This past Monday night, TNA threw in the proverbial towel. The early rumors are that TNA did marketing research and found out that fans of the product prefer them on Thursdays. That may be the case but one cannot dispute the fact that since arriving on Monday nights, TNA has struggled against the big dog. Their 1.5 from January 4^th soon dropped to a 0.5 last week.

Many will say that “TNA lost the war” or that “TNA failed on Monday Nights.” Whatever the claim is, that is now history. The one question I ask, is will TNA learn from history if in fact they test the waters again?  There are many things TNA did wrong when they attempted to take over Mondays:

Too much of a gap between January 4^th and March 8

It’s a simple fact that TNA had momentum following January 4^th. The internet media was buzzing and people were talking. Unfortunately TNA took too long to make the eventual move to Monday Nights and they had no real momentum going into the show.

Going Head to Head with Raw

Nobody should dispute the fact that WWE is a much bigger and more powerful entity in pro wrestling. Monday Nights is there nights and TNA tried to take a piece of the pie. However instead of taking a little bite, they thought they should go head to head with the cook and take the whole thing. When TNA went head to head for both hours against Raw, they got destroyed. Eventually the move to the 7 to 9 EST timeslot gave them that hour to boost their fanbase.

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March 8th, when TNA returns to Monday Nights, this time permanently (unless they tank), at 9PM to compete with WWE.

This is interesting because the last time TNA went head to head with WWE on Monday Nights was the infamous January 4th show when they made their debuts. Apparently, rather than try to pop a buyrate by having Flair’s first televised match since his retirement on this hemisphere and Hogan’s last in forever, they are planning to throw haymakers at WWE.

The planned match as of this writing is AJ Styles and Ric Flair vs. Abyss and Hulk Hogan. Sources close to TNA have speculated that the Abyss feud with AJ is only a placeholder until The Pope can retake the primary feud.

This is an interesting strategy to examine considering that the rumors of RVD coming in and Jeff Hardy returning on that date are going to be running rampant as we approach March 8th, but just to seal the deal, will have Hogan and Flair make a dual debut. I wonder if this is just a desperation tactic for that night. The issue is – how will they be able to follow it up afterward?

Rumors are also flying that the final Thursday Impact is set to be headlined by AJ Styles vs. Desmond Wolfe vs. Abyss vs. The Pope in a non-title four-way. Should be a fun match, but I wouldn’t have Pope and AJ touch until Lockdown. Oh well, this is TNA.

Brother, if it wasn’t 1995-esque before… it sure as hell is now!

To follow up on the story with Nigel joining TNA and not WWE, pretty much everything that I said in my column here on FightGameBlog was confirmed by the Observer, including the fact that McGuinness was unable to pass a WWE physical, mainly due to a series of concussions and muscle tears despite being only in his early 30s.

Nigel did indeed debut on Impact in a backstage vignette where he introduced himself as Desmond Wolf, then attacked Angle to close the show. One of the most unusual parts of the vignette included Taz saying that Wolf was “formerly known as Nigel McGuinness”. Okay, that’s cute and all, and I know he did it to pop the internet geeks, but ARE YOU GOING TO EXPLAIN WHY HIS NAME WAS CHANGED!?!?! According to JP Nichols, there was some definite audio editing because the crowd was MUCH hotter for Nigel during the live show than the TV version and I suppose TNA did not want one of the new top heels getting such a pop.

Also, McGuinness did an interview with the Daily Star in the UK answering a lot of questions. You can find that here.

Our accuracy on this story is further proof as to why if you aren’t coming to FightGameBlog at least three times a day, you should question your sanity.