Tim’s Take 2.09.08: Is TNA Going To Turn That Corner?

-Brock Lesnar’s UFC debut seemed to be pretty damn impressive. I wasn’t a fan of the point being taken away from Brock on the incidental punch to the back of the head. Mir was turning himself and Brock got a punch in there, and had the ref not stopped the fight, chances are Brock would have knocked Mir out legit. The ref should have at least warned Brock first. Mir’s kneebar was just inexperience on Brock’s side, and I am happy to see that he knows the UFC isn’t gonna be a walk in the park. The fans applauding him after his post-match interview is a very good sign. Sounds like they weren’t booing him because they thought it was a spectacle, but because he lost a fight it looked like he could have won. Oh, and Tim Sylvia got absolutely worked by Noguiera. That was the ol’ Nogi Special, and it was about as brilliant a finish as you will ever see. I would have loved to see the Anaconda Choke finish off Sylvia, but a perfect Guillotine does just fine. Now if Couture comes back, does he WANT to even fight Nogi? You know it’s going to happen. I can’t wait.

-The Super Bowl was one of the hardest played games I have ever seen. While Packers/Patirots would have been a nuts Super Bowl, I knew that when the Giants got in, it would still be a great game, and it turned out to be a classic. The 4th Quarter alone warrants the “classic” moniker, as Tom Brady, the best quarterback in football today, got his game-winning drive, and Eli Manning not only matched him, but outplayed him thanks to the final drive, with his scramble and pass to David Tyree being one of the most amazing plays in a pressure situation that I have ever seen. Plus, Plaxico Burriss made Ellis Hobbs look like a moron on that touchdown throw. Fantastic fade route. However, I would not mind somebody putting a bullet in Mercury Morris. Or taking away his vocal cords. That man needs to never talk again.

With that, I will get back to the wrestling, as that is why you guys clicked on my column in the first place.

Color me interested as I looked over some recent news updates here at 411, and this one especially caught my eye. From February 2:

“After all the acclaim Global Impact got, there seems to be an internal push by some in TNA to change the booking style to focus more on competition and athletic personalities. Of course, with Vince Russo at the helm, that seems unlikely.”

-Ashish, from PWIPop-up.com

So this right here is going to be a lot like other columns you have seen on 411, where we get fed up with the way a promotion is booked, so that kooky ideas are cast before personalities that do not match up with those personalities, therefore presenting a product to the masses that seems ridiculous. Vince Russo is the king of said kooky ideas. He tries so hard to make things interesting and dramatic that it takes away from a lot of what’s supposed to happen in the ring. In the end, it’s a jumbled mess of a match, show, or, as you’ve been seeing with TNA Impact!, possibly a jumbled mess of a promotion. Plus, if you’ve been reading Byers’ Impact! Report, he adds all the cynical commentary you could possibly want from this promotion, basically throwing the TNA trash out there on a weekly basis! For free!

Consider the X-Division for a minute. When Vince Russo was a part of TNA in its beginning, it was as an on-screen personality, and he took the man with the most natural athleticism on the roster, AJ Styles, under his wing after he shocked the world and won the NWA World Heavyweight Title. So when someone gets a “promotion” of sorts from the X-Division to the top of the ladder, his natural ability suddenly becomes secondary to a crazy storyline that takes away from what brought Styles to the dance in the first place. This is what bugs me about current bookers and/or creative writers: they have a tendency to push what they want onto somebody when that really isn’t their strength. I don’t really have to bring up Samoa Joe and how he’s been treated since being considered at the top of the ladder, do I? Or Kurt Angle for that matter?

Actually, let’s talk about Kurt Angle. Considering what he’s put his body through over the last 12 years, starting with him breaking his neck at the Atlanta Olympics, he’s almost a walking band-aid with all the surgical procedures he’s had to go through when it comes to his neck. When ECW was going to start up again, he was going to be the flag-bearer for a different look ECW, one that would focus more on toughness inside the ring and workrate, which is exactly what Paul Heyman did when he decided to counteract his hardcore matches with guys like Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, 2 Cold Scorpio, and the like. This was a systematic change by Heyman to realize that these guys could make a crowd react just as well as the guys like Public Enemy, Sabu, and Cactus Jack putting themselves through immense physical pain. It was a brilliant move from “The Mad Scientist” and it should still be used in a way today.

So when Global Impact aired, TNA decided to show the Kurt Angle/Yuji Nagata match for basically the same reasons that New Japan promoted it: A battle between two fantastic amateur wrestlers who have risen to the top ranks in professional wrestling. It also happened to be a really good match, showing that when Angle is in there and wants to put on a wrestling match without interference from a dozen people and have a one on one match with a man who is a great contemporary, he can do it, and deliver in spades. So what has TNA done since Angle’s big win over one of Japan’s biggest wrestlers? They have him in this stupid storyline with A.J. Styles, Tomko, and Christian Cage about who likes who better, with Styles trying to get with his wife. The dichotomy is staggering. One promotion has used Kurt Angle all of two times, and you have a great product because of his amateur background, and the other is trying to do all these goofy skits that really add nothing to the match in the end.

I think we all realize that the match is the biggest thing that any feud can build on. Think about what the main event will be for TNA’s next PPV, Against All Odds. It’s Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage in a match where Samoa Joe is the outside enforcer, as for the last few weeks, TNA has decided that Joe can’t be building up his rep as a world-class ass-beater the way he did when he first entered the company, by destroying anyone and everyone in his way in a string of great matches. They’ve decided that the way to build Joe up is by having him destroy tables and trophies and get into a contract dispute with Jim Cornette. Really? That’s how a guy is supposed to get promoted to the main event? Samoa Joe made a name in TNA thanks to his big 18 month win streak and breathing new life into the X-Division, and now, he’s being put in goofy skits instead of allowing him to beat non X-Division guys in order to show he’s ready for the main event. He had a fantastic match with Christian Cage last year, with Cage playing the sneaky heel to perfection, and Joe playing the unstoppable force, much like a Ric Flair against a Lex Luger, the comparison that has been used about that pairing for a long time. The Angle/Joe matches when Angle first entered TNA were easy to promote, because Samoa Joe wanted to take out an established name, and Kurt Angle wanted to prove that he was the next big thing in TNA, not Joe. The booking there wasn’t bad. It was simple, concise booking that led to some really great matches between great talents.

While TNA has always tried to present itself as an alternative to WWE, the only thing that seems to differentiate them from WWE is that they have the 6-sided ring. They still run stupid skits, don’t focus on the wrestling as much, and get themselves into situations that are not believable (Rat on a Pole Match, anyone?) Of course, the long standing argument is that they have the talent to become a more wrestling centered organization, but that nobody in the booking hierarchy will go in that direction. Ring of Honor has dedicated themselves to the wrestling aspect in an attempt to make themselves different, and it has worked to an extent. What gets me about the TNA brass is that a lot of these guys they’ve brought in from the indies are wrestlers first, entertainers second, allowing TNA to take the gimmick to totally take over their characters. More often than not, it doesn’t work out that well, with someone like Jay Lethal or maybe Judas Mesias being the exception.

The template has been set for TNA thanks to Nagata and Angle with their match at the Dome, and with it, they could start to see growth. The word going around is that Samoa Joe is next in line to take the belt, likely from Kurt Angle, to put over Joe completely as the #1 guy in TNA. If that happens, then that is the type of move that could make TNA go in the direction that people are starting to ask for. Joe with the belt could lead to what he did with the X-Division, which is legitimize the world championship scene, as opposed to this title that seems like it is secondary to ridiculous storylines that take away from the action in the ring. Fans also seem to be clamoring for it. The emergence of the Motor City Machine Guns might be the best example. The athletic approach to the TNA title is something that would allow them to truly be different than WWE, but the big question is whether or not a bunch of old school thinking bookers can come around to that way of thinking. TNA is still a ways off from being a “competitor” to WWE, but if the possible coronation of Samoa Joe as champion down the line is any indication, TNA might actually turn that creative corner.