TEN THINGS TNA MIGHT WANT TO THINK ABOUT BEFORE THEIR NEXT IMPACT TAPINGS
By Stuart Carapola on 2010-04-12 08:00:00
There's not many things that frustrate me more as a wrestling fan than watching companies miss golden opportunities. I think we can all recognize that wrestling is nowhere near the level of popularity it was at ten years ago, and in that time I've seen countless opportunities fall into the laps of both WWE and TNA that, for whatever reason, they either failed or refused to capitalize on.
Since I took over the TNA Impact Report here on PWInsider.com, I've seen TNA squander opportunity after opportunity to draw people in. More people watched Impact on January 4th than any other single episode in the history of the company, and in true Nitro fashion, they threw out surprise after surprise to keep people tuned in. Also in true Nitro fashion, they had absolutely nothing to follow it up with and whatever people tuned in for that historic first head-to-head Monday night meeting were gone again within weeks. They failed to put on an interesting enough episode to draw people back in when they made the permanent move to Monday nights.
Even this past week when they finally gave in to the conventional wisdom of moving Impact to 8pm so they could try and gain some ground with an unopposed hour, they gave us what was probably the worst episode of Impact this year, an episode that centered not around the two top matches at the upcoming Lockdown PPV, but around a ridiculous, convoluted women's gimmick tournament where the Knockouts Title was won not in the ring, but by unlocking a box in a non-wrestling segment.
If you can boil TNA's problems down to one main issue, at least over the last few months, it's that they've been given several golden opportunities to present a show that will get wrestling fans in general to tune in, and hopefully get some of Raw's audience to change channels, and they have not only failed to take advantage of them, but almost seem determined to put their worst foot forward whenever these opportunities arise. Fortunately, word coming out of the latest Impact tapings is that they realize what a stinker last week's Impact was, and blame is largely being pointed at Hulk Hogan for this, but at this point casting blame should be of secondary importance to figuring out what they need to do to turn things around and, as of last week's Impact tapings, had two weeks until the next taping cycle to come up with something better.
With that in mind, here are some suggestions for things I think TNA would do well to factor into their future booking plans, most of which simply seem like common sense to me.
Get AJ Styles as far away from Ric Flair as you can.
AJ Styles is a great wrestler and has come a very long way to become a pretty good promo guy. He absolutely deserves to be the TNA World Champion, and I know that the idea behind giving him Flair as a manager was that Flair would give him a rub and really get him over the hump. The problem is that Ric Flair is one of the best promo guys in the history of the business, if not the best, and no matter what AJ says or does, as soon as Flair opens his mouth he's overshadowing AJ. What's worse is that over the last several weeks, AJ has barely uttered a word while he's stood there and watched Flair and Hogan banter back and forth. AJ is the World Champion, but Hogan and Flair, two mostly-retired wrestlers who are both hovering around 60, are the stars of the show. The main event of Lockdown isn't AJ's title defense, it's Team Hogan vs Team Flair in a Lethal Lockdown match. If you want to work a Hogan/Flair angle underneath, then that's fine, but AJ is the World Champion and the World Champion is supposed to be the focus of the promotion, not second fiddle to a 62 year old man who looks and moves ten years older than he is.
Please, for the love of all that is good, NO MORE CONVOLUTED GIMMICK MATCHES.
For some reason, TNA really loves their complex, convoluted gimmick matches where the time needed to read the rules of the match takes longer than the match itself, and the Knockouts Lock Box Challenge from this past week's Impact is a prime example of that. I know wrestling fans sometimes get their panties in a bunch about having their intelligence insulted not only by outsiders but by the wrestling companies themselves, but I don't think the answer is giving them a match they need to take a college course in to understand. Here's a good rule of thumb for TNA to follow: if there's more than two rules applied to any particular match, it's too many. Even two is pushing it. I've said for a long time that one of the reasons people can remember stuff that happened 15 years ago better than stuff they saw on TV a week ago is because these days, especially in TNA, there's so much crap crammed into every segment that it's impossible for the fans to follow, let alone remember. Now, when you take that overwhelming amount of information and cram it into one stipulation match, you're really overloading the fans. That's not a knock on the fans by any means, but you're just doing too much in one shot when you're trying to accomplish something you can accomplish with 1/10th the effort.
Stop bringing in washed up former WWE and WCW wrestlers, and do something productive with the ones who still have something to offer.
On some level, I can understand why they would want to bring in guys like Hall, Nash, Waltman, and Anderson. At one time or another, they were guys who were held in some level of esteem by wrestling fans and the hope was that bringing them in would cause their fans to follow them to TNA. But what does Sean Morley bring to the table, and why is he going over Christopher Daniels? What does Orlando Jordan bring to the table (other than the bisexual angle, which we'll get to in a second) and why is he going over Samoa Joe? And of course, what do the Nasty Boys bring to the table and why are they going over Team 3D? The funniest thing about this is that they're bringing in all these guys and giving them featured roles, but then they bring in Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam, two of the biggest stars WWE has had in recent years, both of whom are far more popular with people over the age of 12 than Cena, Orton, or Batista ever were, and they position them as Hogan's flunkies and stick them in a dumb midcard feud with the Wolfpac and Eric Young. This is like WCW levels of pushing the wrong guys and burying the guys who have the potential to do the most for them.
Give up on the Orlando Jordan angle.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't have a problem with them doing an angle about an openly gay or bisexual wrestler. What I do have a problem with is them going so far over the top with it to the point that he's cavorting around in police tape and symbolically smearing white cream all over his face and chest that it becomes not only a mockery of himself as an openly bisexual man, but also potentially really offensive to gay and bisexual fans who have been trying to escape the negative stigmas that go with the gay and bisexual lifestyle for years and years now. I think that Orlando Jordan stinks as a wrestler, but if his character were portrayed in a more positive light (such as having him come out and say, "This is me and I'm proud of who I am.") they could have really done something groundbreaking in a business that largely centers around male machismo. But this is wrestling, and instead Orlando Jordan has become a cartoonish stereotype. I'm really disappointed in TNA for the Orlando Jordan angle, and unless Orlando pulls a Seven/Beaver Cleavage and says "You know what, I can't do this anymore. This is ridiculous and insulting, and I'm not going to let myself be portrayed like this anymore" and turns it into him fighting the sterotype, then this is going to be one of those angles like Katie Vick that's included in every "I can't believe they did something this stupid" retrospective, because as is it's just out there for shock value.
Please, no more insider remarks by Eric Bischoff.
For a company that is as down as TNA is on the fans who read wrestling insider news sites, Eric Bischoff sure does drop a lot of comments about firing people by FedEx and what a dumb idea it would be for a wrestling promoter to start their own football league. I think what's escaping Eric is that a lot of people who watch TNA either weren't wrestling fans or were too young to have been around when the stuff he's referencing happened. Even if they have been fans for all that time, there's a pretty good chance that a lot of them aren't privy to the insider stuff and have no idea what he's talking about. I know he thinks it's cute, but it's not helping the rating or bringing in more PPV buys.
Do not name drop any more dead wrestlers in promos.
Over the last couple of weeks, Jay Lethal has mentioned both the Junk Yard Dog and Miss Elizabeth in promos, and I'm not blaming Jay at all because he's just going out there and doing what they tell him to do, but you can't honestly tell me that nobody backstage at TNA realizes they've passed away. In fact, you can't possibly tell me that Hogan himself doesn't know. Somebody, somewhere should have spoken up and said "Hey, you know, maybe it would come off as disrespectful to use their names in an angle since they're dead and all." Now granted, there are probably a lot of people backstage who don't want to risk their professional well being by going against those in power. That said, it really doesn't say much for the character of whoever's decision it was to include their names in Jay Lethal's promos.
Unless we're building to an angle where Bubba The Love Sponge gets beaten bloody in the middle of the ring, get him off of TV.
I know Bubba is Hogan's buddy. I know TNA is looking for some kind of media crossover by having Bubba around. But what can they really expect out of the guy? It's not like he's Howard Stern and has that level of nationwide notoriety. In fact, the only place I'd ever heard Bubba's name prior to him showing up in TNA was when Hogan would go on his show and say all kinds of things that had no basis in reality. He can't wrestle, so we can't expect him to do an angle with a wrestler that will lead to any kind of satisfactory blowoff match. Yes, he pisses off the fans and yes, he pisses off internet writers, but he's not getting booed because he's a good heel or an entertaining promo. He's getting booed because people don't want him there and know that he's only in TNA because he tagged along with Hogan. Unless this is building to something where Amazing Kong comes back and takes him out to the parking lot to torture him, I don't see any positive to having him around.
Do not release any more wrestlers that the TNA fans have identified with as "their guys".
Christopher Daniels had a great feud going with AJ Styles that included not only some great, personal promos but also two outstanding PPV main event matches. Then all of a sudden Hogan comes in, and Daniels gets jobbed out for three months and released. This is so typical of the Eric Bischoff/Hulk Hogan mentality, and they did the same thing in WCW 15 years ago when they let Austin, Foley, and Triple H all walk out the door, and eventually all three of them wound up becoming headliners and millionaires in the WWF. I'm not saying Daniels necessarily has it in him to go somewhere else and shoot up to that level (though I think he's one of the top 5 talents in North America right now), but you never know, first of all. Second of all, as if Hogan's mere presence and the way he regards the company prior to his arrival (which I'll get to in a minute) didn't alienate him with the TNA fanbase already, releasing "their guys" certainly isn't going to do him any favors. I can absolutely see a scenario where the same fate awaits guys like Homicide and Amazing Red, and while that would be fabulous news for ROH, it'll be just one more reason for longtime TNA fans to say that "their TNA" is gone.
Have wrestlers cut promos that are aimed at putting themselves or their angle over, not burying other angles/wrestlers.
When Doug Williams cut that promo this past week talking about how the rest of the X-Division were a bunch of flippy dippy spot monkeys and they need to go back to wrestling school so they could hang with a guy like him, I thought two things. The first was "I've been thinking that for years, because if you've seen one X-Division car crash, you've seen them all. I absolutely agree with Doug." The second thought was "Wow, I can't believe they sent Doug out there to basically bury the entire X-Division." Jim Cornette once said in an ROH shoot interview that if you go out there and say something to the effect of "You're a bad man, opponent. You're big, you're tough, and you're great. But I'm better.", then that will work a lot better than "You have no chance, opponent. You're short, you're fat, you're really out of shape, and you haven't won a match in two years.", because if you say the latter, then all the fans will say "You know what? He's absolutely right, that guy stands no chance. I can miss this match." The problem with what they did with Doug last week is that not only did he basically come right out and expose the shortcomings of all his potential opponents, but he also hurt himself because if he goes out there and beats them all after cutting that promo, how does it make him look good having gone over a bunch of chumps?
Stop having Hogan do promos talking about how he's going to "turn TNA around" or "save the company".
If you want to have Hogan come out and say that he's going to "take TNA to the next level", we all have our doubts but fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you have him say he's going to "turn the company around" and things like that, you're basically saying that the company sucked before and everybody who liked what they saw before were idiots. Furthermore, you're underselling the efforts of all the guys who have been there all along, breaking their asses to bring TNA to the point it was at before Hogan came sauntering in to make all kinds of bold proclamations that he's, thus far, failed to back up. In fact, when he says things like that and then gives us the product we've gotten for months now, it really doesn't do much for the fans' confidence in the guy who's supposed to be leading TNA to the promised land.
* * *
This was just off the top of my head, and I could probably keep going, but I think you get the point by now. TNA has been running increasingly bad episodes of Impact over the last several weeks, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt FOR NOW because somebody, somewhere did at least recognize how bad their product has been recently. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but if after the next set of tapings I still see the same kind of crap that I've been watching for the last several weeks with no sign of improvement or change, then I'm really going to have to question what the future holds for this company and whether this Monday night thing, and the Hogan thing for that matter, is really going to work out for TNA. Because if the rating keeps plummeting at the rate it has been (other than this weeks spike, no pun intended), and TNA gets moved back to Thursdays or cancelled altogether, I really don't see what kind of future they have to look forward to.
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