TNA are looking to make a massive change to their weekly programming next year.
The current format has seen multiple editions of weekly TV-taped in one session, usually the day after a pay-per-view has aired live. The taped shows are then broadcast every Thursday on AXS TV. However, according to a new report, this may change by the end of the year.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer stated that there have been discussions to move to live TNA broadcasts every Thursday, with one location considered being Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida, the former home of WWE NXT. Meltzer added that there are intentions of doing some test runs of live TNA TV towards the end of 2024:
“One of the things they’ve been looking at is, it’s just not going to happen anytime soon. But they want to go live. The idea is to go live and have like a location where they would go every Thursday. Full Sail University is one of the places they talked about, and there’s probably other locations as well, which would be really tough because Orlando already has NXT, every Tuesday.
But Scott D’Amore before he was ousted, Scott, Lou D’Angeli and Ed Nordholm went to Full Sail and scouted it out. And that’s where they wanted to go. Because the one thing with Full Sail, if you remember it, it has a great look for television for a 300-400-seat building. A lot of the buildings of that size, they don’t really look good for TV. And there’s some cost savings, because you can do what NXT did where you can have the students work on the shows, it gives them work, and it gives them work experience. So there’s that, and it’s something on campus, you can let the students in free.
I thought Full Sail in NXT was a big success. They obviously made the move not to go back after the pandemic, for whatever reason, I don’t really know. But yeah, that was talked about, of course, Scott D’Amore is not there anymore, but Full Sail still is one of the locations that are talking about. But the idea, the idea was under D’Amore, and it may be delayed, it may not, some of the talent knows about this, would be maybe a few test runs towards the end of the year.”
Meltzer continued, noting that with the termination of Scott D’Amore and the increased financial costs this could change, questioning how economically viable the decision would be:
“Then the mentality was live 2025. And, of course, with D’Amore not there, they may also scrap that idea, because it’s obviously a lot more expensive to run live every week than to tape in different cities where you can sell some tickets, although they don’t sell a lot of tickets. But, if you’re going to run every single Thursday night at Full Sail University, you’re gonna have to give those tickets away for free because it’s not like people are going to, pay for tickets in that city every single Thursday night and it’s not happening. But that was one of the ideas that was being worked on. And we’ll see.
I don’t know how much of a difference that makes live versus [taped]. I mean, it’s more exciting for the wrestlers. I think it’d be a little bit more talk, but you’re still talking, you know, the number three promotion, and one that doesn’t really have that thing that makes people buy a lot of tickets to the show. I mean, number two [AEW] is struggling to sell tickets right now. But, I mean, would it help TV ratings to go live for TNA? I don’t know.”
TNA Talent Send Letter To Management
Much like many fans of the product, a lot of TNA talent were shocked when news broke of D’Amore’s firing from the company. D’Amore was thought very highly of by the roster and follow-up meetings were described as chaotic in nature. Letting their feelings be known to parent company Anthem, TNA Talent sent a letter to express their frustration at Scott D’Amore’s firing.
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