Batson's Blog

If you believe the wrestling news websites, it's a very real possibility that TNA will soon be just another option in the vault that is the WWE Network. Should WWE purchase TNA, my hope would be that they'd have learned from their prior mistakes when they purchased WCW and ECW. They should definitely do the stellar invasion angle they owe us after they so royally messed up the first go around. That means keeping the TNA roster as is (at least until their TV contract runs out). That means letting them invade Smackdown (let's be honest: McMahon wouldn't let a TNA invasion go over successfully on Raw). That means using former WWE cast-offs, like Gail Kim, Ethan Carter III and Drew Galloway. That means actually invest into TNA with effort and money. Yeah ... we all know that won't happen, so that leads us to this blog. WWE will inevitably retain a few of TNA's current stars for their rosters, get rid of the rest of them and then send TNA off into the WWE ...

January 2010: TNA Impact went live against Monday Night Raw . RVD debuted. Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff were part of that show. Jeff Hardy returned to TNA. It was supposed to be a huge show in TNA’s history. They didn’t prove to be much of a threat to WWE’s ratings, but TNA did garner 3 million viewers for the opening hour of Impact . They dropped to 2.2 million by the end of the show, while Raw reached 5.6 million viewers . It was an experiment. While it wasn't a complete failure, it wasn't a huge success. It was clear: TNA wasn't ready to challenge WWE in a new version of the Monday Night Wars, despite many people hoping that was the case. I think now may be the right time for TNA to take another chance. Since 2010 TNA hasn't made a lot of progress with their ratings. The most recent edition of Impact got just a 1.07 -- that's the highest Impact rating sine April. However, a general consensus amongst the Internet wrestling community is that ...

As WWE is gearing up for Wrestlemania, TNA is preparing for Slammiversary. With their new pay-per-view model, Slammiversary is the next big pay-per-view TNA has -- but it's not until June. We'll see if that new model generates any additional interest or buys. Saturday night they were in Concord, North Carolina for a live event. For $16 (I didn't bother trying to get floor seats), it doesn't matter what event they're gearing up for or how many pay-per-views they have. I'll buy a ticket. I went to a TNA live event in 2008. I got to help out at a different live event in 2009, clearing the broken table (courtesy of Team 3-D) from the ring and taking the photos for the fans as they posed with A.J. Styles in the ring after the event. This time, I wasn't wanting to meet the wrestlers or network with anyone. It's just something to do on a Friday night for a relatively cheap price. I've been reading spoilers and catching bits and pieces of I...

Today marks one year since ODB and Eric Young won the TNA Knockout Tag Team Titles. While I throw out a congratulations to ODB on that accomplishment (CM Punk is the only other person to have held a title for over a year in recent memory), I can't help but feel disappointed that for an entire year the division has been a joke. ODB and Young are comedic gems for TNA. They're entertaining to watch by themselves. Together, they make the perfect odd couple. However, the fact that a male has been one half of tag titles that are meant for women goes to show that the titles aren't being taken seriously. If that's the case, then they should be scrapped altogether. The fact that the titles aren't taken seriously kind of begs the question: could a women's tag team division ever be taken legitimately? Good women's tag team wrestling is probably too much to ask for since WWE and TNA have a hard time getting it right with the guys. I don't get it thoug...

Got some disappointing news today. I logged onto my kingrandor YouTube account and saw a message that my account had been terminated because of several copyright claims put forth by World Wrestling Entertainment. I got one from TNA about a month ago (again claiming I used their video content without permission). I deleted that video from my account and my YouTube status was back to normal. Well, WWE hit me with five copyright claims over the past two days. I’ve been busy and hadn’t logged into my account for a few days. YouTube terminated the account and, well, that’s that I guess. I’m sure this probably has something to do with the fact that, in the last year, WWE entered into a deal with YouTube to provide original content to them on the official WWE YouTube page . WWE has finally jumped on the social media bandwagon, as is evident by the constant social media plugs on any of their current programming. It’s just a shame that fans, like others, and myself get the short...