TNA Fails To Leave An Impact On Plymoth Rock: A Fan's Review

[NWAFAN]

Source: Yahoo

I'm telling you, TNA needs better ownership. TNA WILL NEVER get to the next level putting on lackluster shows like this apparently was. TNA may never be as big as the WWE, but that doesn't mean that they can't be better than the WWE. I said it before and I'll say it again, TNA should take the old NWA approach to booking their shows where they put on great house shows "NIGHT AFTER NIGHT" and with a more pro wrestling approac as opposed to sports entertainment.

TNA Wrestling made their journey to the historic Plymouth Memorial Hall on January 21st, 2012. Over the last several years, the Memorial Hall has housed wrestling events from a number of independent wrestling organizations, as well as national upstart Ring of Honor wrestling. This was the first time TNA Wrestling, which presents a weekly episodic television show on Spike TV, has visited the venue. As a wrestling fan for over 20 years, as well as local wrestler myself, I was disappointed with the TNA Wrestling event and felt it didn't leave much of an impact with the fans in attendance.

Jeff Hardy gets ready for action against Christopher Daniels.
Ryan Drew

According to the Plymouth Memorial Hall website, the venue seats up to 1500 ticket buyers . At bell time, the hall was less than half full. That means less than 750 wrestling fans came out to see marquee attractions Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam and Mr. Anderson. In comparison, the WWE live events regularly draw in the thousands. The lack of attendance proves that the current TNA live events model can use adjusting. Personally, I only witnessed one commercial for the TNA wrestling tour, and it was on Monday January 16th, less than a week before the scheduled event. I found the advertising to be almost non-existent. It's no wonder the worldwide company is luring in only hundreds of fans, and not thousands.

The set up itself was bare bones , but the venue was compact and could not handle anything more lavish than what they possessed. The staging consisted of one 18 foot ring, steel guard rails and one steel entrance rig with three blue lights on each side of the rig. It was an adequate set up but I've seen independent wrestling shows with better production. It should also be noted that during the second match, the house lighting rig completely malfunctioned and caused the bout to continue in the dark. The house lights were used for the rest of the show until intermission, when the rig could be lowered inches from the crowd. I feel badly for the wrestlers who had to work matches with the house lights on, because you could clearly see that the venue was only half full.
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The crowd was very loud all night, mainly for guys like Rob Van Dam, Mr. Anderson and Jeff Hardy. But I noticed that the crowd reacted more to the free giveaways than the actual wrestlers. This was no more apparent than during the TNA X-Division match. After the match, which saw Kid Kash break his nose and bleed like a faucet, wrestler Jesse Sorenton considered throwing his football into the crowd. The way the crowd reacted, you would think they never touched a football in their lives. He played to each side of the building. I was impressed with the reaction the young man was generating. But after Sorenton lobbed the football into the second row, the crowd stopped caring. The poor kid went to the second rope and threw his hands in the air in celebration, and the crowd didn't react at all. The real star of the match was the football. It made me realize how detached the crowd was from the TNA wrestlers.

In addition, of all the wrestlers promoted on the poster for the event, only Jeff Hardy was in attendance. The commercial also noted "Nature Boy" Ric Flair would be making a special appearance. However, Flair did not appear in Plymouth. The only match that came off really different and entertaining was the match between Eric Young and "The Pope", which provided plenty of comedy spots and got some good laughs from the crowd.

Overall, the TNA Wrestling show left a bitter taste in my mouth. For a promotion that is second only to the mega popular WWE, I expected a little more pomp and circumstance. But the six match showcase came off amateurish and was no bigger or better than local independent wrestling shows. The only difference was the appearance of the wrestlers, who all looked and carried themselves as big stars. Events like the one produced by TNA on Saturday Night will only keep fans from attending future live events.

[DramaShark]

Wow, sounds like a lame show. Can't believe TNA is still doing free giveaways. lol. Thanks for posting, NWAFAN.

Oh, I removed your link and just copied the article here. It's okay to list the source but generally outside links to other sites aren't allowed. Sorry bud. Thanks for sharing this!

[KANESHOW]

To me TNA has had so many chances to make them selves better but for some messed up reason they don't run with it.