83 Weeks - March 8, 2010 IMPACT: Monday Night Debut [Show Notes] (Patreon)

March 8, 2010 Impact

On March 8th 2010, we saw something that we never thought we'd see again in professional wrestling, another wrestling company go head to head with Vince McMahon and Raw on Monday nights, when TNA Impact attempted to re-create the famous Monday Night Wars and go head-to-head with Raw

We've heard the story about how you on a whim during a meeting with Ted Turner asked him to give you prime time TV for WCW when he asked you how they could compete with the WWF. Talk about how Impact going to Monday nights happened. Was this what you wanted to do when you were negotiating with TNA to come in?

Meltzer reported - TNA officially announced the move to Monday nights from 9-11 p.m. starting 3/8, running live every other week and doing Monday and Tuesday tapings. The main event of the first show will be Hulk Hogan & Abyss vs. Ric Flair & A.J. Styles, in the first match in the company for both Hogan and Flair. The belief is this will lead to the Lockdown PPV on 4/18 where Hogan and Flair are both part of teams in a Lethal Lockdown (War Games style) match.

The move has been debated, but after the success on Jan. 4, it's a move TNA has to try. If it fails, they can always move back to Thursday when it's clear it didn't work. 

There are plenty of arguments both ways, but TNA isn't going to challenge WWE in ratings any time soon, if ever. As long as TNA can consistently stay above a 1.2 rating, then the move is a win. They'd have a lot easier time getting that number from 8-10 p.m., since on Jan. 4, the 8-9 p.m. rating was significantly higher than hours two and three. Two things that were notable on Jan. 4 is that after a good percentage of people who started with Impact and switched to Raw after Hulk Hogan's promo ended at around 9:15 p.m., that there really wasn't a lot of switching back-and-forth. Dixie Carter said they had the opportunity to go from 8-10 p.m., but chose going head-to-head both hours with Raw. It's a decision that is hard to make sense out of.

Hogan said that the wrestlers want a fight and want to go head-to-head. Dixie Carter said TNA is already beating WWE's No. 3 show (ECW) and now their goal is to beat the No. 2 (Smackdown). She said they've grown from 600,000 viewers to 2 million, which is misleading. TNA's first week on Spike did a 0.8 rating at 11 p.m. on Saturday night and was well over 1 million viewers. They may have done 600,000 combining all their airings on Fox Sports Network, and perhaps when still running Saturday night going head-to-head with UFC PPV shows they did get as low as 0.6, I don't know that number on day one on Spike is really any less impressive than doing a 1.2 in prime time on Thursday. 

They've gained audience by getting better time slots, but are the numbers really that impressive? They took over the time slot of WWE's No. 3 television show, which at the time was doing an 0.5 at 11 p.m. Saturday. The equivalent of today's No. 3 show is doing a 1.0 today at 8 p.m. on Thursday, so WWE has doubled what it was doing with equivalent programming in a better time slot. But they do well above the prime time average for Spike so the show is a success when it comes to ratings. Carter said the company has no plans to increase the show to three hours, which is a good move.

Hogan claimed the wrestlers in WWE are all hoping TNA has success. Well, the smart ones are. He said the people working in the WWE office were freaking out and panicking. I doubt even he believes that.

What was some of the things that you wanted to do on the first few episodes on Monday night that didn't end up happening?

Who was for and who was against the Monday night move?

When you were preparing for this first show, how was it similar and different from your preparations for the first Nitro?

In hindsight which company was better equipped talent wise to go head to head with Raw on Mondays? WCW when they did it or TNA when they did

Meltzer reported - It should be noted that the addition of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff changed the game and TNA January numbers were at record levels, while February numbers fell back to near normal levels. TNA house show business went way up in January.

For TNA PPV shows, both the November and December numbers in 2008 and 2009 look to be terrible, although it appears this year was slightly down from last year. The December 2009 Final Resolution lame duck show, in particular, may have been the lowest TNA monthly PPV in its history. While numbers with Hogan are higher than that figure, they still appear to be a huge disappointment because they are well under what was even an average number.

He later wrote - 

Bischoff has been answering fan questions on a facebook page. He said there’s no chance of bringing in DDP and said he doubts Bill Goldberg has any interest in doing pro wrestling. It’s so fascinating to see guys in charge of companies arguing with fans in a condescending way, but then again, if you see Dana White on twitter it’s not that much different. 

We saw new guys come to TNA around this time, such as Rob Van Dam and some others. Talk about your negotiations with them, and who were some guys that you talked to about coming in, but ultimately didn't end up coming in for the first Monday night show?

Meltzer reported - Traci Brooks (Tracy Brookshaw) was released this week and Roxxi was taken off the roster on the web page. Brookshaw, 34, was the longest tenured TNA female wrestler, starting out as a manager and doing an assortment of roles with the company since 2003. She started out as a promotional model for a number of companies in the Toronto area, and was named as a Sunshine Girl (a newspaper pin-up) and talked about wanting to be a pro wrestler, so was contacted by Ron Hutchison, a veteran wrestler and trainer in the city, in 2000 and began as Tracy Brooks. She had recently married Kazarian. She hadn’t been used much in recent months. She was told she was let go because creative didn’t have any good ideas for her, which is pretty much what we were told as well. 

She thanked people for supporting her over the years and said that she was still supporting TNA, since her husband (Kazarian) works there.

Roxxi, (Nikki Racynski), 29, who wrestled most of her career as Nikki Roxx, started training with Killer Kowalski and worked New England independents from 2002 on. She was under contract from 2007 until being released in August. She was brought back for television several times when another woman was needed since her release, and had been working on a per appearance basis. She broke her ankle in December and was ready to return. 

It was a weird deal as the new regime when they saw her thought highly of how she changed her look and were talking her up big-time. Then she broke her ankle and now that she's ready to come back, they simply forgot about her. She said she hasn’t even been informed there is a change in her status, but her name was quietly taken off the web site this past week.

Sean Morley, 39, has also left the company, quitting the day after he was shown on television beating Jeff Jarrett. That was like reliving WCW for sure. He wrote on his facebook page, "Yes, folks, I am through with TNA as I want to wrestle in Mexico. I was going to perform in both TNA and CMLL, but now the switch to Mondays for TNA and the fact TNA had nothing solid yet, Mexico, here I come." After writing that, something must have changed because we’re told by sources in Mexico that he was expected to start imminently for CMLL, and that it looks like it’s off.

That takes us to the first Impact on Monday night. 

Meltzer's reviews -

It opened with the big surprise in the first five minutes that the Hogan & Abyss vs. Flair & Styles match would open. Flair came out and took a backdrop from Abyss. He was fine the next day, but how can a 61-year-old take these bumps after 38 years? He used a low blow on Abyss and Styles went to work. 

Hogan couldn’t move, and Styles gave him an enzuigiri. The lights went out and Sting showed up to a big pop. Sting then attacked Abyss and Hogan with the bat. Flair and Styles continued a beatdown. Styles hit Abyss with a hard chair shot to the head. Flair hit Hogan with a very safe chair shot to the head and Hogan juiced. The match was a no contest at 4:30. Hogan then said that it wasn’t over, there would be a no DQ rematch and it would be later in the show. 

Sting has turned twice in his career. The first time was a flop and he was back as a face within weeks because it didn’t work. The second time, last year, he ended up as part of the lead heel group and was supposed to be a heel, but ended up turning down creative’s ideas of things to do to get people to boo him and ended up as a face in a heel group. Sting went backstage and Dixie Carter confronted him and Sting grabbed her and shoved her against the wall. He told her that he owed her nothing.

Flair & Styles did an interview that had the feel of an interview on Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling in the early 80s. That’s a compliment.

Abyss was screaming about what Sting did. Brooke Hogan and Jennifer, Hogan’s fiancé who looks far too much like Brooke (well, actually she looks also like Linda) were backstage. Brooke was unhappy while Jennifer tried to calm her down. Brooke was trying to explain to Jennifer that Hulk just puts on a facade but he’s really hurt and shouldn’t wrestle. It was just weird in a sense because everyone knows Brooke, but why should the TV audience have a clue who this other woman is?

Kazarian did an interview talking about why he quit the company two years ago. Kind of killed the live crowd since they all knew he never left. He said he wanted to rebuild the X Division, leading to an X Division chant. Daniels, who is back to having a first name, said he was the real X Division star, was there from the start and the longest reigning champion. Of course having the X champion lose on TV in a minute a few days earlier gave them lots of credibility here. Doug Williams came out, ending with a three-way argument until Bischoff ordered a title match. Bischoff did a promo about how the X Division wasn’t the heart of TNA, but was the adrenaline.

Williams retained the X title in a three-way over Daniels and Kazarian in 6:48. This was the best match on either show. Fast-paced action that probably could have used a few more minutes. One cool move was Kazarian doing an O’Connor roll on Williams and when Daniels ran in, he, while holding the roll gave Daniels a Northern lights suplex. Kazarian also did a missile dropkick on both. Lots of near falls ending with Williams pinning Daniels clean with a Chaos Theory suplex. After the match, Shannon Moore ran in and used a spinning head scissors on Williams. Moore had his same spiked hair as WWE. Crowd didn’t really react to Moore. Bischoff then announced Williams vs. Moore for the title at Destination X.

The announcers told us Carter was so mad, she was going to make a match for Sting. She said Steve would wrestle, but wouldn’t say who.

Mike Tenay announced Awesome Kong & Hamada were stripped of the Knockouts tag titles because they hadn’t defended them in 30 days. Kong is no longer with the company. It’s a combination of everything that happened, and just being mad about how much she was making when she was drawing bigger ratings than almost anyone. She asked for a $100 per night raise at a time when the company wasn’t thinking about giving her a raise since she had already quit.

Velvet Sky & Madison Rayne won the Knockouts tag titles over Taylor Wilde & Sarita and Tara & Angelina Love in 2:14. Short and sloppy match. Wilde & Sarita didn’t get to show much of anything. Tara had Madison Rayne up for the Widow’s Peak when Daffney ran in and hit Tara with her singles title belt and Rayne pinned her.

Pope D’Angelo Dinero did a promo for a match with Desmond Wolfe later in the show. Wolfe came out and attacked his bad leg, punching it with a chain and slamming it into the steps. The match never happened. Later in the show they said it was because Dinero was injured.

There was a Beautiful People celebration with champagne with Jeremy Borash. She shook it up and the champagne exploded. 

The idea was that the champagne represented something else exploding. The funny part was, it was a dud, so she poured it over Borash’s head.

RVD pinned Sting in :09 with a Rolling Thunder. This was hilarious and sad. Sting came out and Taz talked about how Sting has never been received like this. The problem was, Sting got thunderous cheers and people were bowing as opposed to treating him like a guy who just had turned. He was cheered so much Taz had to back pedal and say that some people still wer cheering him. The people went nuts for RVD as well. After the match, Sting attacked RVD with his bat, hitting him with shots to the knee and the chest and acted like he was leaving. The crowd was chanting “RVD,” expecting a comeback. 

Sting left as three refs were yelling at him. Sting hit two of them with his bat, but spared Slick Johnson. Then he came back and starting hitting RVD with more bat shots. Hogan came out. I thought it was stupid for RVD’s debut for him to be the set-up guy for Hogan. Why there was all this security stopping Hogan who runs the place was never made clear. Then Bubba the Love Sponge came out and tried to stop Hogan. Sting continued to attack RVD. 

As Hogan was being held back, Sting hit him with the bat in the stomach. Security pulled Hogan away and Sting hit him again. RVD never made a comeback and never did a promo vowing revenge on Sting, nor had anything to do with an angle at the end of the show. I was dumbfounded watching this, but by the end of the show, it made even less sense.

After RVD beat Styles for the World Title, he did go into a feud with Sting and beat him to retain the title at Slammiversary 8

Kevin Nash & Eric Young came out for a promo. Nash said that he had a one-day contract for Scott Hall & Sean Waltman to face them at “Designation X,” (the PPV that comes right before SummerFest). Hall talked a lot. He looked like an aging wino, but was seemingly half lit up instead of fully lit up like his previous appearances. Hall got all his lines out fine, maybe even better than fine, saying he and Waltman wanted to get into TNA because TNA is so cool now. 

Hall said they would wrestle under one condition, that if they win, they get fat contracts that Bischoff writes. Nash said he could make that happen. Bischoff appeared on the screen and agreed to it, but if Nash & Young win, Hall & Waltman have to leave. Kind of like how Jericho had to leave Raw, I think. Hall and Nash shook hands. Young went to shake hands with Waltman, but Waltman slapped him in the face and they had a pull-apart. Bischoff then ordered the two in a match.

Young pinned Waltman in 1:12. Crowd was hot coming off the pull-apart. Waltman missed the bronco buster in the corner and Young pinned him with a piledriver.

Next came a whole crew of soldiers in uniform flanking Kurt Angle. Angle did one of those pandering to the soldiers and patriotism promos that almost always work, and did here. He talked about how the soldiers put their lives on the line for our freedom and how Mr. Anderson spit in their face by disrespecting the tags. Anderson appeared on the screen doing a promo saying they were all high school dropouts. 

Angle ran backstage and attacked him, and started beating on him in the ring. But Anderson came back and knocked Angle out with his own dog tags and went to leave. The soldiers blocked the way and he had to get back in the ring. Angle recovered and turned things around, an laid Anderson out with an Olympic slam. Angle then kept throwing him out of the ring to the soldiers, who attacked him with some badly pulled blows. 

They acted like lumberjacks, beating on him and throwing him back in. Then Angle would throw him back out. Angle finally stood over a fallen Anderson holding the flag and then the troops put Angle on their shoulders and carried him around the ring. This was so much like an angle blow-off as opposed to building a future match.

Backstage, Bubba was again trying to talk Hogan out of wrestling. Earl Hebner came in and wanted his job back. Hogan at first blew him off, but then Bubba gave a speech about how everyone deserves a second chance. He noted he got a second chance in radio and Hogan in TNA is getting a second chance in wrestling. 

So Hogan okayed it and told Hebner to referee his match, but that if he was hurt, he wanted Hebner to stop the match. Isn’t that the opposite of what a babyface should say? Of course, this related to nothing that would actually happen in the match. This was so beyond logical. The ref Hogan fired because he took a bribe from Flair and screwed Angle out of the title is being rehired and refereeing a match with Flair? 

The problem is they fired Hebner in storyline with absolutely no logical idea on how to give him back his job. Hebner has gone heel several times before in TNA because they can’t help themselves recreating Montreal, and when they do their next restart, which probably won’t be all that long from now, having Hebner recreate Montreal will probably happen again. This was so stupid.

Then, Jeff Jarrett and James Storm were talking backstage. Jarrett didn’t want to wrestle Storm but was forced by Bischoff. He talked to Storm like a friend and figured he was also forced against his will. Storm, who is so ridiculously under pushed it’s not even funny, said nobody tells him what to do and when Bischoff suggested the match he was glad to take it. Jarrett was mad, saying that when TNA started and Storm was nobody, he hand picked Storm to be in the company, and noted Storm actually started training to be a wrestler in his father’s backyard. 

This was the Beer Money heel turn out of nowhere, which makes sense given they were the biggest merchandise sellers and such an over babyface act. Storm said that they’ve been forgotten of late. Well, except that they just beat the tag champs on TV a few days earlier and have a tag title shot on the PPV. Jarrett talked about Storm and “Bobby” (you know, because Robert is his stage name, and like when Dixie called Sting “Steve,” that means we’re shooting). Jarrett attacked Storm and Roode attacked Jarrett. Foley broke it up.

Beer Money beat Jarrett in a handicap match in 4:16. Mick Foley was in a suit, and tennis shoes, and took the jacket off to reveal the classic Foley T-shirt with referee stripes spray painted on as a referee. They mostly beat up Jarrett. As Jarrett made his comeback, Foley went under the ring for a barbed wire baseball bat. He gave it to Jarrett. Slick Johnson then came out and took the bat from Jarrett. Foley and Johnson argued. With Foley distracted, Roode gave Jarrett a low blow and they did the DWI finisher on Jarrett and Johnson counted the pin.

Brooke, in tears, begged Hogan not to wrestle. Hogan said he had to do it. He finally agreed to promise that this would be his last match ever. He’ll probably wrestle again shortly, but from a storyline standpoint, to me, the only way he should is if a heel lays out Brooke and then to save her he has to break his promise.

Hogan & Abyss beat Flair & Styles in 7:55. Brooke, who moments earlier was in tears and scared to death of her father wrestling, was instead in the front row cheering every move. Hogan rammed Flair into the guard rail and he bled again. Flair gave Hogan a low blow and he and Styles beat on im. Hogan actually took a bump from a Styles punch and a second safer bump in ultra slow motion from an incredibly slow snap mare by Flair. Abyss used Hogan’s comeback spot on Styles and then Hogan gave Flair a high kick, and did get his foot up somewhat. 

Hogan whipped Styles into Abyss who gave him a black hole slam for the pin, which made sense since Abyss is getting the title shot at Styles. Wolfe hit Abyss with a chair. Flair beat down Hogan. Pope tried to make the save but to no avail. Jeff Hardy finally showed up at the end, and dropped Wolfe with an ugly looking face first suplex, gave Styles a twist of fate and went to the top for the swanton, but the show ended with Hardy just before jumping.

In hindsight, what would you of done differently from a booking and match making perspective for this show? Or would you leave everything exactly as it was?

Breakdown of head to head segments -

Segment one: Raw had the Undertaker/Michaels interview segment that did a 3.45. Impact had a Hogan promo building to the first Hogan & Abyss vs. Flair & Styles match with Sting making his surprise heel turn, which opened at 0.99.

Segment two: Raw had the women’s match, Gail Kim & Eve Torres & Kelly Kelly vs. Alicia Fox & Katie Lea Burchill & Maryse, as well as a backstage segment with Criss Angel with Hornswoggle which lost 450,000 viewers. 

You would think they switched to Impact, which had the fallout of the Sting heel turn, him pushing Dixie Carter against the wall, Flair & Styles doing an interview, Abyss screaming and Kazarian, Daniels and Doug Williams arguing to set up a match. That lost 14,000 viewers.

Segment three: Raw had Big Show & Miz vs. John Morrison & R-Truth, and a John Cena interview and gained 187,000 viewers. Impact had Williams vs. Kazarian vs. Daniels and gained 28,000 viewers.

Segment four: Raw had Criss Angel with William Regal and Skip Sheffield, followed by the beginning of Randy Orton vs. Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes, and lost 187,000 viewers. Impact had the three-way with Taylor Wilde & Sarita vs. Tara & Angelina Love vs. Velvet Sky & Madison Rayne, a Pope promo and the Beautiful People celebration and gained 97,000 viewers to a 1.07, tying their show peak. This is one of only two segments of the show where there at least looks like there was a possibility of people switching.

Segment five: Raw had the end of Orton vs. DiBiase & Rhodes and a Batista interview and gained 372,000 viewers, which sounds good, but for top of the hour isn’t much. Impact had Sting vs. RVD with the Hogan-Sting pull-apart and gained 0 viewers. They did stay at 1.07 but RVD’s return at the top of the hour, when you would be expected to gain, and Sting, meant nothing.

Segment six: Raw had the HHH-Sheamus in-ring confrontation and Criss Angel doing his trick with the knives and Marella and gained 249,000 viewers in a part of the show that usually loses. Impact with Kevin Nash & Eric Young in the ring with Scott Hall & Sean Waltman, Young vs. Waltman and the Kurt Angle/Mr. Anderson segment lost 56,000 viewers.

Segment seven: Raw with Evan Bourne vs. William Regal and a WrestleMania video, Goldberg vs. Lesnar clip and a Hart-McMahon video package lost 441,000 viewers. Impact with Brooke begging Hulk not to wrestle and Jeff Jarrett fighting with James Storm lost 110,000 viewers.

Segment eight: Raw with the beginning of Cena vs. Vince (segments with Vladimir Kozlov, Drew McIntyre and the beginning of Jack Swagger) gained 506,000 viewers. Impact with Jeff Jarrett vs. Beer Money with Mick Foley as referee and Brooke Hogan begging Hulk not to wrestle lost 264,000 viewers to a 0.76 quarter, the lowest TNA has done in a long time. It is very possible a lot of TNA viewers switched to Raw at this point.

Segment nine: Raw with the rest of the Cena vs. Vince match, with Swagger, Mark Henry and Batista, gained 568,000 viewers to a 3.92 overrun. Impact with Hogan & Abyss vs. Flair & Styles and the Jeff Hardy run-in gained 347,000 viewers to a 1.01 overrun.

Meltzer wrote of the show - Ever since the company went on Spike TV, the goal was to move to Monday night. Well, be careful what you wish for.

With Hulk Hogan’s first nationally broadcast match in the U.S. in more than three years, and Ric Flair’s U.S. coming out of retirement, TNA Impact drew its lowest rating of the year, an 0.98 rating and 1.36 million viewers to Raw 3.38 rating and 5.10 million viewers. The USA Network sent out a release noting Raw beat Impact by 274% in total viewers.

There will be attempts to spin this, in the sense Males 18-34 were up from the show the prior Thursday (but the Males 18-34 the prior Thursday did well below what the show has been doing. Impact did a 0.92 in Males 18-34 and 1.04 in Males 35-49. Raw did a 2.90 in Males 18-49. The Impact numbers were considerably down from the Jan. 4 show, down 46% in total viewers and 41% in 18-49 year old viewers, partially due to the shelf life of nostalgia for the 90s being over and also because of not taking that first unopposed hour.

But the debut of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Eric Bischoff and Jeff Hardy on Jan. 4–a Monday, going three-hours, two against Raw, ended up as the highest rated Impact in history, going against a Raw show that featured the return of Bret Hart.

Unfortunately, the rule of thumbs about nostalgia in entertainment has prevailed since that time. Nostalgia works well in small doses. Nobody was more aware of that than Hulk Hogan, who for the past decade would show up for brief periods of time, and as soon as he noticed he was overstaying his welcome, he’d find a reason to bail.

TNA got a few good weeks out of Hogan, but by this past Thursday, they were now below the level they were at the same time last year, when they had a far less expensive payroll.

There were a lot of mistakes made by TNA on 3/8, the first night of what is supposed to be a permanent move to Mondays, but one that is no doubt already on the road to being evaluated. The 3/4 television show was a terrible go-
home show. 

They opted for surprises, not announcing the return of Jeff Hardy or the debut of Rob Van Dam. Yeah, they should have promoted them, they should have shown that video telling people you won’t believe what’s happening in the first five minutes on their TV show seem by 1.49 million viewers instead of putting it on youtube and getting 45,000 people watching it. They made the mistake of believing people who were big stars a dozen years ago were just as big today, as opposed to nostalgia acts people want to see once, if at all. 

Picking 9-11 p.m. instead of 8-10 p.m. on Monday was a mistake. Keep in mind this number was drawn with Hogan doing nonstop interviews plugging the show, and wrestling, with ads all over Spike plugging Hogan and Flair wrestling, and with ads taken out in the major markets during Raw telling people to switch channels to see Hogan and Flair. What happens next week? But all of that misses the big picture.

It didn't last long because TNA moved Impact back to Thursday nights on May 3rd