Less than five hundred buys! Last Sunday the National Wrestling Alliance held its When Our Shadows Fall pay per view. According to Dave Meltzer they did less five hundred buys. Now is worth noting Dave Meltzer himself says this is buys through traditional cable or satellite sales and the majority of the NWA's business is expected to come through streaming via FITE TV. However again reports are these early buys are way down from Back For The Attack the previous NWA pay per view. Some think this number is shocking I however don't. The NWA did just about everything you aren't supposed to do in order to get fans to buy your major event. And I am going to break all them down
Long Layoff Kills Momentum- The NWA was one of the last notable wrestling companies to resume production of shows after the pandemic. I do understand some of there logic in being shut down. It wasn't clear how long the pandemic would last, not wanting to put people in danger, limits imposed by different government officials and that is even if the studio would let them film. . Every wrestling company faced the issue of when to restart and got the jump on NWA. WWE used the CWC and than rented areas. AEW used Daily's place and the Nightmare factory. Both Impact and ROH picked studios to film in with no fans. Supposedly Billy Corgan didn't want to hold NWA events without fans. But wrestling relies heavly on weekly shows to advance stories and keep fans hooked. The longer the NWA was off the less fans remembered or cared what was going on. While Powerrr was on hiatus the NWA tried a few things to keep some buzz going they uploaded old pay per views and big matches to there You Tube but with so little mateiral to use they ran out. Than there was Carneyland.
Carneyland was supposed to be the fill in for Powerrr a weekly youtube series featuring NWA talent that could be filmed at there homes. And it was awful I think maybe one episode aired and it had Nick Aldis telling some story where he got the better of a promoter who was trying to back out of a deal to pay for a hotel. Allysin Kaye did something in her bedroom and for some reason Wade/Stu Barrett was a disembodied voice. And none of this was done to advance or create an angle. Meanwhile you had AEW bring in FTR and build up Kenny Omega, WWE got Roman back and made him heel, Impact had major returns or debuts like the Good Brothers. The NWA was just dead. Some NWA matches were a part of a UWN Primetime but those from what I can tell felt largely disconnected from what NWA was doing.
Talent Departures- The NWA had built up a pretty good crew of talent at one point but during the shut down they lost Ricky Starks, Eddie Kingston, James Storm, Ziggy Dice, Allysin Kaye, Royce Issacs, Colt Cabana, Eli Drake and actually more. It really did look like they might come back with only Nick Aldis and Tim Storm. And if you look at the names they did lose it a lot of great talent and a good mix of talent NWA was building up and big names from elsewhere. Dice was pretty open his issues with Nick Aldis drove him off. Others it seems there contract expired and left to seek work elsewhere. Cabana is now part of one of AEW's most over acts, Kingston's feud with Jon Moxley did a great number on Pay Per View and he's a weekly highlight on Dynamite. The NWA seemed to be building up Starks as a long term project but any payoff to his potential seems to be AEW's for the taking.
Losing so much talent also just sent a bad message to to fans. It told them the NWA wasn't the place to be. The NWA in fans eyes became a place where talent went to get paid a bit before another better company picked them up. While talent departing is unavoidable and actually can help to keep a roster fresh a mass exodus reflected badly on the promotion and owner Billy Corgan. It hasn't helped some of the replacement talent brought in by the NWA haven't connected as well. Tyrus a decent name came in with added baggage from a sexual harassments lawsuit and didn't seem to be in ring shape enough to work even short matches. Segments with Taryn Terell has been panned in reviews I have seen. And while I am fan of both guys Nick Alidis vs. Trevor Murdock doesn't scream must see main event instead it says TNA Xplosion. But given Aron Stevens had already gotten a shot at Aldis and was tied up in the division, who else was there?
The Move Behind a Pay Wall- NWA Powerrr created a decent buzz as a free to view series on You Tube. All fans had to really invest and sit through a few adds you got NWA action. Fans were in for a shock when before the return of the NWA, all the past episodes of Powerrr were removed from You Tube. The news soon came that instead of returning to You Tube the show was moving to FITE TV for a fee. Generally the reason given the NWA felt they could make higher revenue with a subscription fee on FITE vs. You Tube ad sales. Which in some other timeline where the pandemic never happened and the NWA had been running shows through out 2020 would make sense. But the NWA returned with no ongoing storylines and a depleted roster now asking fans to pay for something they had been getting for free. Which is automatically going to drop the number of people watching your shows.
Than for a PPV the NWA is asking for even more money. Which once again drops the number of people who are willing to buy your event. More casual aren't likely to drop extra money for a show they haven't seen any of the build up for. Meanwhile wrestling fans can watch WWE, AEW, Impact, ROH, and many others that you can view either on free TV or via free streaming. And fans only have so much money to put toward a streaming budget which the NWA also fight with WWE/Peacock, Impact/Impact Plus, New Japan World and many other services. But all it content behind a pay wall the NWA has put itself at a disadvantage.
Nick Aldis Reign- It was a classic move of the NWA to have heel champion who would hold the title for hundreds of days. Nick Aldis fits the mold of the classic NWA champion from his promo style, in ring work, and just how he presents himself. The thing is many of the things from the classic NWA champions don't really work in the modern era of wrestling. We are long past days of the traveling champion who needed to retain via cheap means or a time limit draw. In his second reign which now stretches over one thousand days Aldis has run through every viable option for a challenger. Now personally I do consider himself a fan of Aldis but I've seen a lot of dislike for him online. With a stale champion who some seen to truly dislike its going to hurt buy rates.
Simply Hasn't Been Good- Make no mistake about it there was interest in a NWA return reports suggest the first post COVID pay per view Back For The Attack did decent business and reviews were mostly mixed to positive. But as weeks have gone on the critics haven't been kind. Reviews I've seen have called the show boring, flat and downright bad. Take your pick from ending a show by having the promise main event walk out the door to the easy to mock loser stays in the NWA match, tag champs who hate each other even though one partner got to pick the other. A flat feud with Tyrus and The Pope. Right now there is a lot of wrestling out there and the NWA didn't give fans a good enough reason to pick there PPV. Hopefully Billy Corgan and his team can learn from this and work to get the NWA back on track.
