For the past week I’ve been on vacation in Orlando, Florida with my family where we had the opportunity to attend one of the live TV tapings of TNA Impact. We spent the majority of our week in Universal Studios, riding the rides and filling up on Butterbeer. (That stuff is delicious by the way.)
Last Wednesday we noticed that there were signs placed throughout the park advertising the “Live TNA taping” for that night. Soon after the signs were placed, TNA crew members would stand by with a megaphone announcing that they were giving free tickets to anyone interested and they were really pushing the “chance to be on TV” as much as they were the performers.
We walked up and got our tickets from one of these crew members with no problems. It seemed to me that there weren’t many people interested. According to the tickets and the crew member’s instructions, we needed to be in line one hour before the doors opened in order to get good seats. We were a little nervous because we were running a few minutes late, but we were able to walk right in with no problems. (In all fairness, what looked to be a bad afternoon storm with some serious lightning was headed our way and the crew, along with security, was hurrying us in. So getting in quickly was not completely due to low attendance.)
Once we walked into “The Impact Zone” the first thing I noticed was how small the venue was.
Bleachers are only on one side of the building and the other side is reserved for cameras with the exception of the area alongside the barricades which had two or three rows of floor seats.
Free tickets plus a small venue would usually add up to a packed house, but unfortunately for TNA, that was not the case. They were close to full but still only at about 80-85% of max capacity.
While empty seats might’ve been bad for TNA, it was great for us. It gave us more room to move around as needed and made it easier to negotiate the aisles for a trip to the concession stand.
Before the start of the show, Dixie Carter was out and greeting fans around the barricades near ringside, giving hugs, taking pictures, and signing autographs. The fans reaction to her was very positive and I thought it was awesome that she made it a point to come out and interact with them.
Shortly after Dixie finished making her rounds, ring announcer Jeremy Borash came out and started warming the crowd up. He also explained that the Impact crew would be searching the crowd throughout the night for the loudest, most animated, fans in the crowd to put them on TV and potentially bring them backstage to hang out with Kurt Angle. This is where, I feel, that TNA excels. As a fan you always feel valued and feel like you’re part of the show.
The show started with the obligatory promos from Angle and EC3, but after that it was almost non-stop action. The matches were well-paced, hard-hitting displays of athleticism, showing that TNA, at least as of the time of this writing, still has much to offer in the ways of talent.
There were also a few cool surprises like the debut of Hernandez as the newest member of the BDC, the return announcement of Jeff Jarrett, and the appearances of Van VADER and Matt Morgan.
All in all, we had an absolute blast. Initially I was reluctant to attend the show, even with free admission, but I left that night a much bigger fan of TNA.
My final verdict- if you’re even a casual fan of professional wrestling, and you’re in the Universal Studios resort during a TNA TV taping or live event, I would DEFINITELY recommend that you catch the show.
That being said, I still didn’t buy the Slammiversary Pay-per-view. All the talent and showmanship in the world can’t change the STUPID booking decisions for that card. Having a “major” Pay-per-view with no title defenses… that’s the definition of retarded booking.
-Cause StunSeed said so
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