KINGSTON: Did TNA make the right choice in moving to Mondays?

The Monday Night Wars Part Deux: Total Nonstop Regret?

by Michael Kingston

    On February 15th, TNA made the announcement that they would be moving their TNA Impact TV show to go head-to-head with ratings juggernaut WWE Raw in an attempt to recreate the fabled Monday Night Wars of the late 90's. You know, because everyone blew all the money they made on the last one. And since creativity in wrestling these days is pretty much limited to "well, it worked last time"....here we are. 

This past Monday, TNA advertised one match: Pope D'Angelo Dinero vs. Desmond Wolfe (incidentally, a match that wasn't delivered). WWE countered with Steve Austin as the guest host of Raw in the penultimate show before Wrestlemania. 

The result? Raw: 3.71 and TNA 0.84. You don't have to understand the intricacies of the Neilsen ratings to figure out that it wasn't really much of a war. In fact, it barely registered as a slap fight. 

Now a lot of people were down on TNA's move to Mondays from the start and with this past week's rating, those voices only grew louder. To reassure it's fan base, TNA employees took to the internet to drop platitudes about "David vs. Goliath" and "marathons vs. sprints."

And since the wrestling world was clamoring for one more so-called expert to weigh in on the matter, here I am with my decidedly expert opinion....

Despite the ass kicking in the ratings, I still think that moving to Monday Nights is a very smart move for TNA. And quite honestly, if they focus on their strengths and give the wrestling audience what WWE can't and/or won't give them, I think they very well could take a sizeable bite out of their market share.

I do however think the idea has been very poorly executed. 

First and foremost, why have the show run from 9PM to 11PM in direct competition to WWE Raw? This I feel is a critical mistake.

I don't think anyone has any illusions that Hogan, Sting, Flair are long term answers for TNA but because of the direct competition, they are almost forced to feature them incessantly. This is going to make it harder to build new stars and give them time to get over. It will also burn out whatever shelf life these older stars have left that much quicker.

Running the show from 8PM to 10PM would give TNA an hour to present whatever they'd like without feeling pressure to compete with whatever is on Raw. This would be a perfect time to feature young talent that might not have the star power to compete with John Cena but could eventually win over the audience with some exposure. TNA could then load up the star power for the second hour and really make a fight of the one opposed hour. 

TNA could also use the first hour to build stories that pay off in the second hour. For instance, this week TNA opened the show by setting up an AJ Styles vs. Jeff Hardy dream match. Unfortunately, this match was head to head with the first televised appearance of Steve Austin in over a year. Had the show run from 8PM to 10PM, the Styles/Hardy match could've been set up at 8PM unopposed and paid off at 10PM which isn't normally Raw's strongest point of the night. 

I get the point that viewers have been conditioned to watch from 9PM to 11PM but in time I think they'd be able to draw more viewers at 8PM than they will at 9PM. I think this would've been a much more productive move for the company from a creative and a ratings standpoint.

Now in light of the 9PM to 11PM start time, I also question the decision to make the move right now. I am assuming that the rationale is that the end of Monday Night Football combined with the Road to Wrestlemania generally produces the WWE's highest ratings for the year...which in theory would translate to more viewers to siphon away from Vince and company.

Sadly, this hypothesis does not take into account the fact that Wrestlemania is the time that WWE generally presents their strongest programming of the year. 

While WWE has delivered some really limp programs over the past few years, almost none have occurred in the January to April timeframe. This year's road to Wrestlemania XXVII is no exception. Shawn Michaels and Undertaker are delivering a compelling story week in and week out, Rey Mysterio and CM Punk just put together a really hot angle, the heel Batista character is threatening to turn into a money character, and Bret Hart will be wrestling for the first time in 12 years. 

If you are going to take on an entrenched multimillion dollar conglomerate that has almost every possible advantage over you, it would make sense to hit them when they are weakest. Not only has TNA not done this, they've almost seemingly set themselves up for failure.

Last week, TNA presented a potential dream match in Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles. Not only was this not advertised, it was run up against Bret Hart, Steve Austin, and Vince McMahon in the ring at the same time. TNA got killed. I don't see how anyone could have anticipated a different outcome.

All in all, I genuinely think TNA has a chance to be competitive with WWE. But make no mistake, there is little room for error in this battle. TNA is fighting a publicly traded company with 31 years of name recognition, greater resources, younger main eventers, and a business structure that will almost always be profitable. The ATM Eric philosophy isn't going to work here as they've already pretty much brought in anyone that would make any sort of difference...there's no one left. (If anyone thinks Bill Goldberg will turn the tide, they are sadly mistaken) This isn't a fight you can win by throwing money around. 

Serious adjustments to their battle plan need to be made or this version of the Monday Night Wars will be much shorter than the last one. 

Mike Kingston is the writer/creator of the critically acclaimed wrestling comic book Headlocked featuring covers by Jerry "The King" Lawler. Follow him on Twitter at Headlockedcomic or email him at headlockedcomic@yahoo.com.