Jeff Hardy and TNA leave everyone scratching their heads following Victory Road

Sting successfully defended the TNA World Title last night at Victory Road against Jeff Hardy in an absolute crapfest of a match that has been talked about all over the internet today. Rumors are rampant that Hardy was under the influence of drugs, and the video below does little to quell that talk.

You can tell Hardy isn’t all there during the introductions and the match. Even walking to the ring he seems out of it. This isn’t the first time there have been rumors of Hardy showing up to a pay-per-view in no condition to wrestle, and his history of drug use is well chronicled.

PWInsider.com is also reporting that Jeff Hardy has been sent home from this week’s Impact tapings, which are for the next three weeks of TV shows.

What makes matters worse is that this match was the main event. TNA Creative could have done a beatdown angle where Hardy had to be replaced if they truly thought he couldn’t go. The route they went, with Eric Bischoff making it a No DQ match at the last minute, almost made it seem as though they really planned to have a long match and perhaps Sting was the one who cut it short in the ring.

Either way, it’s one more bad taste for the mouths of wrestling fans who were already being very critical of TNA over the past few weeks, following the 3-3-11 Sting videos that were a lame ripoff of WWE’s Undertaker vignettes.

TNA debuts new Jakks action figure line

TNA recently debuted the first series of its new action figures, including Sting, Kurt Angle, Jeff Jarrett, AJ Styles and Suicide. The figures are made by Jakks Pacific, the company who formerly handled WWE’s toy line. The video below shows some of the press conference and a closer look at the new figures.

TNA Sacrifice review

TNA delivered a pretty strong pay-per-view with last night’s Sacrifice. The show had its bad moments, of course, but overall it was good and featured some great wrestling. Below is a match-by-match breakdown of the PPV.

- The opening triple threat tag team match to determine a number one contender to the Tag Team Titles was really good. There were a lot of nice spots and the Motor City Machineguns came out of it next-in-line to challenge for the belts. The ending was a bit much, but the contest got 13 minutes and got the crowd going.

- The next match shut the crowd up quickly, as Rob Terry defeated Orlando Jordan to retain the Global Championship. Jordan is definitely trying with this new character but the people just aren’t feeling it. The same can be said for Rob Terry, who even less people care about.

Bubba the Love Sponge fired by TNA

TNA management has finally decided to part ways with Bubba the Love Sponge after the latest inflammatory incident in his already checkered TNA career. Bubba and Awesome Kong got into it on a radio show earlier today, months after the incident between the two that ultimately led to Kong’s departure from the company.

As those of you who read the blog or follow me on Twitter know, I can’t stand Bubba. The “shock jock” couldn’t be more played out and he was only in TNA thanks to his friendship with Hulk Hogan. He is truly the definition of more trouble than he was worth, especially since he wasn’t worth anything to begin with.

TNA released a short statement regarding Bubba’s release and Kevin Eck of the Baltimore Sun has more on the radio incident.

TNA wisely making 8pm iMPACT! start time permanent

That didn’t take long. Fresh off the heels of this week’s ratings spike after moving iMPACT’s start time to 8pm EST, TNA President Dixie Carter announced on Twitter that the program will move to that timeslot permanently. The show will also be re-aired Thursday night’s at 9pm.

This is definitely the smart thing to do. Beginning iMPACT! an hour before Raw starts is a great way to try to get viewers hooked in and also will help boost ratings as they’ll be unopposed from 8-9pm.

I’ll be the first to admit I thought things looked pretty grim coming off of the horrible ending to Monday’s iMPACT! Suddenly, though, things are looking up for TNA.

TNA up, WWE down in preliminary ratings

This week’s TNA iMPACT!, which started an hour early, drew a 0.9 overall rating, with the overrun that featured the Knockouts opening four boxes drawing a 1.0. Raw, on the other hand, did a 3.2, down from the previous week’s 3.7 number.

While Raw’s lower rating can be partially attributed to being in direct competition with the NCAA Championship game, it could also be due to TNA wisely having the Kurt Angle – Mr. Anderson ladder match go into the 9:00 EST hour to compete with the opening of Raw.

What is shocking to me is that the overrun did so well. TNA baited viewers in with a potential striptease throughout the show and apparently that strategy worked.

One thing can’t be dismissed and that is that TNA’s rating jumped with an early start time. I’ve been saying it for over a week now that the company should think about moving the show permanently to an 8-10pm slot and hopefully Hulk Hogan and Dixie Carter take notice of the success from this week.

A look at the first three months of the Hogan-Bischoff regime

It has been three months since Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff came on the scene in TNA. In that time, many big names have joined the organization but ratings have fallen and some talented performers have also been released.

The most recent release is, of course, Christopher Daniels, who returned to Ring of Honor Saturday night using his “Fallen Angel” gimmick. Awesome Kong, one of the best performers in TNA’s Knockouts division, is also no longer with the company, leaving after a spat with Bubba the Love Sponge over his insensitive remarks about the earthquake in Haiti.

Bubba is one of the many “Hogan cronies” to have joined TNA since the Hulkster’s arrival. The Nasty Boys, Jimmy Hart, Scott Hall, and Sean Waltman are a few other longtime friends of Hogan’s that have debuted since January 4. The Nasty Boys, who could barely move around the ring and got winded cutting promos, have since been let go.

But Hogan and Bischoff haven’t just brought in old timers that no one cares about anymore. Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, and Mr. Anderson (formerly Mr. Kennedy) have also joined TNA and Ric Flair, who is still a talented performer on the mic, also came with Hogan.

For the first two months the programming was still very much a poorly planned and executed show, typical of the Vince Russo booking that TNA fans know very well. But since then, things have seemed to make more sense and storylines are progressing more like they should.

There are still flaws, of course, like the main storylines mostly revolving around Hogan, Flair, Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett, but it is definitely better than it was in the first few weeks of the Hogan-Bischoff era. The problem, though, is that the ratings aren’t reflecting that. The numbers are on a consistent decline, with last week’s taped iMPACT! only drawing a 0.6 rating. That’s worse than the 2am Sunday morning replay of Raw did for the same week.

The product and entertainment value have been improving but the bottom line is ratings. No one thought TNA would move to Monday nights and instantly take over as the top dog of the wrestling industry. There is a long way to go, but the ratings certainly must improve soon, or else TNA is in big trouble. Tonight’s iMPACT! is scheduled to air at 8pm, which is a temporary move, but should be something they think about doing full-time.

Christopher Daniels released by TNA

Christopher Daniels appeared Saturday night on ROH’s Big Bang iPPV, leading to speculation over the weekend that he was no longer with TNA. WrestlingObserver.com has confirmed that Daniels has been released by the company.

Clearly it was Daniels who forced the hand. Just a few months ago, Daniels was a main event level performer, in the mix for the TNA World Title. Once Hulk Hogan arrived, Daniels was relegated to a glorified jobber role, even laying down for Sean Morley, who had no business winning a match at all and has since also left TNA.

While Daniels leaving is a blow to TNA, it is a huge victory for Ring of Honor. Daniels is a name that is more well-known with fans that may not be familiar with ROH.

I’d like to wonder if we’ll ever see Daniels in a WWE ring in the near future, but knowing Vince McMahon and how he feels about wrestlers that made names for themselves in TNA, I wouldn’t count on it.

TNA iMPACT! moving to Monday nights starting March 8

As has long been rumored and expected, TNA announced that iMPACTt! will move to Monday nights beginning March 8 and go head-to-head with WWE Raw.

TNA President Dixie Carter said the move will be permanent, with the show airing live every other week. The taped shows will be filmed Tuesday to be aired the following Monday. While this is a renewal of the “Monday Night Wars” of the late 1990′s, Carter is remaining reasonable and hoping to continue ratings growth with the eventual goal of knocking off the ‘E.

Whether you are a fan of TNA or not this is good news for the industry. Hopefully it will force WWE to put forth a strong product every Monday and encourage TNA to step its game up as well, after they fell a little flat coming off the success of the live iMPACT! on January 4. One would think they will benefit from the fans who may not have tuned in on Thursday nights switching over during commercials of Raw.

The full press conference of the announcment is below.