The New TNA: Wrasslin’ Rant #2
So I recently became a fan of TNA wrestling on Facebook. The company posts a lot of bulletins regarding recent happenings, and it seems that every time they do so, between 100-200 complete marks who can barely put a sentence together make comments that read similar to this:
“Duuuuh… TNA now be fucking suck! Is WCW part too… duh… duh. Fuck Hogan!” (*drools on monitor)
Anyone who knows anything about wrestling history knows that Hogan and Bischoff didn’t kill WCW. Ted Turner and Vince Russo have that honor. While there can be no doubt that there was some mismanagement afoot during Bischoff’s WCW tenure, it should also be noted that he drove the company to it’s creative and ratings peak. With that said, I have been optimistic about the changes going on with TNA, as booking/creative over the course of the last few months hadn’t been particularly interesting, in my opinion. I didn’t at all care for the Main Event Mafia gimmick and it seemed like many of the talents have been poorly used, i.e. Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, etc. I enjoyed the 1/4/10 three hour edition of Impact! and had high hopes.
First of all, I did not watch the recent Genesis PPV, so I really can’t comment on the quality of those matches. However, judging by the 1/21/10 edition of Impact!, I may have been far too quick to praise the Hogan/Bischoff regime.
The matches were completely lackluster and whoever had the bright idea to re-enact the “Montreal Screwjob” with Kurt Angle and AJ Styles should probably be fired. The Nasty Boyz were the world’s most boring tag team 10 years ago, and nothing has changed judging from their snooze-fest of a match w/ Kevin Nash and Eric Young. Orlando Jordan was a no-talent hack back when he was in WWE, and putting him over the extremely talented D’Angelo Dinero (especially after the stellar series of matches Dinero has had with Desmond Wolfe of late) is beyond ludicrous.
TNA thrives on having the best young talent in the business, and nobody wants to see these Hogan cronies/has-beens make them look bad with these boring matches. Let’s face it, in a wrestling match you’re only as good as the other person makes you look. Where were Samoa Joe, Daniels, Amazing Red, The Motor City Machine Guns, Desmond Wolfe, Beer Money, Homicide, Suicide, etc?
Also, where the hell is the six-sided ring? The six sides were great for the young high-flyers, adding extra maneuverability, and I have a bad feeling that getting rid of it is an attempt to cater to these geezers and hacks that seem to be riding in on Hogan’s coattails. If this is the case, I’ve got two words for them…
I am pleased however, to see TNA bring Ric Flair and Ken Anderson (formerly the WWE’s Mr. Kennedy), although I would rather have seen Kennedy in an actual match. Anderson wasn’t given a fair shake in WWE in my opinion, but then again it seems like Vince McMahon typically doesn’t know what to do with anyone who has a shred of talent of charisma these days. But that should be made blatantly obvious by the fact that McMahon thinks it’s a good idea to hire and push charisma black holes like Drew McIntyre. Ric Flair’s alliance with AJ Styles could be interesting, but I am surprised to see Styles being turned heel. I hope a little bit of Ric Flair’s charisma will rub off on Styles, because lets face it, as exceptionally talented in the ring as he may be, he usually comes off like Opie Taylor when he tries to cut a promo.
Wrestling fans, we need to be patient. It is going to take time for the new TNA to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Right now there are an awful lot of cooks in the kitchen and many enormous egos in the mix to boot. You have to admit, anything is better than the rated-PG, repetitive crap WWE is peddling week to week at the moment. In my previous rant I stated that WWE should not underestimate TNA, as they currently seem to be. However, if this week’s edition of Impact! is indicative of the new direction TNA is taking, Vince doesn’t have much to sweat about.
TNA is in a state of flux right now, and all we can do is play a game of wait and see. It will either turn into something great, or a complete trainwreck, but either way, I’ll be watching.
Oh and one more thing… where the hell is Shark Boy?!!?!!!
