Well here's a funny thing.....
 
I have always tried to give TNA a chance, but gave up watching a long time ago. I sporadically tried to watch IMPACT throughout the past year but never really made it more than 15-20 minutes without feeling like I was watching some stupid Nickelodeon game show from the early 90's, or a bad episode of American Gladiators or something. But I always found that their PPV's largely deliver as standalone events, always with a couple of good to very good matches, with a few interesting things thrown in, just as long as you ignore the crap & the 'crazy skits/angles/storylines' and just take at face value that the outcomes of these matches haven't been completely nullified by the booking craziness (although I guess this ascertion is helped by the fact that in my country the TNA ppv's air free on a 3 day tape delay - I'm not sure I'd be happy enough with 90% of these shows to spend $30 - $40. If I had to pay I'd probably just download them from LimeWire)
 
SO....in October I went to see Bound For Glory in Atlanta as I was coming over from England for an indie show my good friend Bobby R Yates was promoting the previous night anyway. I saw that it coincided with my trip and the line-up looked really good ON PAPER from their website with Sting/Angle, Christian/Joe, Ultimate X, Steiners/Dudley's etc. Just seemed like a really strong card, and I was actually quite hyped up to be going. (it should be telling that just under 2 weeks before I was still able to get third row ringside). Now keep in mind that I had not seen a single episode of IMPACT for about 6 months....
 
So when I arrived in my Atlanta hotel room the Thursday evening before, it was only natural for me to watch IMPACT has I presumed I'd see a first-rate 'go home' show from a hungry company producing its top PPV of the year....but it was like watching one of those lame MTV 'reality' shows, with all this stupid editing and run ins the second the bell rang, and I just turned it off after about 20 minutes. Frankly, it just made me feel sick - it legitimately had an ANTI-HYPE effect.  
 
So here is the moral of the story: the TV show is supposed to (A) keep people watching & (B) build the PPV (and I guess in a long term money-making sense B is more important that A). TNA left no margin for area - I actually turned off the TV show, and DESPITE ALREADY HAVING BOUGHT A TICKET FOR THE SHOW it actually DECREASED MY INTEREST IN THE SHOW. So by that rationale you could presume that whatever small percentage of the TNA audience might be interested in buying a ticket / PPV to start with, they actually LOOSE potential viewers with each TV show, to the point where less than 2% of their TV audience goes on to purchase the PPVs they are hyping. It almost gets to the point where you could say they would do better on PPV by just advertising rather than actually having a TV show.....the less time they have to promote the less chance of Russo making a match that seems legitimately interesting to wrestling fans (on paper) look like overboiled crap that people just want to walk away from....
 
So the show itself was really really good, and was much better than the TV would lead you to believe. Funny anecdote that about an hour before the show Dixie Carter & (I think) Christy Hemme were walking around the arena floor chatting with fans and taking photos. I spoke to Dixie briefly and pointed to the 2/3 empty arena (a 14,000 seat arena in a major market with less than 4,000 in attendance - mostly paper as only about 1,500 paid - with weeks of a highly rated cable TV show and tons of local TV advertising to promote it) - I said: ''you see those empty seats....Vince Russo!''. Her response suggests she just didn't understand....
 
So, yeah - I agree with you completely. The wCw 99-00 comparison is perfect - its a company with strong funding behind it, a good TV deal, the money to advertise, produce & distribute correctly (and to a professional level), and a roster of talent that is actually really strong and really interesting....it has the potential to do really well, and with just a change in booking it can easily be turned around. The self-destructive gonzo booking has turned all the positive's into negatives, and TNA is essentially sadly putting on the same sad product it did in 2003, just with a more solid roster with more star power. Bottom line: another wCw comparison is the parent company syndrome - if TNA wasn't Panda funded and they were an individual corperate entity like WWE, or most other wrestling companies, they just wouldn't be able to continue running that product without changes - no aspect of the company generates significant revenue and TNA continues to be a money loser. With the corperate funding they can always write the loss off as being just part of a long-term brand establishing/building effort....but they have to face that fact in 2007, with 3 years of national visibility, a 2 hour prime-time TV show on a major cable network, and about the best roster they could have in terms of both talent & star power (save maybe a major star like Hogan / Flair / RVD coming in for a short term deal) they've got it about as good as it can get in terms of brand exposure, and with all this stuff in place the only barrier to them being successful is producing a credible product that catches the fans emotions and knows how to build on its successes and the positives of its talent base. They are the complete opposite of companies like ROH and ECW that actually drew fans with things like big cashflow/talent raids/promotion/production/market niche always being an issue....(ECW drew 4 - 6,000 PAID attendence for their PPVs at the height of their powers, while ROH has done 2000 paid before)....  
 
As far as ROH. I LOVE that company - its some of the best wrestling ever (probably from an in-ring perspective its the most consistent company ever). To have any kind of national TV viability they would, first of all, have to have improved production (even though their production for a big wrestling indie is totally exceptable and not really an issue to their current fanbase that buys DVDs from their website etc - it just probably would come across to the casual TV viewers as some crap taped in a high-school gym with a camcorder). Another thing is their product: the matches and wrestling are no problem obviously, but I don't know how the size/look of the wrestlers and the lack of any great promo guys would come off on tv to an audience used to professional wrestling being presented in a particular way....

Yes , it is broken. There is no turning back or future for any of those wrestlers. It is very much like WCW in the downfall era. Too many gimmick matches , too many thumbtacks spots in Abyss matches , too many title changes , too many people that just seem real green and I hate seeing the shows taped at the same place every week it just seems like one real long endless taping... now they are venturing out to other venus for ppvs. But who waits 5 years to try to turn a profit? Those UWF shows do not draw because it's "pretend land" where people see TNA people as stars. I think of people like AJ and Joe as Ric Flairs , it will take many years in WWE for them to escape the jobber thoughts of them. Heck Flair went from jobber to manager to jobber to somewhat winner to jobber , to quitting to jobber and now at the end he gets mic time...
Think of Mike Sanders , and many other faceless WCW people who fell off the face of the earth. DEAD TO THE WORLD!!!

Like I said , it's just bad on all sides. I remember when Uncle Eric handed HHH the world title instead of just letting HBK win it in the Elimination Chamber which would have made more sense. In my mind it took quite awhile for that title to mean anything...
The thing with Russo is whenever he did the "strip the titles , we are changing storylines" gimmick he would get fired or leave a few weeks later and then the storylines really made no sense. Jeff Jarrett never mattered on a national scale as a star , being a country star , a Horsemen , a woman beater , a NWO member , none of it took him to the next level because he never delivered in the ring or on the mic and has no charisma!!! What is scary is they think they should save him coming back for when it will have the most impact.

There is so much wrong with the company now I don't know if it can even be fixed. They have such an impressive roster yet put out such a terrible and embarrassing product. It's hard to think anyone who writes the show can actually think what they put out there is good. That Christmas Impact was probably the worst wrestling show I have ever seen in my life.

The whole booking committee has to go, not just Russo....He's getting his marching orders from someone...I hate to say it, but didn't the show seem at least a little more coherent when Jarrett was more directly involved with it?  Impact right now is booked like an after thought, as if the PPV's are getting WWE worthy buyrates.  Right now, it's like it was a few years ago when they ran weekly PPV's. Take a cue from ROH and focus on the in-ring work, and build your angles off of the matches!  What a novel idea!

Was TNA ever "right?" People keep praising it, and then getting angry at me for saying everytime I watch I think it sucks, but I've never been able to get into it. I bought the very first PPV, but it never gave me enough motivation to buy another. I watched on FSN when I could, and it was a better than today, but I still couldn't really get into it. I tried online, but nothing again. Spike has just gotten awful. When did they make AJ Styles a putz? I think he's overrated, but he had potential and was over with the crowd. He seemed like the poster boy for the X Division, but now, feh. Russo's stink is all over the place, whether he's booking or just a cerebral influence. The only time I saw TNA do anything right was the blowoff to the Jarrett vs. Raven feud.