So, who's to blame now?

Vince Russo, the supposed "innovative" wrestling television writer whose time in WCW saw the company go to complete shambles? A man whose booking of the WCW product actually lead to legitimate discussion within the wrestling industry that Vince McMahon was secretly paying him to destroy the competition?

Kurt Angle? Whose self-booking now includes an ill-timed (too close to the Benoit Family Tragedy) on-air storyline involving his mistreatment of his real life wife Karen? Whose booking of the storyline will no doubt lead to Karen turning on Samoa Joe, and further negates the effectiveness of the top homegrown TNA babyface?

Jeff Jarrett? The co-founder of the promotion, which has lost approximately 50 (yes, that's right ... FIFTY) million dollars of the privately-held Panda Energy's equity investment, who has brought Adam "Pacman" Jones, a notorious, infamous celebrity (serving a one year suspension from the NFL for a number of incidents, including a gun fight in a Vegas strip club where the general manager is now paralyzed) into the wrestling business in hopes of garnering mainstream publicity?

TNA Wrestling on Spike TV drew a .99 rating last night. That's disgraceful, especially leading into the pay per view this Sunday. How can TNA Wrestling be serious about wanting 2 hours (and they're going to get it, it's all but signed) this fall when they can't sustain a 1.0 rating over only one hour?

TNA Wrestling needs to seriously evaluated their company and get back on track. This rating should be the big wake up call.

Dave Scherer of www.pwinsider.com recommended on his premium hotline that TNA make the approach to former ECW owner and creative guru Paul Heyman, who is no longer under WWE contract. Scherer doubts that Heyman would take the offer (he reportedly is involved in outside-wrestling projects and feels he's accomplished everything in the wrestling business), but still thinks TNA should make the approach, especially with the two hour TNA show soon to start on Spike TV. Scherer reported this afternoon Last night's edition of Impact did a 1.0 cable rating. That is down from recent weeks and indicates that while they got some press by having Adam "Pacman" Jones appear on the show, it didn't translate into a larger viewing audience.

Wade Keller reported today (TNA News: Impact ratings drop once again) on PWTorch that The range of Impact's ratings are rarely big enough to draw huge conclusions as there is a certain margin of error and natural audience fluctuation from week to week no matter what the quality of the program. However, last night's show is being criticized in many circles for being too frenetic and densely booked, and some would say stressing all of the wrong aspects of some key characters and feuds. This rating is a mark against TNA's preoccupation with going back to fringe sports celebrities to try to get a ratings boost from mainstream attention. Being on the mainstream sports media radar for a week is much less important and influential than 12 weeks of great wrestling, featuring wrestlers fans want to see put in the best position to succeed, with big matches on TV built up over several weeks, not several minutes (or seconds). It's not as "fun" to book a great wrestling show with underutilized wrestlers who weren't stars in 1997 compared to hob-nobbing with sports celebrity assholes, but it's the right approach for business.