By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

While on the interview circuit in the U.K. promoting next year's TNA tour, Ric Flair continues to focus on WWE's business and how TNA can find a competitive advantage.

"Wrestling is a cutting-edge sport. You can't wrap it up in tootsie roll and expect people to buy into it. You can get away with it for so long thanks to the size of the brand, but after that?" Flair said in an interview with Patrick Lennon of the Daily Star.

"The kids are great but there's a huge audience who are tired of it. Older fans are the ones who will make this company fly."

Flair echoed what he discussed with The Mirror that he believes TNA has an opening to compete against WWE due WWE's well-documented depth issues with top stars on the sidelines. He added concern for how WWE is training the next generation of wrestling stars.

"They train them in a factory down there. It's 50 to 70 guys and it's very hard to get one-on-one attention," he said.

Staying on the WWE subject, Flair talked about his frustrations working in WWE at the end of his career before WWE focused on him before his retirement match at WrestleMania 24 in 2008.

"With Vince (McMahon) I was just cruising along, and only in the last couple of months with Shawn did I feel heavily involved. A lot of times I was doing nothing for months at a time," Flair said.

"I hated that period. I wanted to leave a couple of times. Vince is a genius. He makes the decisions and he wanted to go with the younger guys. I understand that, all the younger guys except himself, of course."

Caldwell's Analysis: TNA has two things working against them trying to reach an older demographic compared to WWE tapping into kids who gravitate toward WWE's simplistic programming. One is awareness. TNA simply isn't known like WWE and it won't happen within six months, which Flair curiously predicted in The Mirror interview. Two is the older demo moving along to MMA. There are still plenty of older fans who watch pro wrestling, as evidenced by WWE Raw typically skewing to an average viewing age of 36-years-old.

TNA's struggle has been creating an identifiable product they can sell to an older audience when the audience finds the product. Too often with TNA, you never know what you're going to get. One week it could be all backstage talk and unrealistic b.s. like one wrestler trying to run over another wrestler, then the next week, it could be solid focus on pro wrestling and wrestling stars who are going to make TNA money and draw in the audience (like last night). The name of the game is consistency and the older demographic looking for an alternative to WWE will find TNA when the promotion can string together some good, productive shows like last night.

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