Impact Wrestling: 5 Recent Events Have Given This Company New Life

It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks for Impact Wrestling (or TNA Wrestling, whatever floats your boat).

The company had been fairly stagnant recently, although you could make the argument that the booking has improved since the departure of Vince Russo, and it was hard to see anything happening that would take the company to the next level.

However, with a whirlwind couple of weeks of newsworthy events, Impact Wrestling finds itself in a position to do some things that could lead to some much-needed growth for the company.

Here's a look at what's been happening and what it could mean for the company.

King Mo Joins Impact Wrestling

The announcement of mixed martial arts fighter Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal signing a deal to compete for both Impact Wrestling and MMA company Bellator Fighting Championship makes for an interesting relationship.

One of the things that has hurt pro wrestling in recent years is a decline in talent.  Where there was once a time where credible athletes from the worlds of amateur wrestling, pro football and other sports would flock to pro wrestling, many of those athletes are opting for MMA careers instead.

Pro wrestlers such as Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, the Undertaker and others have admitted that, had MMA been as popular as it is now, they would not have gone into pro wrestling.

The Impact Wrestling and Bellator relationship suddenly doesn't require athletes to make a choice, and they can now enjoy the best of both worlds.  According to Lawal himself on TMZ, it's already starting.

Lawal has the potential to be a great first example.  He has shown in his MMA career the kind of charisma and showmanship that will make him a star in pro wrestling, and he's a talented MMA fighter who has the skills to dominate a Bellator Light Heavyweight division that isn't that strong.

Should Lawal succeed, it could make such a deal appeal to other athletes with an interest in both but who know they won't be able to do both anywhere else (World Wrestling Entertainment and the Ultimate Fighting Championship are at the top of their respective businesses and will never allow their talent to do both).

This could lead Impact Wrestling to add talent with strong athletic credentials in the coming years and improve their talent roster.  They also have the benefit of their relationship with Ohio Valley Wrestling, which will give these athletes a credible place to develop their pro wrestling skills.

Lawal is already expected to head to OVW to train.

Impact Wrestling Will Move Its Start Time Up an Hour

Impact Wrestling has always had a fair share of competition for that key 18-34 male demographic on Thursday nights, including NBA, college basketball and college football.  Recently, another challenger increased their presence on Thursday nights as the NFL announced they would be increasing the number of games on Thursdays from eight to 13 starting this season.

Moving Impact's start time up from 9 p.m. ET to 8 p.m. this summer gives the company a chance to establish this new time before the new NBA, college basketball and football and NFL seasons start.

The key will be to start the shows off strong and give people a reason not to grab their remotes and turn to other programming. 

Which leads to the other big change in the Impact Wrestling television show.

Impact to Be Shown Live for the Summer

"

  “Summer of 2012 is going to be remembered as the most momentous time in our company's history-to-date. Stay tuned."

—Dixie Carter

"

One way or another, this Dixie Carter quote from the press release announcing Impact going live for the summer is going to be proven right.

If it succeeds, Spike likely continues to pay the extra money and keeps Impact live every week.  If the ratings this summer show no signs of improvement, they likely view it as not worth the money and go back to the multiple taping method.

This likely means you will have seen Impact Wrestling go as far as it is going to go.

When the show was live every other week, during the ill-fated move to Monday nights, the ratings were better than the weeks the show was taped—but not by a significant amount (and since the ratings were bad compared to that of WWE RAW, the difference didn't really matter much anyway).

It will also be an interesting challenge for both the talent and the creative minds behind the scenes.

Talent must realize they don't get do-overs anymore and become perfectionists.  Creative must realize that, with no spoilers to give anything away, they must present moments and surprises that will get people talking and come back for more the following week.

Going live must bring the best out of everyone in the company.  If so, then the ratings will, hopefully, reflect it.

Austin Aries Re-Signs with the Company

While it might not seem like a huge deal, the success of Aries in the past year makes quite a statement on the direction of the key people in Impact Wrestling.

In previous years, since the departures of Samoa Joe and AJ Styles from the division, X-Division talent has struggled to advance past that ceiling.  Aries has changed that with his feud with Bully Ray.

You hope that things will continue and Aries will keep moving up the card.  He definitely has main-event potential.

Brooke Hogan Signs with Impact Wrestling

Just kidding.

However, I don't think Hogan's addition is as bad a thing as people seem to think, either.

I don't see it moving the needle one way or the other.