TNA PPV Buys Way Down; 'ECW' Invasion the answer?

And here's another very good Fanpost promoted to the front page.

kjh alluded to it in his story about Paul Heyman last week but today reports have been circulating around the internet putting a much more definite number on the amount of pay-per-view buys for recent TNA events.

From the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

It is believed that TNA Wrestling's May and June pay-per-view events, Sacrifice and Slammiversary, drew approximately 8,000 buys apiece. The gross sum per event would total to approximately $111,000 for the company, though that is before the expense of running a live pay-per-view event is factored in.

By comparison, TNA drew in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 30,000 pay-per-view buys when iMPACT! was airing at 11 p.m. on Saturday nights. And when World Championship Wrestling was on its death bed, the company was still garnering approximately 40,000 buys per pay-per-view.

This news has to be demoralizing for the company that bills itself as the alternative to the WWE. The case could be made that illegal streams are cutting into TNA's pay-per-view buys but the same article quickly debunked that theory:

According to a source in monitoring, there are usually thirty to fifty unique live streams for wrestling pay-per-view events with an average of 1,000 viewers per stream prior to its termination. For last week's Victory Road pay-per-view, there were only five streams across the major live streaming sites — Justin.tv, Ustream.tv and freedocast.com). Victory Road garnered less than 1,500 viewers. Live streams for WWE events are in the triple digits with most averaging 60,000 viewers, and UFC events tends to have live viewers in excess of 200,000.

This news coupled with the company's recent retreat from the "New" Monday Night Wars (an abject failure no matter how Jeff Jarrett tries to spin it) can only mean that big changes need to be made in Orlando. The six-sided ring did not work. Kurt Angle did not put them over the top. Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Eric Bischoff and the rest of the good ol' boys did not increase ratings. TNA's next attempt to grab some eyeballs? Another ECW reunion! Only this time they can't use the ECW name and, reportedly, are going to be called The Riot Makers.

Ugh.

The original incarnation of Extreme Championship Wrestling was arguably the most influential wrestling promotion of the modern times thanks to the fact that it essentially laid the groundwork for the Attitude Era. There is no denying that many wrestling fans still have a soft spot in their hearts for the original ECW after more than a decade of non-existence.

That same soft spot is the reason why individuals and promotions continue to try and make a buck off of those three iconic letters. The WCW-ECW Alliance during the Invasion angle of 2001 was largely forgettable. The first One Night Stand was an enjoyable trip down memory lane in the eyes of most fans. The second One Night Stand (how does that work, by the way?) was a tough pill to swallow but served its purpose of getting the WWE Championship around Rob Van Dam's waist and launching the WWECW brand.

WWECW may not have been the most enjoyable product (zombies,vampires and McMahons, oh my!) it did help launch the WWE careers of CM Punk, John Morrison and Evan Bourne, to name a few. There were some redeeming aspects to WWECW. TNA's "ECW" invasion has no such qualities.

Hard Justice is looking like just another cheap exploitation of a long-dead promotion. The are some potentially intriguing matches being rumored, most notably Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn, but if a five-star match happens in the Impact Zone and no one buys the pay-per-view did it really happen?

With the way that TNA speeds through its story lines and factions, The Riot Makers should be no more sometime during the middle of autumn. By that point, hopefully, will have gotten the message loud and clear that today's wrestling fan isn't looking for retreads and has-beens. TNA has a ton of young, talented workers that are being forced to share the spotlight with guys who are well past their prime.

The clock is ticking. Do TNA executives hear it?