This Sunday, TNA is breaking out one of its biggest pay-per-views of the year, with Daniels and his tag-team partner Frankie Kazarian (Bad Influence) getting their shot at the coveted tag-team championship in a triple threat against the likes of Bobby Roode and Austin Aries and Shawn Hernandez and Chavo Guerrero Jr. All of these things, all of these steps we’ve been able to take forward because of the talent in the ring and the ways we’re keeping fans interested in what we’re doing.” Slowly but surely, we’ve taken the baby steps forward of going from a taped show to a live show, going from Saturday nights to Thursday nights, and going from outside of prime time to inside of prime time. Because of that, we went from Nashville down to Orlando to do the show for Fox Sports Net, and finally for Spike. We knew we had a good locker room it was just a matter of consistently putting out great product. “But in the locker room, we didn’t feel that.
We didn’t have television in place it was just pay-per-views,” Daniels said. “The first couple of years when we were doing pay-per-views on Wednesdays out of Nashville, there was a lot of talk that the company wasn’t going to last because we had a different business plan.
When Christopher Daniels joined TNA’s stable of young wrestlers as one of the originals back in 2002, he thought the fledgling company could make it big in the crazy, men-in-tights-smashing-each-other-with-chairs world of professional wrestling.
That’s how identifiable that hexagon was.You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser It took a year for someone in TNA to realize that there was a six sided ring in the iMPACT! Logo and it needed to be changed. When they took the ring away, it took away a unique part of their identity. TNA didn’t lose viewers with a six sided ring and they certainly didn’t lose wrestlers either. Every opportunity they have to be different without being stupid they need to take. But as AJ Styles said on the Chris Jericho podcast, TNA needs to be an alternative. No, the six sided ring isn’t going to draw money.
That said, as much as one wants to listen to the concerns of wrestlers like Austin Aries and EC3, there’s something to be said about product identity. A little R&D on the matter could go on a long way in the long term safety of the workers. TNA could have looked into ways to make the bumping more comfortable or at least try to minimize the shock on the bumps. If there was simply some dissention, they could confront it and see how they could make things better. If the locker room was adamantly against the six sided ring, TNA should have never posted the poll. The wrestlers should have at least been informed and been allowed to give their voice on it. If TNA didn’t approach the talent first about this, it’s an error on their part. I don’t know how much harder it is to get out of bed after that. I don’t wake up the next day after hitting a tighter canvas one hundred times. Or any other promotion with a four sided ring in that matter.
But TNA worked in those rings for six years and while injuries happened, I don’t see any real evidence that TNA wrestlers got hurt more often than WWE wrestlers.
They are the ones expected to bump in that right and while pro wrestling still lives on the concept of independent contractors, you still get the right to refuse. Before reaction, it’s important to accept their stance as the workers.