TNA Impact Wrestling ratings down big leading into Bound for Glory

Bound for Glory, TNA's biggest pay-per-view (PPV) event of the year, the company's equivalent to WWE's WrestleMania, is this Sunday night, Oct. 14, 2012, in Phoenix, Arizona.

I will repeat that, my gentle snowflakes.

Bound for Glory, TNA's biggest pay-per-view (PPV) event of the year, the company's equivalent to WWE's WrestleMania, is this Sunday night, Oct. 14, 2012, in Phoenix, Arizona.

That probably comes as a surprise to many simply because the event, which features Austin Aries vs. Jeff Hardy for the heavyweight championship, James Storm vs. Bobby Roode with King Mo Lawal as special referee and the Hall of Fame induction of Sting, has absolutely zero hype heading in.

This point was emphasized by the poor ratings turned in by the Impact Wrestling go home show on Spike TV this past Thursday night. The show pulled a 0.86 rating with an average of 1.12 million viewers, some of the promotion's worst numbers in years.

The problem is there was simply too much competition that night. Between the Vice Presidential debate, the MLB playoffs, and an NFL game, there simply wasn't a big enough audience to draw a lot of eyeballs to pro wrestling. Absent a hot product with compelling characters, TNA had no chance here.

What kind of effect this will have on Bound for Glory's PPV numbers remains to be seen but the good news is that there doesn't seem to be a big correlation between poor TV ratings and PPV buyrates.

Still, there's a stunning lack of hype for what should be the biggest show of the year for TNA.