Right on the heels of WWE announcing it would be moving Monday Night Raw to three hours long permanently starting with the July 23, 2012, edition of the show, its chief competitor, TNA, has made a big announcement of its own.
Starting on Thurs., May 31, 2012 -- which also happens to be the same night the show will change timeslots by moving back one hour to 8 p.m. ET -- Impact Wrestling will move to a live format, at least for the summer of this year.
From ImpactWrestling.com:
NASHVILLE, TN - (May 17, 2012) -- TNA IMPACT WRESTLING President Dixie Carter and SPIKE TV President Kevin Kay announce today that the highly-rated "IMPACT WRESTLING" will be going Live! from Universal Studios beginning May 31st and continue through the summer. This announcement coincides with the recently announced new, one-hour earlier time slot change of 8:00-10:00pm/ET every Thursday night beginning May 31st.
"We are excited to take IMPACT WRESTLING Live! all summer long, and have our first Live! summer show launch our new 8:00pm/ET time slot," says TNA President Dixie Carter. "Summer of 2012 is going to be remembered as the most momentous time in our company's history-to-date. Stay tuned."
The fact that Spike TV isn't willing to make a long term commitment right away signifies that they wish to wait to see what kind of return they'll receive as far as ratings go. If this move means more viewers, expect it to become permanent. Truthfully, though, this has needed to happen for a long time now.
The question is whether or not TNA will put on a better product now that they'll be live. Surely Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff and Dixie Carter will have us believe so but when they're not involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, like they reportedly weren't at the Sacrifice pay-per-view this past Sunday night, fan response is generally high.
Let's take a wait and see approach on this one. Or do you think this is good news for TNA?