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TNALT - COMING SOON TO PWINSIDERXTRA.COM

The Needed Alternative  

As some reading this may have been aware, up until this past Summer myself and Mark Bright (along with Michael Campbell, whose 'Cynical View' you can check out here at PWInsiderXtra.com) were writing elsewhere in cyberspace.  

I can't speak for Mark, but in all honesty, I got pretty bummed out with writing about and watching wrestling a few months back. Its a story that many are familiar with, with a number of Elite members here at PWInsider.com no longer watching WWE or TNA programming, and relying on the website to follow the business and keep up with what's happening on TV and on PPV.  

The Chris Benoit tragedy certainly didn't help things, but after an extremely promising start to 2007 (especially WWE's programming from January through to WrestleMania), the quality of storylines both in WWE and in TNA just bored me to tears.  

Especially in TNA.  

Here's where myself and Mark come in, with TNAlt - a new feature exclusive to PWInsiderXTRA.com. File it under 'fantasy booking' if you wish to do so, but we're hopeful that this new feature can achieve two things for readers:  

1 - Brighten up your week with an alternative TV "show" to TNA's weekly broadcasts and monthly PPV's.

2 - Hopefully and Regularly give you a better product than the actual product TNA are putting out right now.

Now like I said, you can call this fantasy booking if you want to, but we're going to make this as realistic as we can given the circumstances, and we'll be looking for your input along the way. Call it our own vision of how TNA’s product should be. How many times have you logged on to this website, read spoilers for a TV show and thought, "That looks like a great show" or "I'll give that a miss this week." Well, with TNAlt, we're hoping you have exactly the same reaction.

Each Sunday, we'll be posting a new show, and we'll be looking for a "thumbs up", a "thumbs in the middle" or a "thumbs down," with your votes translating to a rating of sorts, similar to how a TV show receives a rating based on viewer numbers. In line with current TNA TV ratings, we'll be starting off with a 1.0 rating. Each week, your votes affect how our cybershow has fared. If the majority give the show a "thumbs up", the rating creeps up by 0.1 for that week. If we get a "thumbs down" from the majority of viewers, the rating drops by 0.1 for that week. If the majority vote with their "thumbs in the middle," the rating will stay the same heading into the next week.

So why Sunday? That's simple enough. Like we said, we're trying to make this as realistic as possible. That means we'll only ever script shows based on the current TNA roster. For those who watch the real TNA shows, we'll ensure that you're not at risk of any spoilers. For example, as things stand now, you won't see Brock Lesnar in our shows, as he's not under TNA contract. However, should he end up in TNA (and we're certainly not suggesting he will), he won't appear here on a Sunday until after he's debuted on Spike TV - even if that show was taped well in advance.

Also, in keeping things as realistic as possible, should any current (or future) TNA wrestler end up leaving the company for whatever reason, we'll find a way to write him out of our weekly feature within two weeks.  

Just like TNA has a monthly PPV, we'll also be writing our own monthly PPV. Again, for the benefit of those who follow the live TNA coverage on PWInsider.com, we'll ensure you're kept spoiler free and will publish our monthly PPV feature the following Wednesday, giving you a few days to either read the coverage here on the website, or watch the PPV itself.  

We'll be kicking things off one week this Sunday, October 21 and hope you enjoy this new addition to the website. We’ll get an email address ready for them, but in the meantime you can get in touch with any questions or feedback prior to launch at phil.lowe@ntlworld.com