Big Backstage News On TNA’s House Shows, Booker T, More
Reported By on Tuesday, April 15 2008
Credit: WrestlingObserver.com Newsletter
Jeremy Borash has been put in control of TNA house shows and is trying to push them to become a bigger deal. He wants to make them a complete experience with both wrestling and meeting the wrestlers to offer something different at their house shows. After the shows they will be bringing some wrestlers and personalities out for autographs, but they won’t announce who they are until the very end of the show.
The company is trying to book venues that hold closer to 1,000 rather than 5,000 and up, a trick that Paul Heyman used in the ECW days to give it the packed house atmosphere.
TNA is actually making money by doing house show tours because they keep the overhead low. They only have a two person ring crew and Jeremy Borash handles the music and lighting and hosts the show. All of the match finishes and angles are sent from the Nashville offices via email and they are straight forward short action-filled matches where the company tries to use clean finishes almost all the time. As previously noted, it looks like TNA actually became profitable in 2007 which had to put a smiles on the faces of the Carters.
Booker T is said to be really enjoying himself in TNA and it shows. At the house show in Lincoln,NE Booker was at ringside signing autographs until the building was empty and then spent another 20 minutes outside the arena talking to fans in the parking lot. The show drew 1,346.
They drew 1,100 fans to a house show in Spencer, IA, which is a city in the middle of nowhere with a population of 20,000.
