, but the stable battle would be extremely entertaining and could open the door for Samoa Joe to return to the main event scene and even for Fortune to assist in Immortal's downfall, maybe at this year's "Lockdown".

One thing about the Immortal formation however, is that TNA has given itself a plethora of story strands it could choose and a mulitude of "dream" matches/mic showdowns that could occur (Steiner/Flair "shoot" promo anyone?!).

CCW is better than WWE and TNA. Deal With It.

I have been a loyal WWE fan since about 1990 I would say. I watched wrestling off and on in the 80's but didn't get die hard about it till around 1990. I was 100% WWF. Never watched anything longer than a minute of WCW or anything else (sorry Eric, but I was loyal) Although I did turn an episode of Nitro on briefly only to hear Macho Man actually say... "If ya smell what the Mach is cookin." Seriously, he did. And I remained a fan even to this day. But over the past few years, WWE has well, gone to crap. The same ol same ol that goes on every Monday night. The same champions over and over again. Seriously how many times is John Cena going to win the title? It's boring.

Because of that, I broke away and tried to watch TNA, when Kurt Angle first arrived and even with Foley got there, something about TNA just didn't hook me. So I didn't stay with TNA for long.

I was pretty upset for awhile. My love for wrestling all but dead. Then CCW came along. Hulk Hogans Celebrity Championship Wrestling. At first I thought it was awesome just because of how stupid it would be. Screech wrestling? Come on. Then I started watching it, and after awhile, the matches that these celebrities were putting on became more entertaining than anything I had seen in WWE in YEARS. Sure these guys don't know all the moves, or how things exactly work, but it is something new, something fresh. It was pure entertainment.

This past weekend, changed everything. I knew at some point they were going to start "feuds" between the celebrities to bring in some storylines for the matches, but at the same time try to keep the "reality" of it all going. And we had Dustin Diamond Vs. Danny Bonaduce. Danny was injured and missed last week and because of that he was kicked off the show, but then he came back and was demanding to be put back on the show, Dustin did not like this at all and thought it was unfair so boom, a feud was born, and a match set. Dustin Vs. Danny, hardcore falls count anywhere. And good god, it was one of the best wrestling matches I had seen in a long, long time. Sure there was no blood, no huge bumps, but it was damn great. Entertainment. I was having a blast watching wrestling again. Then the finish came, Dustin was set to do his finishing move on a steel chair. A DDT. And he did it. Dustin Diamond pulled off the prettiest smoothest most perfect looking DDT I hadn't seen since Jake Roberts pulled them off. It was awesome.

Now don't get me wrong, there are some points in the show that are a little annoying. Like how the camera cuts to the pretaped shots of the crowd going crazy. (I've worked in television before, so whenever you see random shots of audience reaction, usually that's pretaped and they're acting, saves time during the real filming.) But honestly that is the only gripe. The guest spots by RVD and Goldberg were great. The teachers Brutus and Knobbs are fantastic. And the judging is done by people that KNOW what they're talking about.

This may be pushing it even further, but I have not sat and watched an episode of Raw in months. I have not sat and watched and episode of Smackdown in years. And ECW? Give me a break. I just read all the results of these shows online, and thank god I did because nothing ever happens. But CCW? I NEVER miss an episode of CCW.

CCW needs to branch out and be its own federation. Get some celebrities, and start a real show. I would be there weekly to watch.