It seems that the concept of making money in 2009 has been completely lost when it comes to the professional wrestling industry.

The term ‘draw' is thrown around so frequently today and yet I don't believe there are many performers in professional wrestling right now that can be considered one. There are no draws in TNA right now as any performer placed in any situation is not going to spike business and it is largely the ‘TNA' name that is drawing the same audience to TV every week and the same amount to Pay Per View one Sunday a month. The last time we saw something ‘draw' in TNA it was a unique main event between Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe at the 2008 ‘Lockdown' event - it was so successful that the company abandoned the promotional practice and reverted back to the same type of promotion that hinders rather than enhances their pay per view audience each month.

In the WWE there are certainly some performers that can be classified as ‘draws'. There is no question John Cena is one of them - he draws young audiences to live events and sells a ton of merchandise but TV quarters and pay per view buys are largely based on how the collective ‘WWE broth' tastes each month as opposed to a single ingredient making a significant difference. The terms ‘WWE' and ‘WrestleMania' are probably the biggest draws in the company rather than any one performer who could make a large difference in business.

My biggest problem I see within the two major wrestling promotions right now is a feeling of ‘satisfaction' with what is working. WWE pay per view business is not great but it's passable, television ratings are good but not great, their top characters are not Steve Austin or Rock level attractions but they are over and the quarterly financial results reflect a very healthy company despite ignoring gigantic pay per view declines and being able to flip the page to money being made up for those losses and a result of ‘everything is rosy' and we will continue ‘business as usual'.

Over in TNA the company is serving one master and that is Spike TV, who are content with their weekly 1.1 - 1.2 rating as the company continues to run in circles with the ever elusive ‘2 million viewer' mark seemingly valued a lot more than attaining 80,000 buys on pay per view.

When did professional wrestling shows start caring more about arbitrary television numbers than substantive pay per view numbers?

The WWE and TNA are locked into very comfortable and stable television contracts and are not in any danger of being cancelled. Yet we just finished a week where the WWE decided that mocking a sports team owner took precedent over time spent on national television to build to their pay per view in two weeks, which has the potential to generate significantly higher returns than convincing fans that this faceless sports team owner was a jackass. This came one night after the latest TNA pay per view event where fans that spent $30 were teased with the promise of seeing ‘three former world champions' if you tune into ‘Impact' this week - is this not ass backwards?

The UFC has proven that Pay Per View is far from a dying business and yet their juggernaut of success appears to be so daunting to the professional wrestling industry that they have thrown in the towel stating that ‘we are entertainment and they are sport' despite the UFC using a pro wrestling presentation to draw buys every month.

Whether ‘Raw' does a 3.2 or 4.0 next week means nothing because they are paid a fixed rate by the USA Network and do not control the advertising and the same deal applies to the TNA and Spike TV relationship. I would never insist that either company negate their television responsibilities and not deliver a strong product but at the same time - the pay per view is the focus and the money earner for each company, which takes priority over quarter hours and over run segments to build an artificial number that will never be monetized to the degree that taking those same viewers and turning them into ‘pay per view customers' will be.

TV has always been a bridge for wrestling promoters to grab fans and lead them somewhere - be it a house show or a pay per view - but today the bridge has become the start and end point for the wrestling fan.

Rather than freaking out about television ratings every week - one should have the patience to monitor those TV ratings and then check out the financial reports and see what those ratings led to each month in terms of PPV buys - and that would be a better reflection of how the TV time was utilized.

There has never been a point where I am less interested in checking out a pay per view each month from these companies and there are a litany of reasons why - but the paramount one is that the TV every week enhances my belief that it really doesn't matter whether I catch this show or not. The emphasis on TV over pay per view dates back to the fall out from the ‘Monday Night Wars' but in 2009 the only war going on is a ‘civil war' with each company only hurting themselves by taking their focus off of pay per view business and hoping for a quick fix with a strong television number that paints a façade that ‘everything is great'.