Looks Like We're Stuck With Russo

[REDUNBECK~!]

I didn't say they're down! For f***'s sake I said they weren't going up! Which is just as bad!

[Jason Todd Grisham]

TNA is turning a profit, so even if the rates are steady Russo still =money.

What they need is a second hour and start to tour again. It's true that people can't know much about the product when Russo writes everyone in and creates a clusterf***. I hope the This is TNA special helps with that.

Either way I believe we can both agree Russo is not killing TNA.

[I Got Heat]

csm126 said:

lolatwwe said:

Hey Russo haters, where's your chart showing the buyrates are down from pre-Russo times? Good luck finding one that supports your argument/daydream. They lost a little steam from Genesis (marks bought this to see Angle's first PPV match in TNA) but it's still up in comparison to the days of Team Canada and Jeff Jarrett blah blah blah.

My argument isn't that buys are down, it's that they aren't going up. Holding steady at 25000-35000 isn't doing TNA any favors and it shows how stagnant they are. They need to get more people to buy the shows if they want to get out of the hole.

You're being ridiculous, though. If Paul Heyman had gotten the book you would not be saying 25000-35000 is "all the same" and "there's not enough improvement here" you'd be pulling any excuse in the book as to why we need to give it time and that it IS improving. Do you expect Russo to get 10,000 more buys 3 months after taking over? He is improving the buyrates, but change is a slow process and you guys obviously expect him to produce a miracle or be fired.

[REDUNBECK~!]

I love the "We need two hours" argument. Well, you ain't got it so hows about you start working with what you DO have? Don't book the show like it's two hours long and cram it all into one hour and say "it'll be better if we get more time!'. Book it like it's one hour long and show what you can do right with what you have.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

Well I Got Heat, what you obviously don't know is that after Paul Heyman got the book of ECW it became a buy rate juggernaut in a mere two weeks.

Yeah, that's something you don't hear in the history books.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

csm126 said:

I love the "We need two hours" argument. Well, you ain't got it so hows about you start working with what you DO have? Don't book the show like it's two hours long and cram it all into one hour and say "it'll be better if we get more time!'. Book it like it's one hour long and show what you can do right with what you have.

I agree. Russo shouldn't be booking a two hour show. Sadly there's nothing I can do or you can do, or apparently Dixie Carter can do, to change that. He wants to use everyone in TNA (except Shark Boy) and smash them into four hours of television a week.

Besides, I don't think Russo could book an hour if he tried.

[REDUNBECK~!]

lolatwwe said:

csm126 said:

My argument isn't that buys are down, it's that they aren't going up. Holding steady at 25000-35000 isn't doing TNA any favors and it shows how stagnant they are. They need to get more people to buy the shows if they want to get out of the hole.

You're being ridiculous, though. If Paul Heyman had gotten the book you would not be saying 25000-35000 is "all the same" and "there's not enough improvement here" you'd be pulling any excuse in the book as to why we need to give it time and that it IS improving. Do you expect Russo to get 10,000 more buys 3 months after taking over? He is improving the buyrates, but change is a slow process and you guys obviously expect him to produce a miracle or be fired.

Actually I would say 25000-35000 is all the same because it is, in fact, all the same. That's not something I made up for Russo, it's just a statistic.

Every time Russo has had the book of a company people have said "He needs more time!" They say this every few months. Well, he had years with WCW and people said "He needed more time!" even after WCW died. How much time does the f***er need? TNA needs to find someone who can make changes faster than the speed of a drifting glacier.

And, lest we forget, this isn't Russo's first TNA run. He's been here before, and he didn't do shit back then either.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

Actually he didn't even have a year in WCW. He had three months, then he had six before he left with a concussion.

So I guess what he needs is more than three or six months. He had years in the WWF though.

[I Got Heat]

csm126 said:

lolatwwe said:

You're being ridiculous, though. If Paul Heyman had gotten the book you would not be saying 25000-35000 is "all the same" and "there's not enough improvement here" you'd be pulling any excuse in the book as to why we need to give it time and that it IS improving. Do you expect Russo to get 10,000 more buys 3 months after taking over? He is improving the buyrates, but change is a slow process and you guys obviously expect him to produce a miracle or be fired.

Actually I would say 25000-35000 is all the same because it is, in fact, all the same. That's not something I made up for Russo, it's just a statistic.

Every time Russo has had the book of a company people have said "He needs more time!" They say this every few months. Well, he had years with WCW and people said "He needed more time!" even after WCW died. How much time does the waxer need? TNA needs to find someone who can make changes faster than the speed of a drifting glacier.

And, lest we forget, this isn't Russo's first TNA run. He's been here before, and he didn't do crap back then either.

Look, I don't know who you want as a booker, but there's nobody out there that is going to provide the amount of massive change you want in such a short time. It's f***ing impossible, so stop claiming it can happen or that you want it to happen. Change always takes time, not just with Russo.

You have to realize that the kind of wrestling YOU want is probably not the kind of wrestling that makes money. Once you realize that, you'll find yourself more ok with what Russo does. He isn't booking for the 500 people who post on forums all day and watch 60 minute matches between two jobbers in an indy fed. I don't know what era of TNA you liked, but all those eras hit a glass ceiling as far as true expansion money-wise. The buyrates are up (although not enough for you - but enough for Dixie Carter), ratings are breaking records, and the company is creating characters out of guys who previously had no personality. Watch a Raven shoot and he'll explain how far your career will go when you don't even have a character. Did Chris Sabin have a character? No! The list goes on.

We know you guys aren't happy, but the money coming in is currently > your opinion on wrestling.

[REDUNBECK~!]

a2j88 said:

Actually he didn't even have a year in WCW. He had three months, then he had six before he left with a concussion.

So I guess what he needs is more than three or six months. He had years in the WWF though.

He also had a bunch of people, including Vince McMahon (who often knows how to book a show properly, believe it or not) filtering out the crap from his ideas while he was in WWF. In TNA he has no one filtering him because Cornette and Mantel can't get along with him as a co-writer.

If Russo was just an "idea guy", ie if he was responsible just to come up with story outlines, and TNA had Cornette and Mantel write the stories based on Russo's idea, things would probably go better. Russo can come up with interesting ideas, but he can't book them to save his life without great help. Cornette and Mantel have shown themselves to be fine bookers in the past.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

I'm going to have to disagree about the sixty minute jobber matches. They are damn fine matches, but they don't translate to TV. The wrestling people on the forums seem to like simply can't translate to TV.

Russo just goes to extremes when it comes to transfering wrestling to TV.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

csm126 said:

a2j88 said:

Actually he didn't even have a year in WCW. He had three months, then he had six before he left with a concussion.

So I guess what he needs is more than three or six months. He had years in the WWF though.

He also had a bunch of people, including Vince McMahon (who often knows how to book a show properly, believe it or not) filtering out the crap from his ideas while he was in WWF. In TNA he has no one filtering him because Cornette and Mantel can't get along with him as a co-writer.

If Russo was just an "idea guy", ie if he was responsible just to come up with story outlines, and TNA had Cornette and Mantel write the stories based on Russo's idea, things would probably go better. Russo can come up with interesting ideas, but he can't book them to save his life without great help. Cornette and Mantel have shown themselves to be fine bookers in the past.

I agree. However Cornette is stuck in the seventies and... hell does Mantel do anything? I thought Mantel was supposed to be in the booking committee with Russo and Tenay. Really I would much rather Russo than Cornette than just Cornette. And above that I would much rather Cornette and Russo.

[I Got Heat]

It does draw money, though. Russo has drawn more money in the wrestling world than Cornette has, but because Cornette is "old school" and his favorite matches are guy vs. guy for belt with no real storyline, he is the fan favorite on these forums. The money Russo drew in the Attitude Era far surpasses any he lost in WCW, which was a sinking ship to begin with. WWE is still making money off the Attitude Era to this day. Look at DX, they're still drawing with an old Russo idea/storyline.

[G✇JI☈A]

Read this at f4WOnline.com that may shed some light on the increase of viewers:

What's sad is that TNA had their highest viewership in history this week (which actually was the result of Nielsen beginning to log college viewers for the first time ever this week and nothing booking-related), and when all is said and done they'll still only do 25,000 buys for this show(Against All Odds).

[Jason Todd Grisham]

Wait... the pay per view buys are already a forgone conclusion?

[REDUNBECK~!]

lolatwwe said:

csm126 said:

Actually I would say 25000-35000 is all the same because it is, in fact, all the same. That's not something I made up for Russo, it's just a statistic.

Every time Russo has had the book of a company people have said "He needs more time!" They say this every few months. Well, he had years with WCW and people said "He needed more time!" even after WCW died. How much time does the waxer need? TNA needs to find someone who can make changes faster than the speed of a drifting glacier.

And, lest we forget, this isn't Russo's first TNA run. He's been here before, and he didn't do crap back then either.

Look, I don't know who you want as a booker, but there's nobody out there that is going to provide the amount of massive change you want in such a short time. It's waxing impossible, so stop claiming it can happen or that you want it to happen. Change always takes time, not just with Russo.

You have to realize that the kind of wrestling YOU want is probably not the kind of wrestling that makes money. Once you realize that, you'll find yourself more ok with what Russo does. He isn't booking for the 500 people who post on forums all day and watch 60 minute matches between two jobbers in an indy fed. I don't know what era of TNA you liked, but all those eras hit a glass ceiling as far as true expansion money-wise. The buyrates are up (although not enough for you - but enough for Dixie Carter), ratings are breaking records, and the company is creating characters out of guys who previously had no personality. Watch a Raven shoot and he'll explain how far your career will go when you don't even have a character. Did Chris Sabin have a character? No! The list goes on.

We know you guys aren't happy, but the money coming in is currently > your opinion on wrestling.

Why does Chris Sabin need a character? Why does EVERYONE apparently need a character? The only people who need characters are the main eventers because THEY DRAW MONEY. The X-Division guys like Sabin aren't drawing a dime, I guarantee it. They're fun to watch do flippy-dos, but they don't need characters or storylines to do that. If TNA stopped trying to give EVERYONE a character and a story, they'd have more time to build the important feuds and - shocking idea alert - they'd have time for MORE WRESTLING. Some guys can get over based purely on their in-ring, and the X-Division guys are those kind of guys. The fans don't want to watch Chris Sabin cut a promo - they want to watch him wrassle.

And as for "the kind of wrestling I want"...it's not so much that I want a certain kind of wrestling. I just want wrestling, and iMPACT gives me less than ten minutes of it per week. They have 44 minutes of screen time once you factor commercials, and they spend LESS THAN TEN of them on actual wrestling. "Total Nostop ACTION" my ass. The rest of that time is spent on:

-Kevin Nash humiliating various X-Division guys
-Eric Young getting hard for Ms. Whatsherface
-Bob Backlund creepily lusting after Jeremy Borash
-Christy Hemme and Kip James being bitches
-Sting revealing Abyss' stupid and not-wrestling-related secrets

If TNA cut all that crap and had thirty minutes of matches and a couple of short, simple promos/video packages, they'd be living up to their name a little more.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

See I like characters personally because it makes things interesting. An example being Dean Malenko Vs. Chris Jericho from WCW. That fued was far more interesting because Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko had a character. Now if they just decided to have them randomly fight with no characters I would change the channel because it's increadibly boring. I'm sorry, but it's true.

I can't find myself caring about whether someone wins or loses if they don't have a character or reason. I don't watch a match and go "Gee that's a very nice armdrag, and he can do a very good wrist clutch exploder armbraker" I go, "beat his ass!"

That's why I like Russo giving everyone a character.

[I Got Heat]

The WWF was at its peak when every guy had a story and level of importance. Some people liked E&C, some liked The Hardys, and so on. When WWE began to forget about the entire card besides the main event is when they really dug their own grave and turned away tons of fans. Not every person only cares about the two guys in the main event. What you're saying also goes against what many perceive as the true death of WCW, which was when they lost their strong undercard (Benoit etc.) and only had the main event to work with.

The undercard matters.

[REDUNBECK~!]

There's a reason why WWF and WCW could do characters for so many people: They had time for it. TNA doesn't. Until they do, they need to cut back on story and character and just have more wrestling. They are, after all, a WRESTLING show, and if they can't keep fans with just their wrestling then that means something's wrong with the wrestling. And right now what's wrong is it's too rushed because, hey, we need more time to get Laticia on the show so she can give us an update on Eric Young's boner. Not that Laticia matters or Eric Young is having a match any time soon. Nah, we just need MORE BODIES on the show.

How about this system: If you aren't wrestling on this week's show or at the next PPV, just stay home. What's the point of putting wrestlers on a WRESTLING show if they aren't going to wrestle in the foreseeable future? A storyline is no good in wrestling if matches aren't involved.

[Jason Todd Grisham]

See now we go back to the TNA needs two hours argument. They can't compete with a one hour show. They need an undercard, just like WCW had one at their height and the WWF in the attitude era.

And I take it you don't like show burn angles? For instance Sting was in every show for about a year, but didn't wrestle. He just popped up and hit people with a bat. He took up time and became the biggest star without a match. Would you be against this? Russo provides us with match payoffs. We have the Senshi/Starr fued, Eric Young has a character transformation and seems to be going into a match soon. People don't just fight for no reason. Yes they fight for belts, but what if there is no belt in sight? They need to fight for something. Russo provides drama as reason. Sadly he's not very good at writing drama.