The New TNA

In this blog, I will address TNA's new direction, the pros and cons that come along with it and changes this "new TNA" needs.

Let's get started with the pros of this new era in TNA; the fresh and young talent. Seeing new guys like Greg Marasciulo, TJ Perkins and young guys like Magnus and Chris Sabin getting a legit push, makes the product feel fresh. It seems that Magnus will now be that guy AJ Styles has been for the past decade in TNA. Fresh talent is needed and that, along with saving money, seems to be TNA's number one priority at this time. With this being said, cons come along with this. AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Ken Anderson, Bobby Roode, Daniels, Kazarian, Austin Aries, and Jeff Hardy are arguably the best performers in TNA. A while back, former TNA Star, Rob Van Dam alluded to TNA stars not being at par or able to perform at the level the top WWE talent can. To a certain extent, I must agree with what he said.

The stars mentioned above, I consider to be able to perform at that "WWE level." What is the issue here? The issue comes down to the fact that most of these stars I mentioned, are making the big money in TNA. Some because of their main event status with the company, others because of their long tenure with the promotion or a combination of both.

A main issue now is budget and TNA seems to be seriously in favor of letting go anyone who's making top dollar in TNA such as we saw with Matt Morgan and now Devon. But what happens when you start losing the guys who are performing at that WWE main event level in favor of new guys?

Say you lose AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Roode, Aries, Daniels, Kazarian, Hardy and Anderson. This will leave a roster who performs well, but like RVD said, are not at that level where you can rely on them. This leaves them competing against each other at the same level and the product will definitely suffer. This is why it is good when guys from the bigger company are brought in. Guys who have wrestled talent such as Chris Jericho, The Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Sting, etc., will most definitely have a better understanding of how to perform at a greater level than when they simply compete in the Indy scene.

AJ Styles contract is expiring and TNA is considering letting him go. This would be a big hit to TNA as a brand. AJ Styles is the face, the John Cena of TNA. This is the main guy TNA has to keep around no matter how much more money he had to get paid. Styles should go into the TNA Hall of Fame, promoted for what he is; a top level talent who can perform at any stage and any venue at the main event spot. But the greatest reason, to keep him around is that AJ Styles is at that WWE Wrestlemania main event level and is a home grown TNA Superstar. TNA has one of the biggest stars in all of pro wrestling and TNA must keep AJ Styles at all cost. Once Magnus, Sabin and I would even say guys like Jay Bradley and get their push, they need to feed off of TNA legends like Styles. This brings me to my next segment.

A wrestling product is not only about having great matches and talent on a show, it's also about production and creating "moments." Creating memorable moments in any production is extremely important as you need to embed your product in people's mind and give them something to look back to. When I say moments, I'm not even taking about wrestling. I'm talking about in-ring and backstage segments. Who doesn't remember in WWE when Mick Foley.brought The Rock people from his past on RAW IS WAR? Sure, it was a silly segment, but everyone remembers and even if you didn't like it then, today you can look back and remember that night. I for one think that the WWE in-ring segment where The Alliance along with Stone Cold sing, was absurd, but I still catch myself remembering it every now and then. This is something that must also be addressed in TNA. Speaking of production, in TNA, their has always been very little focus on making stars like Magnus or Sabin seem larger than life with help of production. When someone who is getting a push cuts a promo in the ring and the next segment is shoved in as soon as that star stops talking, it gives the audience no chance to digest what the promo is about. It gives the star no importance. The same is to be said with entrances. When Sabin was World Champ, no matter who he faced, their was no difference of importance given between him or the challenger's entrance. It was the challenger's entrance, immediately rushed by Sabin's theme song. No difference at all. Their must be at least some sort of stalling before the champ's theme song. More selling by the announcers.

Their is also a minor issue with TNA announcing: I see it or hear it time and time again. Something surprising happens, or someone interferes and hit their finisher, and you have the announcers talking about last week or plugging a show, when they should be jumping put of their seats selling what just happened in the ring.

TNA is experiencing a new era and whether they choose to start their own version of the Attitude era or aim to be more high end, I feel the points I made are valid factors in their future success.

Those were my two cents, what are yours?

Custom WWE 13 Wii Titantrons and Theme Songs

Custom WWE 13 Titantrons (and minitrons) and Theme Songs for Nintendo Wii.

WHAT YOU NEED:

First of all, if you plan to play this on your Wii console, you have to install the Homebrew Channel on your Wii as well as USB Loader GX and-or WiiFlow
(WiiFlow works best, but you pretty much have to install USB Loader GX
to get WiiFlow to work).

-Wii Scrubber
-WWE 13 iso (or WWE 12 iso if you wan't to mod '12)
-RAD Video Tools
-Windows Movie Maker (or any video editor)

TUTORIAL START

Assuming you have been a good student, you will now have all of the needed items
listed above.

1st: FINDING IN-GAME TITANTRONS

Open up Wii Scrubber and load your iso (button at top left). Once you have
loaded the WWE '13 iso, click the [+] on Partition 1, do the same for Movies
and Titantrons. Now you will see a crazy amount of .bik (bink) files.
.bik files are video files. You can find videos of all the titantrons, openening THQ logo
(which I replaced with the WWF RAW IS WAR intro), videos that play for Title matches
and you get the point.

2nd: IDENTIFYING IN-GAME TITANTRON FILES

Once you are in the titantrons folder and see all the .bik files, you are probably
scratching your head as you have no way to identify which tron is which other
than to export each file one by one (right click export). If you don't feel like spending
hours and hours trying to find the titantrons you want to replace, leave me a comment,
I have A LOT of the files identified.

3rd: WATCHING IN-GAME TITANTRONS

Once you have exported a .bik file, find it and open it up. It should open up
in RAD Video Tools/RAD Tools and start playing on its own. Most of the game's
titantrons are around 30 seconds because the game's code tells them to loop.

To help you out, one of the files I replaced (you can't add, only replace existing trons)
was file 326.bik (David Otunga), because he doesn't belong in a game or the biz LOL.

4th: UNDERSTANING TITANTRONS AND MINITRONS

Now that you have identified your .bik titantron to replace, you can see that
this Otunga tron, actually contains the minitrons as well (at the bottom)
--They are all actually ONE video and not 3 or 4. With this in mind, I have some
advice to give you. You will all probably want to actually add custom VIDEOS,
but I assure you, adding images is much easier than converting videos and finding-out
that the files are way too big, so fallow my advice if you want fast work, becuase
the fact is, you only see trons about 10% of the time during entrances and I am
sure 90% of you are here to learn how to add custom theme songs as we Wii owners
get ripped off with these games.

5th: HOW TO GET YOUR CUSTOM TRONS

Now that you have decided to fallow my sage advice, I will give you the dimensions of the entire tron (minitrons included). If you want your trons to look like the real trons, find a titantron video on YouTube, pause the video in the spots you like like maybe the "Shattered Dreams" part of Goldust's video (don't use full screen). Take a screenshot (prnt scrn button on your keyboard) and open up Windows Paint (Paint). Now click hit the Paste command and your image should now be in Paint.
Crop the video with the Select tool barely excluding the timeline on the bottom.
The main titantron dimensions are 638x346 (doesn't have to be exact).

6th: MAKING CUSTOM TRONS

Go to image (on toolbar), attributes and you will see dimensions.
Make sure you are in pixels and enter 638x578 then press OK.
Your "titantron should now fit the drawing board width nearly perfect and
you will also notice that there is some blank space at the bottom.
This space at the bottom is where your minitron images will go.
The bottom space should be devided pretty much in half
just keeping the right half about a true cm bigger or just equal.
To divide in half, just draw a line.

Now open Paint again from the program icon on your start menu or desktop
so that you now have Paint opened twice. Find some good images to use
as your minitrons, paste them in paint and resize them so that they are about
5x3 true inches, just get close, it doesn't have to be exact at the moment.
(if you want to measure your image just go to attributes again and enter
343x233 which is the near perfect dimension for either minitron).
Now resize the board so that only the minitron image fits and copy all.

Head back over to your main tron file which should already be open in your other
instance of the Paint program. Paste your minitron and fit it in the minitron space
at the bottom (under the titantron). The main minitron is the right one.
If you want a better idea, reopen the .bik file and you will see how it is set up.
Now do the same for the left minitron. Now that you have a full titantron pack
you save it. Now if you don't want your tron to only be one image, you simply
redo the 5th step, copy that over the first main tron aka TITANtron and
go to SAVE AS so that you don't overwrite the first one you saved.
Just name the trons whatever you wish, it doesn't matter.
Don't make too many, I actually usually only make once, because like I said,
unless you are creating a tron of hot girls kissing, and want to focus the tron
all throughout the entrance, you only really see the trons about 10% of the time or less.

6B: 

Too many image files in the next step will unnecessarily increase your file size
and if you want most of your custom theme song (mp3s increase file size),
having few images helps to keep file size small. The reason you want small
file sizes is so that you can later fit them all in the game. If you have finalized
tron videos that are 20mb each, you will only be able to fit a couple.
In-game trons are around 4-5mb so try to stay at par and if your custom
tron files are smaller (like 2mb), then you can use the space you save
(once you replace  4 or 5 orignal 5mb files with your 2mb files) those extra MBs
you have left can be used for when you want to use more tron images
or be able to use most of your theme song.

TIP: a video with one tron package image and a 1.40 minute theme song,
will be around 3MB. One image with a 2 minute theme will be around
4MB. 3-4 images with 1.40 minute theme song will be around 3-4MB.
One image with 1.20 minute theme song will be around 2MB.
You will get a better idea once you produce your first tron.
Entrances like Goldust's will obviously require a longer theme
unless you don't mind the loop after a minute (some themes
you won't even notice the loop, such as Sting's TNA theme
or Kevin Nash's TNA theme).

7th: VIDEO TRONS

Once you are happy that you created a trons package, you open up a video editor
and I suggest Windows Movie Maker to better fallow the tutorial.

Now you import your titantron package (what you created in Paint).
Now import your theme song. I use Tubidy.mobi to aquire theme songs,
as they are usually under 2MB, but if you want better quality, use 4shared.com
or your choice. Now that your files are imported to WMM, drag them to the timeline
which is at the bottom (images on top section, music in middle section).

8th: CUSTOM THEME SONGS

REMEMBER earlier I mentioned that the game's code loops the short 30 second
in-game titantrons? What does this mean? It means your custom titantron
SHOULD NOT be 30 seconds! You don't want the amazing theme song of
superstars such as AJ Styles, Goldust, Goldberg, etc. to loop every 30 seconds
now DO YOU? So, the duration of the video you are making in your video editor
should be the duration of the superstar's entrance and most are around 1.40 minutes,
but of course there are exceptions and this is why having few images and the
tubidy mp3s help (they keep file size small) read step 6B again if you like.

Chances are your theme song is over 2 minutes long (I used the entire TNA
Kurt Angle theme song and in exchange, I used only one tron package (one image).

If you think or know that you don't need the entire theme song, trim it.

WMM Help: To trim you use the timeline marker as the "blade." Drag the marker to where
you want the theme to end. Select the theme song in the timeline, go to clip on the toolbar, then hit trim end. This will remove everything to the right of the marker.

Now that you have decided on the length of your theme song, stretch the length
of the image so that it matches the length of the theme song. Once you are happy
with this, go to file save, then file publish (or similar feature in another editor).

If you fallowed my amazing advice of using few images and kept the length
of your video to around 1.30-1.40 minutes, (remember there are 60 seconds
in a minute. 1.40 means 1 minute 40 seconds), then your video should publish
fairly quickly- usually in 1-2 minutes.

9th: BIK VIDEO

Once your video is published using WMM or your choice, you launch RAD Video Tools
which is also named RAD Tools in some cases. In RAD, open the video you made
and click the "BINK IT" button at the bottom. Now you will see  A LOT of options, but
you only need to pay attention to 1; "Compress Settings." Find where it says
"Compress to a % of the original." If your original video (WMM or whatever you chose)
is fairly big file size like 4MB, you can compress to 90 or 80%, but you don't have to.
I usually compress all of mine with 90% even if they are already small files.

TIP: You can make other videos while this one is BINKED

10th: ADDING YOUR TRON/THEME TO THE GAME

Once your video is BINKED, we go ALL the way back to Wii Scrubber.
Find the titantron file you want to replace, I suggest replacing the 326.bik Otunga
titantron file. Right click on it and select replace. Find your custom tron which
is now a .bik file and click the open button. A notice will tell you the 326 file
is being replaced and will also say "now reparsing." All of the directories you opened
will then collapse. Once this happens, it means you have successfully added your
custom titantron with theme song into the game. To verify your amazing
accomplishment was actually accomplished, reopen the titantrons directory
(Partition 1, Movies, Titantrons) and find file 326.bik. Extract the file wherever
you wish. Locate the file (outside of Scrubber) and open it. If your custom tron
and theme song plays, then you're all set.

11th: FINALLY...

Once you have added the custom trons you wanted, you close Wii Scrubber
and you are all done! I assume you already know how or can find out
how to play isos on your Wii or emulator.

Once you start-up your game, go to the create-an-entrance. Go to music
and set the music to none. WHY? Because your music is in your tron.
Now go to movies and find the David Otunga tron or any other tron you replaced.
Select it and your new custom titantron and theme song should start playing
and you will probably jump and smile and want to add more.

DOWNSIDE: Have you ever seen a titantron play after you win a match?
Me either. That is why your custom theme won't play, but I don't really mind
as the CAW win celebrations suck in these games.

ENJOY!

Don't stay up 24 hours adding your custom trons. Even after playing
your newly modified WWE '13 game on your Wii or Emulator, you can open up
the iso you modified (and should still have on your PC or Mac), and keep adding trons
without erasing any game save data.

If you don't feel like extracting all of the in-game .bik files to find out which is which,
leave me a comment or ask via Twitter @iNNCwrestling.

I also have a few .bik ID'd files listed at

http://wrestlinnc.webs.com/apps/donations/

and I have more besides those.

If you appreciate the tutorial and the work I put into identifying the .bik files,
please donate at the link above.  It may seem easy, but many hours went into
identifying the .bik files. Like I stated before, I have a lot more identified if you
would like more.

TNA Goes BIG

TNA Goes BIG

"WWE had practically no real entrance stage"

Many non and TNA fans, talent from either company and even current and past TNA executives have ideas on how TNA can grow to one day be as or nearly as big as WWE.
But what is the real way to get, to quote Hulk Hogan, "TNA to the next level"?
The number one idea or advise or move that most will agree on, is to take IMPACT WRESTLING
on the road. We're not talking about house shows of course. We are talking about IMPACT WRESTLING, the TV show.

Now what is the difference of taking the TV show on the road compared to the house shows?

If TNA IMPACT WRESTLING house shows draw anywhere from 300-500 fans (WWE draws thousands) why would IMPACT WRESTLING TV shows be any better on the road?
TV shows have fallow up. They have more to them such as big angles, title matches, and all of the big stars and production. Of course, the number one issue with this is idea is money. It costs a lot of money to take a TV show on the road, especially a live one. But as Hogan has stated before, you spend money
to make money. The fact is, TNA fans and Universal Orlando tourists, go into IMPACT WRESTLING without paying anything to TNA. Does IMPACT have to be live every week on the road? No. Do they need as big of a production as they have in the IMPACTzone? No. For years WWE had practically no real entrance stage. Even the first Wrestlemania entrance "stages" were a simple decoration around the built-in arenas' entrance. Sure, the nice stages look great and provide extra room for the talent to perform,
but you can take a look back at old WWE shows, and any other show like AWA for that matter, and those issues can be worked around and you end up forgetting about stages and titantrons.
With the idea of needing to take IMPACT TV on the road established, I'll move on to the next move.

MARKETING/PROMOTING
"Vince McMahon and his genius marketing/promoting"

WWE Wrestlemania 24

Surely we all know the WWE was a big company before they began to invite or get involved with Hollywood stars and producing Wrestlemania. The question here is; HOW did the WWE manage
to become a global phenomena? The answer is quite simple: Vince McMahon and his genius marketing/promoting. Vince McMahon is without a doubt, a genius. Whether you are a die-hard TNA fan
or WWE fan, we all have to agree on that fact. What did Vince McMahon do to get his promotion to the top and what new elements can be added to those methods? The WWE was not afraid to spend money for the right reward. But to do this, the trade-off has to be understood. If you don't understand the trade-off, you will likely not make the trade. In this case I am talking about trading money for a reward that will benefit your company in a big way. You don't always have to recieve a monetary trade. A lot can be learned
from WWE Wrestlemania 24 in the Citrus Bowl Stadium, Orlando, FLorida. The company spent A LOT
of money dressing up that arena, which is otherwise not a Wrestlemania type of venue. Guess what?
Although the exact numbers are not known, many WWE officials believe WWE ended up losing money
after all of the production that went into dressing up this arena to make it look great.
As an official once said, Vince might have ended up losing money with this Wrestlemania, but he and WWE
created magic for all of those fans and the people that know how the arena looks like without the
WWE's production. It is not always about making money. Sometimes you have to break even or even lose
some money when the trade-off is worth it. WWE Wrestlemania has aquired Super Bowl status
because of what they bring along with Wrestlemania to each city where it takes place.
How can this mentality and understanding of "trade-off" benefit TNA?

The Trade-Off
"TNA will now own footage of big names like Sting and Jeff Hardy and Mick Foley."

Over the years, TNA has spent money hiring talents that were big or somewhat big in other companies.
You can go back all the way to guys like The Sandman, Raven, DDP, Sting, Rhino, Christian Cage,
Jeff Hardy. Yes, those talents, those trade-offs are worth it. They bring their fanbase to your product.
But what happens when the fanbase of those talents don't know where those talents are?
Many times we have heard guys like Jeff Hardy, Mick Foley, Kevin Nash, Ric Flair talking about fans that ask them "when are you coming back to wrestling?" When in fact, they have been in TNA all along.
In those situations, what has TNA gained? If you hire a talent to gain more fans and recognition, yet
most of those fans don't know where those wrestlers have gone, what exactly is the trade-off?
What does TNA receive for paying these big names big money? The trade-off TNA recieves is,
the fans that DO know those big names have gone to TNA . The trade-off is some of those same fans
might even tune-in and become a TNA fan. The trade-off is that those names become a part of TNA,
even after they leave. TNA will now own footage of big names like Sting and Jeff Hardy and Mick Foley.
You can hire some well known talents from the competition for the trade-off of money, of course, but you can also hire the big talents who could have BECOME big talents on the opposite brand and make them big for your own brand and this is something TNA has done well over the years. Some would argue
TNA HAS to build their own big names, and that is correct, but the building of a companie's own big names, does not work on its own and any smart pro wrestling executive can tell you that a compnay can very well build their own big names such as TNA has with AJ Styles and Bobby Roode among others, but the fact is you need the big names from elsewhere to provide a good balance.

When Vince McMahon, jr. took over the WWF, he "broke the rules" of back then, and began to take the
big stars from where else, than the competition; from the AWA, NWA and all of the territories.
Why start-off with a bunch of unknown talent, when you can have wrestlers that are already big names?
Vince McMahon knew that aquiring wrestlers that were already big names, was much easier than to only build his own big names, which takes trial and error and lots of time. This has been one of the moves
many people have criticized about TNA, yet every promotion in the world does the same thing. Why?
Because it works. WWF took guys from AWA, WCW, ECW. WCW took guys from WWF and ECW.
ECW, with the least money, took the big names that were not under contract. AAA, the biggest
pro wrestling company in Mexico, takes guys from CMLL. It's a system that works. It's not a system
to rely on, but it is something that helps.

So if TNA has done this strategy just like other companies, why are their US ratings the same?
Why are their house shows and PPVs still around the same numbers?

MARKETING/PROMOTING

We fall back to marketing. Vince McMahon and the WWF might have already been a big company
a long time ago, but it was the genius marketing of Vince McMahon that has taken WWE to be the
huge company and entity that it is today. Having IMPACT WRESTLING TV on the road is not truly about getting out of the IMPACTzone. The IMPACTzone has become part of wrestling history.
The true reason why TNA's TV show has to go on the road, whether it be live or not, whether it has to tone down a bit of visual production glamour or not, is marketing. New venues bring fresh eyes and reactions
to the show and make the show look much better on TV. Loud fans in new venues, who have
always wanted to see their favorite stars and will finally get to see them, translate that emotion to the viewers
at home and make the product seem bigger. When people at home see and hear thousands of fans
cheering for one of the talents, it makes that talent seem larger than life. It makes that talent, that wrestler,
seem like he or she is on top of the world, it makes that talent into a celebrity, and when you have
that talent on your show, your show is elevated. The more of these celebrity talents you have on your show,
the better your show looks and in turn, your company will grow. The fans of those celebrity-like talents
will start coming to your house shows. Those fans will start buying PPVs like they buy tickets
to watch their favorite stars in a movie. Even though it may seem like people (and a few do) watch your show, whether it be WWE or TNA, because it is WWE or TNA, that is not the case. The people, the fans watch these shows because of their favorite superstars. It is not a coincidence that big names in wrestling were started to be referred to as "Superstars" a long time ago just like the Hollywood Superstars.

This brings me to the UK. When IMPACT WRESTLING aired from the Wembley Arena in
United Kingdom, it was like magic. A huge arena filled wilh thousands and thousands of fans,
were cheering for some of my favorite wrestlers. That is the best marketing a wrestling show
can ever get. Larger than life talents are what makes a brand grow.

But in comes a fair question: why is TNA so popular in the UK? How can a company that
beats TNA in ratings in the US almost by 3 times over, be crushed by TNA in the UK?

UK wrestling fans like the attitude in TNA's product. They like the hard-hitting in your face style.
US likes big time celebrities. WWE stars have that feel.

The trick here, is to combine those two elements and that can only be achieved, by making
the right trade-off and that trade-off is spending the money to take IMPACT WRESTLING
TV on the road. Letting those fans who have always wanted to see their favorite stars
see them for the first time and interact with them for the first time and making those talents
celebrities within your brand. THAT, is when bringing in Hollywood celebrities means
the most. That is when the trade-off of money for celebs pays off. When your very own
celeberities, your talent, can interact with the more popular celebrities that are on everyday
television. People know who Hollywood celebrities are whether they like them or not.
When you create your very own celebrities by creating that atmosphere along with fans,
your product will become your very own Hollywood full of Superstars.

Fallow on Twitter @iNNCwrestling

TNA Will Not Die

Welcome to the return of My Two Cents. Many fans will recognize the blog from years back on what was then IMPACTWRESTLING.com now known as AllWrestling.com after the TNA purchase.

TNA Will Not Die
"there are thousands of talented indy wrestlers, who wrestle every day
in front of crowds sometimes 50-100 people, who would love to be a part
of TNA IMPACT WRESTLING and perform on an international TV show
viewed by millions of people."


    For the past few years, many people have said TNA is not growing anymore. I agree, due to the ratings in the US, it appears the second biggest wrestling company in the US, is stuck in place. That is not the case. TNA's IMPACT WRESTLING airs in 130 countries which are markets they have been adding recently. IMPACT WRESTLING is one of the highest rated shows in the UK and has even beat WWE in ratings. Their secondary show, TNA Xplosion, continues to grow internationally. Many wrestling "fans" say TNA should die, because it is simply not at par with the biggest wrestling company in the world, WWE.
There's no doubt, WWE bigger than TNA, but I guarantee you, there are thousands of talented indy wrestlers, who wrestle every day in front of crowds sometimes 50-100 people, who would love to be a part of TNA IMPACT WRESTLING and perform on an international TV show viewed by millions of people.

The facts are, yes, WWE is a-or- the biggest wrestling company in the world. The best? That is arguable. Yet, also true, is the fact that TNA IMPACT WRESTLING continues to grow and expand worldwide. With the creation of the TNA Hall of Fame, it not only gives the company a sense if importance, but it also gives talent something else to aspire to achieve. Who doesn't want to say they are in a Hall of Fame?
I'm sure stars like Bobby Roode, AJ Styles, James Storm, Abyss among others, will one day be
in the Hall of Fame and I am sure many start-up wrestlers and kids all around the world, aspire to be a part of TNA IMPACT WRESTLING and one day be a TNA Hall of Famer.

A true wrestling fan wants wrestling to grow and new companies to spawn. A "fan" wants ONE company
to grow bigger and bigger, even if the quality is lower and lower.

If you haven't yet, check out my other post: "TNA Goes BIG."

(4/6) said that WWP is going to either be a big company like TNA or it is going to retract all together. This has been said by the same people in charge of

(6/6) booking and the direction the company wants to go in I personally think their is a chance ROH can hit a big wall.<iNNC>

(5/6) bulding the company. If the big two become the big three, and continue to sign ROH's talent, and the added problems going on behind the scenes with ROH