How will Awesome Kong be utilized in this KO division? She was featured very well during the time she was there a few years ago. TNA is used to rotating around stars. During her final weeks of her last run, it looked like they were legitimately rotating her out of the KO title scene. Luckily, there were tag titles back then to make having more than one KO feud going even easier. Those titles have gone and TNA sometimes fails to properly keep the ball rolling with their women these days, despite still trying to feature respectable women's wrestling. After Awesome Kong wraps up her feud with Havok, I am sure it will be only a matter of time before her and Gail Kim feud again. I am sure many fans are looking forward to that. Another title reign for her will most likely also be on the table. Right now, there are many options for her.
How about the feud between Awesome Kong and Havok? On paper, this is a great feud. You have a dominant KO that has been doing great in recent months facing possibly the most dominant KO ever. I just feel it could have meant more. Havok has only been in TNA a few months. When you keep in mind that TNA stopped airing original content way before the year even ended, the audience has had even less time to really connect with her. They have still kept her dominant and protected her until what will happen now that she is feuding with Awesome Kong, but this feud could have been more epic. Can't blame TNA. They didn't really botch this. More time just would have been nice. You could have developed Havok to be something like a female Goldberg. For what it is, this is a good feud.
The decision in general to bring back Awesome Kong shows one of the good things about TNA's rotational system. They had women on their roster that they could push as their top stars. They had options. I talked about how someone like Taryn Terrell could be a diva-like centerpiece. They had women they could push in the periphery. Outside of that, all you need are credible jobbers to rotate around. Awesome Kong is not here to be a credible jobber. If this was a closed system like the WWE diva division, the people running the show would have the philosophy that they already have women they want to be stars and exclude signing someone like Kharma back, in addition to holding down their own talent on the roster they do not view as stars. I wouldn't be surprised if a promotion like this would also bring back Mickie James in time, regardless of whomever else they have on the roster. If they only did a better job creating and featuring stars, they might be even better than they are.
How about the other KOs? First of all, TNA continues to be efficient and respectable with their women more than the WWE is with their divas. And TNA does not even have the number of women the WWE has. Not counting Christy Hemme, who doesn't wrestle anymore and doesn't get involved in angles on a regular basis, TNA has 9 KOs. The WWE has much more than that on their main roster. And yet, most of those women are not utilized efficiently and some are not great wrestlers. TNA could have continued running a solid division with just 8 women. Just rotate some fresh blood in now and then.
A lot of the women seem to have some angle going for them right now. I talked about Awesome Kong and Havok. Taryn Terrell is still holding the KO title. Brooke is back and feuding against her former Amazing Race partner. Velvet Sky and Angelina Love have a periphery angle going for them. Rebel has her periphery angle. Very few women have no real angle going and are just floating around. Gail Kim happens to be one of them. Not shocking. TNA does not run a true centerpiece system like the WWE does. TNA is just putting the spotlight on other women now. Gail Kim is still wrestling, but she is neither a major focus nor getting some kind of periphery angle. That will not last long.
Since I am on the subject of TNA, how about the ratings for their first show on the new network? Viewership averaged 263,000. That is worse than I was expecting. A loss was obvious. A bad loss was even obvious. But TNA has gone down to about a quarter of what they would typically get a year ago. The WWE would probably go out of business before seeing Raw's numbers slip that low. Keep in mind, this was a live show and there was some hype around it. What happens for those taped shows and when the product gets staler? It will get worse. Of course, it could get a little better if the product improves and the star power is there.
You obviously should look at how TNA Impact is doing in relation to other shows on Destination America. Moreover, the network could be viewing this program as something that can help them expand. Pro wrestling has that power to attract all types of fans. It can attract men and women. It can attract young and old. It can attract various races. It can attract people entertained by different things. If TNA can put out a quality product, that might get people who do not watch Destination America tuning in or people that don't even get that channel trying to get it. TNA can help Destination America. The network is doing a few things to help them. I wouldn't rush to say TNA has flopped just yet.
EDIT: I rarely do these kind of things. I have to make a correction. I said TNA did 263,000 last week. This report says they did 359,000 viewers. They cite TV By The Numbers as their source. I trust that source. I go there a lot. Going by the new number, that is more respectable and closer to where I was expecting. Still not amazing, but it was to be expected that there would be a drop.
