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Posts tagged The Torch
Dutch Mantell criticizes TNA (finally)!!
Apr 11th
I know I posted the entire Mooneyham interview but, The Torch pulled out the criticism more directly.
By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor
Former TNA writer/agent Dutch Mantell says he believes TNA doesn’t understand its audience and the current creative team has an arrogant attitude that it’s the fault of the audience for not understanding the product as ratings have declined.
“I don’t think they know their audience. In their eyes, if you don’t understand it, it’s not the writing, it’s you,” Mantell told Mike Mooneyham of the Charleston Post & Courier newspaper. “The joke seems to be on them.”
Mantell’s comments come on the heels of Hulk Hogan essentially blaming the audience for low TV ratings during an appearance on Bubba the Love Sponge’s radio show earlier this week. “The audience needs to warm up to how TNA is changing and how they’re stepping up and how fast it’s moving,” Hogan said.
Mantell also suggested there is a dark cloud hovering over TNA and the company will be in trouble if Spike TV ever decides to drop TNA programming.
“I’ve been around a lot of offices with the death knell, and the TNA office has got the death knell about it,” Mantell claimed. “The only money they’re really making is off Spike, and if Spike balks, they’re screwed.”
This week, Spike and TNA shifted Impact up an hour to 8:00 p.m. EST for a more favorable match-up with WWE Raw on Monday nights, added a brand new one-hour show at 7:00 p.m. EST, and continue to air the “Epics” TV highlight show on a regular basis.
Mantell, who was released from TNA at the end of July 2009 during a creative shake-up, defended his work along with Jeff Jarrett and Jim Cornette, saying they were able to take TNA’s ratings to a consistent 1.3 level before the new staff undid their work to drop TNA to a 0.9 level.
“I told Jeff Jarrett that his big mistake was allowing bigger con men than him to get in there. That’s what he did,” Mantell said. “Before Jeff, Cornette, and I left, we had this thing up to a 1.3 for three weeks in a row. When we left, you could almost track the demise of TNA from July 31 backwards. They dropped it down to a 0.9. And it’s continued to drop.”
Looking at the ratings, TNA drew between a 1.27 and 1.33 for five weeks from March 19 to April 16, 2009. Right before the creative shake-up, the ratings peaked again for 2009 with a 1.31 on July 23 and 1.29 on July 30.
Supporting Mantell’s statement, Impact ratings dipped to a 0.96 on September 3, a 0.93 on September 10, then a 0.91 on November 26.
After the creative team shake-up, the ratings for 21 weeks of TV from August 6 until the end of the year on December 17 averaged a 1.07 rating. By contrast, the average from January 1 to July 31 was a 1.20 rating.
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Tommy Dreamer not just another “pretty face”
Mar 16th
By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor
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Tommy’s “Thursday Night Football analogy” is DEAD ON BALL’S!
Former WWE wrestler Tommy Dreamer says he’s been contacted by TNA to possibly join the company. Dreamer’s no-compete clause expires at the beginning of April after being officially released from WWE on January 4.
Dreamer says he doesn’t know if he’ll actually join TNA, though, as he has a number of projects he’s working on outside of wrestling and he’s currently booked through September with independent show dates.
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“I have been contacted by TNA. May go there. If not, I’m very, very happy and content,” Dreamer told Phil Strum of the Poughkeepsie Journal. “I’m seriously working every weekend up until right now to September straight. I did two movies, I’ve been writing two films that I’m hoping to get sold. It wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’ve been working on this for quite some time.”
Dreamer was also critical of TNA moving to Monday nights, saying TNA should have stayed on Thursdays and built up their audience separate from “WWE night” on Mondays and perhaps only had a few Monday night specials instead of a weekly show.
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“Not the smartest move on TNA’s behalf. I learned with the original ECW: the WWE machine cannot be destroyed. Nor should it be. There’s enough piece of the pie. To go head to head wasn’t the smartest move for a lot of different reasons,” Dreamer said. “Everyone makes their mistakes. The ratings the first week were not good and favorable. Hopefully, they will continue. I think they had their niche on Thursday nights. They should have stayed and maybe just done specials on Monday nights.”
Dreamer said TNA is over-matched compared to WWE’s marketing machine and overall built-in audience with the ratings they pull in with Raw.
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“If NBC had Thursday Night Football and wanted to move it to Mondays. Why? If we’re all wrestling fans, we want to watch wrestling any day of the week,” Dreamer said. “Just like, if I’m a football fan, I want to watch it Monday, Thursday, Sunday.”
Caldwell’s Analysis: Dreamer’s argument has the evidential support of a very strong Thursday night replay rating last week that was just about equal to the live rating last Monday night. There would be no shame on TNA’s part if they say two or three months from now that they’re pulling back to Thursdays and going with “Clash of the Champions” specials on Monday nights every month or bi-monthly. Be sure to check out Dreamer’s complete interview with Phil Strum linked above. Great interview.
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TNA Impact: ABSURDITY OF IT ALL
Mar 9th
TNA’s “Yes Blood” Policy, Bischoff To Inject Steroids Into X Division, Brooke’s “24″ Audition, Sting Is Still Beating Up RVD
By Shane McKinley, Torch specialist
Abyss, knowing that he needs to update his costume, wears a black mumu to the ring.
According to a fan sign in the crowd, Raw stands for “Really Awful Wrestling.” They’ve probably missed the last Impacts. Meanwhile, Tenay continues to harp that “Styles has changed for the worse,” but oddly enough, I don’t believe him. It would be nice if Styles could get away from Ric Flair’s shadow and truly hammer home his heel persona.
It’s Abyss and Hogan vs. Flair and Wannabe Flair. Not much of anything is happening until the lights go out and behold, Sting appears. Seems he just signed a deal with Dixie. Surely he’ll hit Flair because…well, Sting is a good guy…though we never really establish that fact, we just assumed that fans would assume that Sting would be a good guy coming back…oh no, Sting hit Hogan! This is so shocking!
Taz fakes shock that Sting would “hit Hogan and Abyss.” Not such a stretch. Fans know that Sting hates Hogan from the old WCW days. Hell, TNA at one point had Sting up in the rafters looking ominously at Hogan. Plus, I wouldn’t consider Sting whacking Hogan and Abyss as “joining Team Flair.” Ugh.
It’s been 20 minutes into the show, and there has been five wrestlers and one Dixie. Oh wait, here’s Brooke Hogan. Nice to see her get some airtime. She deserves it way more than some stupid wrestlers sacrificing their bodies and all of that nonsense.
By the way, where the hell is Samoa Joe?
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