Last night’s edition of TNA Impact scored a 0.9 rating with a show that aired in an earlier timeslot of 8-10pm.
The episode, which centered around the Knockouts in a game of ‘Lock Box Showdown’ leading to a striptease at the end of the show, improved immensely from last Monday’s dismal 0.56 rating.
The opening quarter with Christy Hemme and The Beautiful People backstage scored a 0.87. The match itself scored a 0.98 and 0.93 on either side of the commercial break. Finally, the overrun from 10pm onwards, which saw the results of the Showdown, Angelina winning the Knockouts Title and Daffney forced to strip, scored a 0.97.
Looking at the data, the three highest quarters were for the Knockouts match and the overrun.
Obviously, the rating can’t be wholly attributed to the Knockouts as there were other top TNA talents in two out of those three quarters including Kurt Angle and Mr Anderson in a previously advertised ladder match, however to an extent, this experiment was a success. It looks as though TNA’s constant reminders about the Showdown match as well as the results at the end of the show paid off, just as they should have done given the amount of time this was given.
Ratings data courtesy of ProWrestling.net.
Thoughts after the cut:
Melanie’s Thoughts
I still question the cost of the ploy; it’s not nearly enough for me to just be content with the fact that the Knockouts got more time than they usually get. I question whether it was worth the ratings to turn the division on its head and confuse, possibly even alienate, viewers with yet another TNA whacky stipulation match. And frankly, the Knockouts Title changing hands in the manner that it did, for me, easily negates the supposed success that came out of this.
I worry that this will become the status quo for the Knockouts, who were already a proven draw for Impact without the need for all these frills. TNA took the Knockouts, gave them more time but bent them to what they wanted rather than just giving us more of what was working — good old fashioned Knockouts wrestling. I fear that they’ll look at this week’s ratings and think, “Well what we did worked… let’s do more of that.” I don’t believe the Knockouts ever needed gimmicks to sell, they were doing fine in the ratings with the standard one-on-one match, however just like WWE and their stupid Raw Diva gimmick matches, they are being moulded into what management thinks is a draw. I hope gimmicks don’t become the status quo. The odd gimmick match, such as last week’s First Blood match is great, but doing it every week will just wear thin.
