The Heat and the Shine

The International Pro Wrestling Commission (IPWC) issued the following statement upon reviewing live reports and video footage from the TNA 'Impact Wrestling' event of June 7, 2016. The following disciplinary action has been assigned in response to the actions of various parties during the June 7, 2016 TNA 'Impact Wrestling' event: MATT HARDY (Cameron, NC, USA) has been fined $2,500 USD for delaying the start of the Impact Wrestling event.  TNA producers Dixie Carter, William "Billy" Corgan and David "Lagana" Lagana were issued a warning for repeated start time delays, along with notice that fines may be imposed for future delays under the IPWC's "lack of institutional control" provision. DREW GALLOWAY (Tampa, FL, USA) has been fined $1,000 USD for agreeing to a Championship match without IPWC performance enhancing drug (PED) procedures in place.  IPWC rules stipulate a minimum of fifteen (15) days of random, twenty-four (24)

TNA Slammiversary happens this Sunday (June 5, 2016 at 5 p.m. PDT), and conventional wisdom is that the show will do tepid business.  TNA hasn't been touring and their weekly Impact Wrestling show on Pop TV has been beset by a string of bad luck .  The number of wrestling fans buying one-time pay-per-views has dwindled.  The main event is Lashley vs. Drew Galloway.  And there are ongoing questions whether it is worth wrestling fans' time  to emotionally invest in a promotion that has seen numerous departures and a decline in ancillary spending (production, promotion, marketing, etc). It is all quite bleak. Until, that is, a brief Twitter perusal  results in a viewing of this:   It is TNA's 'Contract Signing' video promo for the Matt Hardy vs. Matt Hardy "Full Metal Mayhem" match at Slammiversary. The video is an acquired taste, to be sure.  It has nearly as many Dislikes as Likes on YouTube.  The acting is campy and it hardly fits with the more

The news that WWE Smackdown is moving to Tuesdays (and airing live, and splitting from Raw) generated a lot of discussion yesterday.  Absent from most of said discussion was talk about the current residents of Tuesday night wrestling, TNA. That TNA has become an afterthought to most pro wrestling fans is hardly news.  The promotion has gone from a struggling cable network to an under-distributed cable network to, now, an unknown cable network.  All of this at a time where streaming is more popular and audiences are more fractionalized and all of the other problematic things that get written about modern linear television. From the outside looking in, TNA's adventure on Pop TV has appeared to be especially harrowing. The TNA-Pop marriage initially appeared to be a match made in heaven, with Pop in need of loyally watched content (TNA maintained 18-49 demographic ratings around 0.10, even with the limited distribution of Destination America) and TNA in need of wide distributio

FACT OR FICTION: ROH, TNA and Destination America By Ben Miller Oh, what a great time of year.  Baseball is in full swing, motion-enabled comics are packing the theaters and middling pro wrestling companies are eating up the news cycles.  What does that mean for you, loyal readers? Why, it means that it is time for another edition of Fact or Fiction (a.k.a Coors Light Cold Hard Facts [because Bud Light doesn't pay me]).   Past discussions of Facts (not actual facts) and Fictions (more predictions and speculation, really), concerned  UFC's business decline in mid-2014  (boy, was I wrong on that one),  cable & satellite providers' distaste for WWE Network  (three out of four correct; much better) and  UFC drug testing  (the verdict is still out on that one).   The gimmick of "Fact or Fiction" is that I present four  straw men  statements, and then determine/predict whether the statement is factual or not.  The previous Fact or Fiction covere