[Spoilers] - Does TNA pulling the trigger on the ECW invasion angle without Paul Heyman mean they've finally got the message?

The big news from yesterday's TNA Impact tapings is that TNA finally decided to pull the trigger on the ECW invasion angle.  In a very wild scene, genuine stars Mick Foley and Rob Van Dam led a ragtag bunch of aging current day jobbers that used to be ECW superstars over a decade ago in Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Stevie Richard, Rhino, Brother Devon, Al Snow and Pat Kenney to beat down Abyss, TNA security, Doug Williams, Brutus Magnus, Kazuchika Okada, Brian Kendrick, Desmond Wolfe, TNA agents D-Lo Brown and Terry Taylor, Jay Lethal, Matt Morgan and TNA founder Jeff Jarrett.  The fact that TNA decided to pull the trigger on the angle without their craved savior Paul Heyman suggests that they've finally gotten the message that he's not going to drop everything on his plate and rush in for the deal currently being offered.  As Dave Meltzer confirmed on the Observer message board yesterday, there continues to be an impasse that will be difficult to overcome because Dixie Carter is unwilling to give up management power to Heyman (i.e. the power to hire and fire who he pleases):  

The same problem from yesterday, and last week, and last month is an impasse point.

Dixie won't get rid of key people.  He won't come in to fail.  Talks are serious but between that and money (as of 4 p.m. today money figures had not been discussed and that is a huge deal), saying the deal is imminent is way ahead of things.

People are going on the idea Heyman has talked with people about coming in if he gets power, so he's doing some work, but he's made it clear to everyone close to him the impasse exists and told one of his best friends earlier today he's feeling less than 50%.  There are outside forces that could break the impasse but right now that's where it stands.

Moreover, by being so slow to pull the trigger on the angle, it makes TNA look like they're merely copying WWE's reasonably successful NXT invasion angle to the average fan, even though they came up with the idea first.

Dave Meltzer gave the punchline to how silly TNA were for concocting this dated invasion angle on his July 11th Wrestling Observer radio show:

That whole ECW thing, I mean I didn't know this, but I knew the reason they brought these guys back was because they did that focus group thing, you know where people were really nostalgic for ECW and they talked about how much they loved ECW....  But one of the things on that focal group that I didn't know is the focal group was done in Philadelphia, so it's like OK, so it was not a national thing it was something that was done in Philadelphia, so it's like shit of course it's going to skew like that.

Given how inept this company is, it should come as no surprise that Eric Bischoff and Dixie Carter would fail Statistical Survey Methods and Data Analysis 101.

If you wanted further evidence about how inept this company is, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez gave further evidence on their July 12th Wrestling Observer radio show:

Bryan:  Did you get the email, we don't have to talk too much about it if you got it, regarding streams?

Dave:  Yeah, nobody streamed the show.

Bryan:  Yeah, I mean we got an email basically from somebody who's for whatever reason...

Dave:  Monitors the streams and nobody streamed the show.

Bryan:  They monitored the streams and like nobody even watched this show FOR FREE MUCH LESS BOUGHT IT!

Dave:  Oh my God, I know someone who had to do some certain due diligence and actually get the...and has connections.  Cos you know like the PPV numbers for TNA I know I kinda have an idea at how they're doing, but I mean I can't get numbers because they're so small that nobody cares.  Well somebody had to get numbers and the numbers they got were under 10,000 for the last two shows.  Well under, well under 10,000 for the last two shows.

Of course, like many struggling wrestling promoters of the past, Dixie Carter is taking her own shortcomings out on her in ring talent, who are the least to blame for her problems: 

--Dixie Carter held a company meeting this afternoon before the taping, but just told people to tighten up their ring work and never brought up anything about the questions regarding Heyman that everyone had on their minds.