Jeff Hardy Returns To TNA

On this week's Impact, Jeff Hardy returned after taking a few months off after a certain incident. Everyone probably knows what I mean. Are his drug problems cleared up for good? He will be serving a little bit of time in jail. Will that be enough to set him straight? Interestingly enough, TNA had the opportunity to treat Jeff's return in a very similar manner as to what the WWE has been doing with CM Punk. Jeff Hardy had a pipe bomb in his hand. Of course, doing what CM Punk did in this kind of situation would have angered a lot of fans. You do not want to sound too arrogant when you have drug problems and are responsible for negative controversy towards yourself and your company. How important is Jeff Hardy to TNA? Very. He is popular. He can definitely move merchandise. The WWE did not want to lose this guy, although he was close to getting released if his drug problems persisted. TNA has gotten by with Jeff Hardy gone these few months, but having him back and at 100% can only help them.

I spend a lot of time talking about Raw ratings. Let me switch to TNA. As usual, I get my ratings data from here. Impact is not beating Raw in the ratings. Impact is not beating Smackdown in the ratings. If Superstars was not canned earlier in the year, Impact would at least be beating that. Done? Not quite. Believe it or not, I like the direction TNA seems to be going based on its ratings. For this year so far, Impact has not had one weekly rating drop below a 1.0. From what I am seeing, that is the first time the show has gone this long in a year without going that low. That will probably end when football comes into the equation, but it is still a good sign. Even more interestingly, TNA stands to have its best year in the ratings. Their yearly average in 2009 was 1.14. As of right now, their 2011 average is around a 1.19. All this may sound pitiful. Getting excited over a 1.19? It is still improvement. And it is not improvement that I can easily latch onto one performer or change. Sting returned back in March, but ratings were still pretty good for some of the weeks prior to that. Jeff Hardy left shortly after Sting's return, but ratings did not die off without him. I am considering any weekly rating above a 1.19 good, since that will strengthen or maintain the average. Depending on how soon TNA can really count on Jeff Hardy, and how they choose to use him, ratings may benefit from that. Again, you still have football looming. But if TNA can survive it, this might be a record year for them.