shattered dreams
Hexagonal Hedonist
It is no big secret that perception has a big role in what people describe as reality. It is even less of a secret that the IWC is a pretty negative place. So my question is if TNA did not exist, or was nothing more than ROH, how would we be talking about the WWE? The question stems from the fact that TNA seems to take a beating for essentially not being up to the WWE's level, even though it clearly is an unfair comparison. When we had the thread about what would make TNA a success, it confirmed some of my suspicions on that subject. Mainly that TNA had become too successful for its own good and had thus crossed a threshold where it was held to a higher standard it was not ready to meet yet. That standard being the one associated with mainstream wrestling companies, a standard WWE had been shaping alone for years. I am not necessarily interested in this side of the issue here though. I am interested in the flip side. That being is WWE actually held to a lower standard because TNA has made it into the conversation?
I am certainly not suggesting that WWE is free of criticism because like I said the IWC is a pretty negative place. However, when you look the type of criticisms WWE receives they are mostly "I am not a fan of this style" not "they are idiots." The difference being that people seem to acknowledge the WWE has its machine that "just works." Like it or not it gets the job done. I am starting to wonder if they are getting more of a pass than they deserve on the business side of things. The trend has been declines across the board seemingly for a while now. The smackdown rating is dangerously close to January 4th TNA levels and they are moving it off of broadcast. They had to end WWECW, now they may have to show NXT online. Many of their PPV numbers have been coming back quite poorly. In Vince's own words they had a lousy quarter, yet during this time why was everyone bashing on TNA's business and leader for mild decline in ratings in the US?
As a TNA fan I actually somewhat enjoy the comparisons between the two companies because it implies TNA is on a level it can only dream of at the moment. To me, almost every "critique" of TNA can be essentially reduced to well they have about 5-10 percent of the market share and resources comparable to WWE's 90 percent, so what exactly did you expect? But the true folly is not in ragging on TNA for not having the resources you imply they do but lies in excusing WWE for their failures simply because they perform better than someone they obviously are better than from a business perspective. This danger is in allowing TNA to set the bar too low for WWE. Ideally, each company would be judged on their own merits, opposed to these forced comparisons that just do not work because the companies are in quite different places. The worst example of this is the admittedly dumb idea TNA had of moving to mondays for a while. Congrats, WWE "won." Guess what? All that means is the predictable thing happened. It in no way means TNA is failing as a company or WWE is succeeding.
I am certainly not suggesting that WWE is free of criticism because like I said the IWC is a pretty negative place. However, when you look the type of criticisms WWE receives they are mostly "I am not a fan of this style" not "they are idiots." The difference being that people seem to acknowledge the WWE has its machine that "just works." Like it or not it gets the job done. I am starting to wonder if they are getting more of a pass than they deserve on the business side of things. The trend has been declines across the board seemingly for a while now. The smackdown rating is dangerously close to January 4th TNA levels and they are moving it off of broadcast. They had to end WWECW, now they may have to show NXT online. Many of their PPV numbers have been coming back quite poorly. In Vince's own words they had a lousy quarter, yet during this time why was everyone bashing on TNA's business and leader for mild decline in ratings in the US?
As a TNA fan I actually somewhat enjoy the comparisons between the two companies because it implies TNA is on a level it can only dream of at the moment. To me, almost every "critique" of TNA can be essentially reduced to well they have about 5-10 percent of the market share and resources comparable to WWE's 90 percent, so what exactly did you expect? But the true folly is not in ragging on TNA for not having the resources you imply they do but lies in excusing WWE for their failures simply because they perform better than someone they obviously are better than from a business perspective. This danger is in allowing TNA to set the bar too low for WWE. Ideally, each company would be judged on their own merits, opposed to these forced comparisons that just do not work because the companies are in quite different places. The worst example of this is the admittedly dumb idea TNA had of moving to mondays for a while. Congrats, WWE "won." Guess what? All that means is the predictable thing happened. It in no way means TNA is failing as a company or WWE is succeeding.