Okay before I start let me say something. Some people smoke cigarettes, some people drink, some people do drugs…I watch professional wrestling. It’s one of those things my parents go, “You’re still doing that?” when they see me watching, and it’s something I’ve tried to drop in every way, replace it with something else, go cold turkey, but at the end of the day I’m still a fan. It’s not like I’m a child who believes it’s all real, nor do I idolize any of these wrestlers, I just appreciate it as a form of entertainment. I think it’s a very interesting style of entertainment, that given the physical limitations of how it can pay off for fans, is blessed to have lasted this long.
And if there is one thing that I think wrestling fans and non-fans can agree upon it’s that a lot of the stuff that’s put on TV, especially with the biggest company, World Wrestling Entertainment, is stupid. Most of it has been done before in some shape or form, so as a fan that actually wanted to see something original, I spent a few years in the early 00’s trying to find an alternative. And then, like magic, I found one. An indie promotion that was quickly making it’s way up the ranks, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. It was owned by ex-WWF Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett, and it featured a lot of guys I loved that had been given the axe by the WWE over the years. So as soon as they got a cable deal on Spike TV, I tuned in every week to see what was up, and for the first couple of years what they were giving me was awesome. We had new and original characters, fantastic matches and good booking. I mean it all seemed perfect, but slowly, as TNA grew as a company, it started to do something that any company looking to make a profit does; it started to sell out. Jarrett started bringing in “names,” or older wrestlers who at one point had a name for themselves, but as they aged well into their 40’s lost it for the obvious reason that they couldn’t keep up with the young guns who had been tearing down the roof since TNA’s birth. Guys like “Big Poppa Pump” Scott Steiner, whose arms are so grotesquely huge, they make my Christmas ham look like kitchen scraps, and Kevin “Big Sexy” Nash, whose ankles were as brittle as a twig were consuming more television time than some of TNA’s originals, some of whom have been more or less driven from the company due to these politics.
"We've all become members of the AARP!"Now, I’m not saying the entire place is run by 40-50 year old wash ups, I mean there are a handful of 40+ wrestlers in TNA that can definitely hold their own among the young guys, people like Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle, Booker T, and the biggest name never to sign with Vince McMahon, Sting. But over the past few years, TNA has dropped the ball so many times that as a fan, I feel betrayed. I feel like I watched them grow from nothing to something over a period of a few years and now that they have lukewarm ratings and a slowly growing fan base, they have merely taken the easy route rather than continue to put out innovative matches with fascinating storylines.
So, as a fan, I’m going to write five pieces, this being the first, on the state of Total Nonstop Action wrestling and the product they are making. The five topics will be as follows:
1) Match Gimmicks- How they went from giving the fans new and cool ideas, to repeating the same old stuff over and over just to try and be different.
2) The Knockout Division- TNA has attempted to re-vitalize women’s wrestling by starting a “Knockout” division that showcases women’s wrestling as opposed to the WWE, whose women’s roster is made up of 90% pretty blondes.
3) The X-Division- Perhaps TNA’s biggest asset, high risk matches, high risk performers, and probably the most potential in the world.
4) The Tag Teams- Tag Team wrestling is an art that many, including the WWE, have seemingly forgotten how to utilize. TNA is far from perfect too.
5) The Main Event- What people pay for, the main event wrestlers are expected to perform better, but do they?
So without any further ado, I shall start.
TNA Critique #1: Match Gimmicks
If you ask anybody if they remember Mankind being thrown off the top of the Hell in a Cell some ten years ago, they’ll probably have at least heard of the incident, if not seen it. That was an epic moment in the pro wrestling world, and it can mainly be attributed to the fact that the gimmick match, the Hell in a Cell, was in place. If it weren’t for those steel walls, there would be no elevation, no fun added to the match, it’d just be an ordinary match. And TNA has been attempting to create their own gimmicks, and some have failed and some have succeeded. Let’s take a look.
There’s the Ultimate X match, a match in which two wires are suspended from two ring posts (oh did I mention the ring in TNA is six sided?) and competitors have to shimmy across the wire to a giant red X at the crossing of the two wires. It’s cool and original, and there is the Ultimate X’s cousin the Elevation X, a match in which instead of wire above the ring there is a small scaffold, and the match ends when someone takes a dive from the scaffolding. A good match idea in theory, but we all know how it’s going to end, no way to really surprise the fans. There’s also the Terrordome, which took a new name, but because I haven’t been following so much, I don’t know what it is. Escape match maybe? This is a really cool match that has yet to be truly milked. The ring is surrounded by a cage and a dome is placed on top with a small opening. The goal, like a classic cage match, is to escape the cage from the small hole in the dome. A very cool concept, but the match has been booked as a 8+ man battle royale, which completely takes away any intimacy the match can offer, just to give a spot fest for rabid fans (definition of a spot fest-a match which is filled with big flashy moves to wow the fans quickly). It is a great take on the cage match, it just needs to be utilized better. But TNA focuses more on Ultimate X and the their two big retrieval type matches than this, so I wouldn’t be surprised to either see the Terrordome disappear, or continue to be booked disastrously.
How "fake" is that?The two retrieval matches that TNA has prided itself in, aside from Ultimate X, which really is their child, are the King of the Mountain match and the Feast or Fired battle royale. Bad concept first. Feast or Fired; this match is booked as a battle royale in which four briefcases hang from four of the six corners of the ring, three briefcases contain title shots and one contains a pink slip, firing the superstar who gets it. While this is an interesting concept, poor booking has ultimately yielded the results of it to be lackluster and unworthy performers won cases while deserving ones were fired in order to bring in new gimmicks (definition in the wrestling world of gimmicks- characters, usually predictable one trick pony people that make an easy few dollars before fizzling out and losing their popularity). I haven’t really been satisfied with the way that Feast or Fired has worked in the two years it’s been in tact. From the booking of the match to the culmination of each case being cashed in, there has never been a great moment provided by Feast or Fired. And then there is the King of the Mountain, the heavyweight division’s Ultimate X. This match is a very interesting twist on the classic ladder match, while historically in ladder matches the object is to retrieve a belt from hanging above the ring, in this match the goal is to take the belt from the ground and hang it above the ring. It sounds corny, but I’ve watched a few of these matches and they are really cool to see.
OuchSo these are gimmick matches, easy overs on the crowd that boost buyrates on Pay-Per-View’s. But I don’t have problems with those, right? Well first let me say that I think relying on so many gimmicks is sad. WWE has a few gimmick matches every year, the Elimination Chamber, the Royal Rumble (which may be the best gimmick ever to exist), the Survivor Series 10-man tag team matches, and a few cage, ladder, and cell matches thrown in. These gimmick matches are hardly spot fests, and they are seen as classics in the company. A year without one of these matches would be disappointing to fans. In TNA, aside from Ultimate X and King of the Mountain, there really is no great match to look forward to, since these other gimmicks either suck, or are too predictable to enjoy. It is impressive that TNA has built up a repertoire of original match types, but with a six sided ring, matches already have an interesting feel that no other company can deliver.
And TNA not only has too many gimmick matches, but they have a gimmick Pay-Per-View, called Lockdown, in which all the matches are battled in a cage. So they take a gimmick I find to be entirely played out, and spend 3-4 hours of my time trying to make forget that I’ve seen it too many times. While I’m not saying that the Lockdown matches are bad, it’s just unoriginal, and I wish that there were better things they would be spending their time and talent on.
But all grand gimmicks aside, TNA has a huge problem with overbooking basic gimmick matches on their weekly Impact program. A night without gimmicks would basically consist of a series of single matches, and maybe one tag team match and one women’s match. TNA can’t do that. They have to overhaul the fans with 6-8 man tag team matches, inter-gender tag team matches, and handicapped matches, in which two men will take on one man, or three men will take on two, etc.. The fact that there are so many gimmick matches on their weekly show means they are shying away from raw matches that got them their fans in an effort to bring in people that want to see more interesting matches. They are appealing to those with low attention spans, who think that singles matches are boring, when in actuality these gimmicks are what are boring me and many other loyal fans the most. Here is my dream Impact, I’ll be generous and give it six matches. Tell me if this is overly gimmicky.
Match 1: Singles match, #1 Contender for the X-Title
Chris Sabin vs. Sonjay Dutt
Match 2: Singles match
Matt Morgan vs. Kip James
Match 3: Tag Team Title Match
Robert Roode and James Storm vs. Scott Steiner and Booker T
Match 4: Knockout Match
Angelina Love vs. Sojourner Bolt
Match 5: Number one contender for the TNA title
A.J. Styles vs. Abyss
Match 6: Main Event
Kurt Angle vs. Rhino
And that is a weak card. That is just the bottom of the barrel for what they can do, and I even put wrestlers I don’t think are that great, just to prove that it’s possible to accommodate these older names. But TNA has stacked these Impact episodes where there are multiple handicapped matches, and several no DQ, weapons matches and other such gimmicks to try and increase their ratings.
TOO MANY PEOPLE!So the bottom line is this. On the pay-per-view’s, don’t worry so much. Don’t throw battle royals just to put Wrestler X on the bill and have him deliver one huge spot before disappearing into the abyss of the rest of your roster. Develop these great gimmicks in Ultimate X and King of the Mountain to the level in which they are talked about all year until they return, and why not throw a surprise one onto an episode of Impact, like then WWF did with their classic TLC match on Smackdown, a match I’ll never forget. And on Impact, less is more. Stop booking weak matches with a little asterisk just to attempt to draw in fans, it’s clearly not working. Stick to the basics and all can be well.
Thank you for reading this, leave comments if you want.
