For TNA, The "Destination" is...

Speed on the Beat here with some breaking news.

Per WrestleZone, WINC, and more, TNA Wrestling has signed a television deal with Destination America.

 

Now, if you'll pardon the pun in this post's title, I'd like to get into some armchair analysis. On one side of things, you've got those that say that "any deal is a good deal in this economy for a wrestling company." This is admittedly true. Most promotions don't have television deals and their exposure/revenue suffers from it. However, with this new deal, TNA moves to a network that has a reach which is less than Ring of Honor at the moment (due to ROH being owned by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and their plethora of syndication markets). That's not a knock to ROH, as I love ROH, but for a promotion that's prided itself as the "true" alternative to sports entertainment (read: WWE), this survivalist move probably still hurts their pride. Yes, a little money is better than no money, but is it really when TNA is in the shape that it's in?

Yes. Yes, it is.

I love wrestling, all promotions. So, the fact that TNA is still "alive" is a good thing. Maybe, with a smaller audience and budget, they'll stop trying to emulate everything WWE does. I mean, hell, WWE doesn't even emulate what WWE does well most the time. What made TNA great in its initial incarnation(s) was that it really was an alternative to WWE--and to the hyper-violence seen in promotions such as CZW.

But, I digress. I'd rather have TNA, WWE, ROH, and so on--small markets or not--than just one giant conglomerate of pro wrestling. So, to TNA, I say congratulations. Don't eff this one up.