On his new experience in the professional wrestling business:
Honestly, nothing is hitting me for the first time. It is just getting into a place where I am making decisions that are best for the company. In regards to the [Smashing] Pumpkins, if there is an issue, creatively I can fix it myself, so the only difference here in the wrestling business is that I cannot fix everything by myself creatively. I cannot go into the ring, I cannot wrestle 5star matches to make it all go away. I have to understand and work with everybody involved to get the best of the company; so there is a different dynamic here, but to me it’s fairly similar; it’s about resources, understanding the resources, but again, I will say that organizationally TNA is behind the curve, so my first job is really to get some sort of consistent organizational flow so we can maximize the opportunities we do have, and then I have to go out into the world and have to beat that drum and have to bring people to the table and I do believe that the tech future and wrestling future is going to be very bright. You see WWE kind of turning the corner on that. I think some people would argue that it is a success story, I actually think we are still in the very early days of wrestling and technology and with virtual reality on any number of things, so I’m trying to keep it simple, but I need to get some sort of organizational consistent creative flow through the company that creates the vision I have so I can turn around and take that 21st century and get people back and invested into wrestling as something that can drive their businesses, whether that’d be advertising or something else.
Any plans on getting the viewers back that have since stopped watching TNA when it was earning 2 million viewers:
Absolutely, I plan on hitting the gas pedal as soon as I am affirmed into the driver’s seat. That is the way I have always run my life, and I have no problem doing it here. The thing I would say though, it is a very difficult question that is not easily answered. As we enter into this new age, ratings are not the bible on everything that happens within a wrestling company at this point. There was the TV deals that you have and how they reflect the ratings, then there are of course the sponsors. Right now, what the major issue with TNA is that we have not attracted sponsors that can help stabilize our financial situation. We are way behind the curve on that. So, if you have to dip it with a question of, do you need to bring partners to the table to support the product and help support the long term stability vs doing a bunch of stuff that will drive up ratings but will not change your bank book because of the way things are structured at the moment, those are difficult decisions to make, but absolutely i want to get more ratings, I want to get more talked about, I want the buzz; and it has shown in some of the stuff, in particular to the Final Deletion and where Matt and Jeff Hardy are into their careers and still be able to draw, we have shown that we can go up in those ratings quite easily if we have things people really want to see. The difficult part on the creative side, and I am on the booking committee, so I bare this responsibility as well, but when we drive stuff up, we have good shows coming, and the ratings still go back down; we are not able to hold those viewers, and that is something that I would focus on right away..on why we are not holding those numbers.
To listen to part 1 of this very entertaining & highly informative interview, including feedback from Corgan about Vince Russo’s singing voice, please subscribe to the show on iTunes or watch it live on The RELM Network which you can subscribe to for only $2.95 a month.
