Powell's Blog: UFC going head-to-head with WWE Raw in January should put a rumor to rest, consistency is the key for TNA going forward, an important edition of WWE Raw tonight

Monday, November 16 – 6:22 P.M. (CT)

-The news that UFC is running an Ultimate Fight Night on January 11, 2010 caught my attention because the MMA company will be going head-to-head with the WWE Raw show. I spoke to a source today who said UFC isn't targeting WWE by running a Monday show. Rather, they simply booked the date without WWE in mind.

The source also pointed out that the UFC show being booked for January 11 should put to rest any rumors of TNA launching a Monday night show on January 4. There had been some minor buzz within the industry that that a move to Mondays beginning January 4 was a possibility, but the fact that UFC is running the following week makes that seem even less likely. After all, it would be odd for TNA to debut one Monday and then take the following Monday off.

-The TNA Turning Point pay-per-view was the company's best show of the year so far. The most encouraging aspect is that the company's pay-per-view events have improved in each of the last three months. The No Surrender show was better than Hard Justice, and Bound For Glory was a big improvement over No Surrender. Finally, Turning Point was one of the best events the company has produced.

It will take some time for TNA to win over pay-per-view consumers. They've been notorious over the years for delivering cheap finishes and unsatisfactory pay-per-view events, and the only way to shake that reputation is to continue to deliver strong events like Turning Point.

Sadly, I believe Turning Point will produce one of the worst buy rates of the year for TNA. The television ratings for Impact have been disappointing, and Turning Point went up against one of the biggest regular season football games of the year in the Patriots vs. Colts last night. Nevertheless, the positive buzz coming out of Turning Point is great for the company. If they can continue to deliver quality shows and prove that this event wasn't a fluke, the word will spread and fans will eventually take a chance on a future event.

-Tonight's Raw is big for WWE. Vince McMahon takes all of his Madison Square Garden events seriously, but more importantly the hype for the Survivor Series has been lousy. Triple H and Shawn Michaels have been too busy delivering one-liners to set up their Triple Threat match against John Cena properly, and WWE must come through with a big angle on tonight's show to get people excited about the match.

I'm praying that Shawn and Hunter can stop telling jokes long enough to promote this match. I was intrigued by the thought of the DX duo facing Cena when the match was first announced, but I've actually lost interest since the so called hype started. I'm sure they'll deliver an entertaining Triple Threat match on Sunday, but the question is whether they can do enough on the go-home show to make people dish out the money to watch it. Sadly, WWE has failed to make Survivor Series feel like a "must see" show, and tonight is there last chance to create the vibe on their flagship show.

I'll be covering the WWE Raw show live tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. CT. Feel free to watch along with me or just check in for the results as they happen. Dot Net Members will be listening to my audio recap of the show later tonight. You can gain access to all Dot Net Audio on the ad-free version of the site via the Dot Net Members' Signup Page.