Welcome once again to Tybo’s Talks! I am Tybo, and I’m sure by now you know that I am the ‘Five Star General’ of this operation we call SLTD Wrestling.
Let me mention the most obvious thing first, there is no denying that Total Non-Stop Action, TNA or Impact Wrestling doesn’t have a great reputation in the internet wrestling community (IWC). It’s a fact, it’s an unfortunate fact but a fact never the less.
Maybe the most unfortunate part of this that a lot of the people (at least in my experience) who talk bad about Impact, have either never watched and are going off what they read in their twitter feed or they haven’t watched the product in years and when they are asked why they don’t like it they say something like ‘Hogan and Bischoff ruined it’. Which is like saying WWE is the best because of CM Punk’s ‘pipebomb’ promo.
Here are the facts. Fifteen years ago no one thought TNA would survive a year, it was a solid alternative to WWE, and yes over the years the people in charge of the company made some very poor calls and some very bad judgement on decisions that detrimentally affected the company going forward, but the company is now under new management and new ownership. This means it may look the same to casual ‘fans’ but it’s not!
I’m going to break down some of the things that Impact Wrestling are doing to ‘change perceptions, one fan at a time’ and some of the things the casual ‘fan’ may not be aware of.
Under New Management
TNA was founded by former WWE (then WWF) and WCW star Jeff Jarrett in 2002 with his father Jerry. Long story short Jeff left and Dixie Carter took over. Many would say that Carter drove the company into the ground, and many would be right. The important thing to remember is that aside from all of Carter’s failures she did keep the company alive no matter what was happening in the backstage. This, unfortunately, is the main reason why so many wrestling fans soured to the whole TNA product.
Fast forward to 2018 and Carter is gone, and for a brief time, Jeff Jarrett was at the helm. This was when Impact seemed to make a significant turn in the road and was under the GFW (Global Force Wrestling) banner.
This was seemingly short-lived when Impact Wrestling owners ‘Anthem’ and Jarrett parted ways, and Impact was back to where it was once again.
In 2017 Anthem announced that Don Callis along with Scott D’Amore as the Executive Vice Presidents of Impact Wrestling. This could be looked at as yet another rebirth of the Impact Wrestling brand.
TNA No More
As I have said, this should be treated as a completely new company. In an initial attempt to distance themselves from the monkey called TNA on their back, Anthem planned on buying the Global Force Wrestling brand from Jeff Jarratt and re-branded TNA, Global Force Wrestling (GFW).
This purchase was never completed, determined to ‘Make Impact Great Again’ Anthem looked at new innovative approaches to their product. With most of the ‘former WWE talent’ gone they brought in a host of all new worldwide talent including; Brian Cage, Pentagon Jr, Su Yung and Drago to mention a few. They partnered up with Twitch.tv (live streaming service) to produce content on their platform. They announced their first PPV in a year with April’s ‘Redemption’
Probably the most important, and impressive thing Impact have done in the last 12 months is build working partnerships with a huge amount of other wrestling promotions around the world.
As of right now these include; Pro Wrestling Noah, Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) and Lucha Underground, Future Stars of Wrestling, Smash Wrestling, AML Wrestling, Superkick’d, Border City Wrestling, WrestleCade, Rocky Mountain Pro, Rockstar Pro Wrestling, Wrestlepro, Wrestling Revolver, RISE, Destiny Wrestling, Big Time Wrestling, DEFY Wrestling and House of Hardcore, and I have no doubt they are working on partnerships with even more promotions.
This means a lot of these US-based promotion’s shows will appear on the ‘Global Wrestling Network’ (GWN) App. This is not only great for Impact Wrestling, but it is great for wrestling fans, there have already been stars from these promotions appearing on Impact TV, this helps the talent become better known to a wider audience and helps all the promotions grow with help from each other.
Building Bridges
There is no denying that the old TNA left a sour taste in a lot of promotions mouths, but this new regime is trying to build these bridges to be bigger and better than they ever were.
No one ever thought you would even hear the phrase ‘TNA’ on WWE Network, but not only has there been a ‘Something Else to Wrestle’ show dedicated to AJ Styles, the TNA Years, but we have also seen Global Force Network footage on The Hardy’s ‘Woken’ documentary. These are both huge steps forward for a relationship between Impact and WWE.
Anthem has also decided that all Impact Wrestling talent will be given and retain complete ownership of their intellectual property. This seems a strange move for a wrestling company because it means that Impact stars can go to any other company and use the moves, catchphrases, mannerisms etc (this happened most recently with EC3 in NXT) but this to me shows true collaboration with their talent and the other companies they are partnered with.
It should also be mentioned that Don Callis (Impact’s current Executive VP) is the colour commentator for Impact (along with Josh Matthews) but he also the commentator for the English side of NJPW (New Japan Pro- Wrestling) this could potentially build some bridges between the companies.
The Future
The future of Impact Wrestling is a bright one, they are on the road to change and slowly change the opinion of the company one fan at a time. There is no doubt that this will be a long road but with the backing of Anthem having money to spend on the product and Don Callis I see good things.
Impact Wrestling is already trying to create a new brand with some of the best elements of TNA but with the fresh eyes, using fans of other promotions to help. The six-sided ring was the first thing to go, and this was a great move. The six-sided ring was originally what made TNA stand out, but over time it became something that fans immediately associated with a ‘poor’ product. Without it, hopefully, new fans will not automatically turn over because ‘it’s just TNA’.
There are obvious next steps to take a further step away from the old regime, taking TV to India and Mexico was one of them, the returning ‘Feast or Fired’ which was one of the best concepts TNA had, and the biggest one in my eyes, going back on the road. All these things show that Impact is not the same company it was 12 months ago. A perfect example of this is, their Slammiversary PPV has sold out The Rebel Complex in Toronto.
I would ask everyone who is reading this who is a wrestling fan to check out the HomeComing PPV this weekend (or on demand if you are reading later). I personally don’t think there is a match on the card that isn’t going to be interesting and hasn’t had a solid build that should turn out to be a great match.
I’m not saying you will love everything on the show, or that you will think every match is the best you have ever seen but I can guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised. I will go so far to say you will want to stick with it for at least few weeks, watch a rivalry unfold, I am sure you will find something you like.
Whether it’s the current World Champion Johny Impact, the rise of ‘The Draw’ Sami Callahan (who is so intense it’s hard not to be engrossed in anything he does), the ever-growing Knockout division or the return of the Ultimate X match. Please don’t just go on your twitter and start bashing the company because it gets you likes or Retweets.
Wrestling may be all about opinion and preference, but form your own opinions don’t dismiss a wrestling promotion because you watched it 2 years ago and didn’t like it, or because you follow someone who hates it and their opinion matters to you because they have 20K followers.
Let me know if you watch it, tell me what you think below or tweet me @Tybo_SLTD
Owner and operator of www.SLTDWrestling.com, host of SLTDRadio at www.SLTDRadio.co.uk and on Spreaker
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