Last night’s 1/7 TNA Impact Wrestling tapings at the Manhattan Center in New York City, a live-to-tape episode for the debut on Destination America, was described as having a myriad of production issues according to multiple wrestling media reports.
It ended up taking TNA nearly three hours to film the two hour episode of Impact Wrestling on Wednesday night. While they did use previous production staff, they ended up using the Manhattan Center’s production equipment. A variety of technical issues ended up taking place leaving the live audience waiting for nearly 15 to 20 minutes at a time.
David Sahadi was not directing the show last night and it was described as being very clear that the production on Wednesday night wasn’t nearly as smooth as it has been in years past with Spike TV. TNA was forced to cut back on production costs as part of the new deal with Destination America. Going forward, TNA will handle all post-production out of the company headquarters in Nashville with tapings tonight and Friday night.
The company plans to film four episodes of Impact Wrestling including the Lockdown special over the next two nights at the Manhattan Center in New York City. TNA will be filming new episodes during the upcoming UK tour starting in late January. Dixie Carter revealed in interviews this week that TNA is also looking at a possible return to Universal Studios in Orlando at a new sound stage for additional TV tapings in 2015.
Sources: The Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Online, PWInsider.com