SPOILER! TNA's current title situation

[Stopspot]

For those of you who have not seen BFG there are some spoilers, you have been warned.

So, Matt Hardy won the belt at BFG in a very badly built match (two weeks of build into your biggest PPV of the year hype!), only for EC3 to pass an injunction on him and TNA, forcing him to vacate it. Yes, it is as convoluted as it sounds, and apparently this has been planned since June (one would think they would plan it all better with that amount of time).

One thing that came out of this that is interesting is making the playing field somewhat open in TNA. And they are running a 32 wrestlers big, 8 block round robin tournament to crown their new champion (this doesn't sound convoluted at all). This is interesting if a bit convoluted and sure to be confusing for some viewers. But one group in particular raises a few question marks.

Here are the groups:

Drew Galloway
Bram
Grado
Rockstar Stud
(The group of European folk)

Matt Hardy
Davey Richards
Robbie E
Eddie Edwards
(The I can do moves group)

Austin Aries
Ethan Carter
Mr. Anderson
Lashley <- Lashley is all over the place, this may not be right
(group of death)

Kenny King
Aiden O'Shea
Mahabalia Shera
Crazzy Steve
(group of crowd killers + Kenny King)

DJ Z
Tigre Uno
Manik
Mandrews
(The X Division still lives... sort of...)

Bobby Roode
James Storm
Eric Young
Abyss
(The TNA Frontline is back!)

Awesome Kong
Madison Rayne
Brooke
Gail Kim
(group of women)

Eli Drake
Jessie Godderz
Crimson
Micah
(The rest)

Pay attention to that second to last group. The group of women. This is where the question marks appear for me. TNA is just now in the process of negotiating a new home on TV, since they are most likely leaving Destination America in early 2016. So why make one of these groups consist of women? The current product is what is going to be used to pitch TNA to networks. And someone from that group (most likely Kong) is going to have to advance and wrestle the men. I don't think Discovery is that keen on man on woman violence, nor do I think TNA should want/need it in their product whilst shopping for a home on TV, because I don't think most TV networks are that keen on it.

Outside of the female block, this would have been some okay, if maybe a bit confusing TV. But that group kinda throws a spanner into things.

How do you think TNA will make this work? Will they even make it work? Will this impact their future on TV at all? Who walks out with the belt in the end?

Discuss.

 

[Messiah1]

Many of those guys aren't even in TNA anymore. Guys like Aries, Storm and Bram are gone. I think TNA is screwed since it doesn't seem like there's many stars in that company. All of them have left, they have EC3, they're trying to build Drew Galloway but doesn't feel like it's working and Kurt Angle is very close to retiring.

This story has been planned since June/July, like you said, at least that's what the reports say.. It seems odd they would do something like this unless someone got injured or there's issues with someone's contract. Why not just keep the belt on EC3 or have Matt have a short title reign (Hardy as champion was a terrible idea to begin with)

 

[Leo C]

Russo's back for sure. They've now probably accepted that they're out of buildness and just brought back Vinny Ru because who cares atm.
As for the product, I can only say \_/. I am baffled they actually planned this Hardy title ""run"" though

 

[WarMachine1]

Honestly, just give the belt to Kong.

 

[Prince Bálor]

I haven't watched TNA in about 8 months, but from the looks of it, EC III regains the title here.

 

[CFCrusader]

This is an awesome concept, too bad TNA TNA'd it up kinda. I'm excited for this tournament, will provide some excellent wrestling. I excpet for EC3, Matt Hardy or Drew Galloway to win.

IMO, this tournament also highlights how badly TNA need a few new stars. When the future is resolved with their TV deal or when they do their next taping, get Aries and Magnus on board, try and get guys like Andrew Everett on the roster so they have a few more young talents who we know can thrive if they let them loose and revitalise the X-Division and get a big star or two along like Alberto El Patron.

 

[Kill Steen Kill]

This is great, I really like the concept and all those group things. Sometimes TNA does different things that are great and this is one of them in my opinion. Not battle royal, no contender match but this tournament? Awesome. I hate that WWE doesn't do much contenders match as well, just goes on the storyline. The KO group is here is the reply to WWE's Diva's Revolution I think and that is a great move saying "Our women wrestlers can take it against the male in the ring" which is because they have Kong and that will take Kong out of KO Title picture which is great as I find her boring in KO matches. Kim and others can do great things.

 

[C.M. Shaddix]

This would be go, but this is actually a low as fuck for the company, if you know the backstory, this is why the tapings were random in July so TNA can have this footage and revert to this back up plan if they couldn't land a place to film show for after BFG. So this forced Matt the vacate the belt and revert to this footage taped in July and we already see like a bunch of faces who walked out as well as knockouts in this... this is really poorly put together, this is really gonna put TNA down... James Storm just showed up on NXT tapings which is sure to be aired in a week I think, which will low blow TNA for the fact he's posted in this series using the matches he worked prior to leaving the company.

 

[Roadster]

I love that just about everyone on the roster is getting a shot. But I agree with CFC, that they screwed up. Taping months and months and months in advance, has finally caught up to them, again.

 

[CFCrusader]

Except for Crazzy Steve. He kinda sucks.

:henry2:

 

[Stopspot]

People saying this is an awesome concept: You realize this is a very hard concept to pull off with these many blocks? TNA couldn't do the bound for glory series without fucking it up every year, and that was only one block.

This tournament is already fucked up since Bram is tied to win his group with Galloway, but Bram is fired from TNA for attacking his girlfriend. Aries is gone, King is gone and so forth.

It is an interesting concept. But factors both in and out of TNA's control seem to have already fucked it up for them.

 

[C.M. Shaddix]

People saying this is an awesome concept: You realize this is a very hard concept to pull off with these many blocks? TNA couldn't do the bound for glory series without fucking it up every year, and that was only one block.

This tournament is already fucked up since Bram is tied to win his group with Galloway, but Bram is fired from TNA for attacking his girlfriend. Aries is gone, King is gone and so forth.

It is an interesting concept. But factors both in and out of TNA's control seem to have already fucked it up for them.

Yeah, if a company couldn't land a place to do tapings for their post ppv event then they should've just postponed/cancelled the ppv in the first place instead of reverting to footage you taped before the event, it'll either spoil everything for the ppv after or makes things look very weird.

 

[Stopspot]

Yeah, if a company couldn't land a place to do tapings for their post ppv event then they should've just postponed/cancelled the ppv in the first place instead of reverting to footage you taped before the event, it'll either spoil everything for the ppv after or makes things look very weird.

This is not them reverting. This has been planned since June. June I tell you! (insert panicked voice).

This is not plan b or c. This is plan a for TNA.

 

[C.M. Shaddix]

This is not them reverting. This has been planned since June. June I tell you! (insert panicked voice).

This is not plan b or c. This is plan a for TNA.

(Backs away after spot's panic voice) This was plan A? XD............ wow this makes them even more stupid, wouldn't they think with a long gap between the next set of tapings and BFG that people would leave?

 

[Stopspot]

(Backs away after spot's panic voice) This was plan A? XD............ wow this makes them even more stupid, wouldn't they think with a long gap between the next set of tapings and BFG that people would leave?

insert spiel about company loyalty here.

Honestly I don't think they had much of a choice. The brand in itself is toxic it seems. Both Hardys are on top of TNA right? They run their own company, OMEGA in and around the same area that BFG was held. When OMEGA runs shows they have crowds of about 1500 people and have to literally drive people away at the door. When TNA ran BFG with the same people on top (and a few guys that work OMEGA working BFG) they apparently had a total of 280 paying customers and the rest being plants/tickets handed out for free. Talk about a brand that has taken a beating.