No one is perfect. I think I pretty much proved that testament true with my major fuck up about ROH‘s Canada debut show. It’s also a rule that applies to this site as many writers are known to make tiny enough mistakes in their columns. We’re all human, and as such we’re prone to making such mistakes. Sometimes it’s a rule that’s forgotten, by me included. Sometimes I forget such things when I’m criticizing angles and gimmicks, storylines and feuds within the wrestling world. I’ll admit, I’m overly critical in these aspects and because of this I open myself up to being labeled as being overly critical of every aspect in the wrestling world, especially on companies I’m admittedly not too high on. I’ll admit, there tends to be a personal bias against certain companies such as TNA, but it’s not to the point that I hate on them for everything they do and I certainly don’t do it to be malicious as opposed to being hopeful that they’ll improve upon their flaws. Seriously, I do want to pull for this company and one can’t do that while overly protective of a flawed company. It requires a stern hand to be a good parent, and that’s exactly what TNA needs right now to make themselves into a better company.

And that’s going to be the theme of this entire article: love and hate against TNA. If only for the fact that I’m trying to keep WWE out of my mouth and there isn’t a whole lot I’d like to say about ROH that wouldn’t prompt Larry to think that I’m ruining the “family friendly” appeal of this site. Well, about as “family friendly” as one can pretend this site to be when you have Bayani running around posting up semi-nude pics. But hey, that’s his gimmick, along with “Proof Read through Virtue” which is only cute because it’s so ironic. In fact, it’s so drenched in the stuff that it gives Rick James a run for its money as the greasiest sumbitch to ever walk God’s green Earth, and it didn’t even need a drop of Jheri Curl. Oh wait, racist jokes are Bayani‘s thing, as well as Michael Hayes – and I’m clearly neither. I expect a 60 day suspension without pay handed to me by the 411 Gods above, namely Csonka.

Anyway, off to business, and before I forget anything of importance:

Yeah, I totally forgot that last week. It’s very vital to these columns. In fact, without it how would you know you’re reading my useless entry to the site? Now off to what makes this site money, more Scripted Through Sin.

Focusing on… TNA: The Wind-up…

Focusing on… TNA: …And the Pitch!

Focusing on… TNA: Finding a Nitch *ROCK*

Weekly Scriptures: Slam It On In There

The Wind-up…

Last week I compared TNA to a bad B movie in Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman after sitting through the film with some friends and beer. Sure I wasn’t totally wasted, and sure that movie was good for some cheap laughs. Maybe I was out of line comparing TNA as a product to that movie, but – oh fuck am I kidding? That movie summed up every wrong with this company and every aggravation I have with their direction. It’s all bullshit, and much like that movie, nothing this company does makes a damn lick of sense.

Harsh, I know, and also untrue in many ways as well, because there is some good, and they do tend to make more sense than killing a mutant snowman with a fucking banana. Oh yeah, spoiler alert for about the 5 people who haven’t seen that movie, and was highly motivated to go and see it just now.

What really irritates me at the moment is the fact that they have the (main) title on the right guy, could be pushing behind him heavily, along with mass marketing him as being the fighting champion that the WWE doesn’t feature as he’s not some proverbial pretty boy whose main purpose is to sell posters and merchandise featuring his lovable smile and abs you’d love nothing more than to eat off of.

You have a young and extremely hungry roster and yet they still rely on the old, veteran stars that aren’t making a dent in the ratings or buyrates. They have a chance to establish a new product to a crowd that may just be ready for something fresh and new but instead insist upon itself to rehash old tricks and continue dwelling on the “been there done that” mentality. This is a company that’s claimed to be “The New Alternative” but yet continues to stand for the same old shit. Why is it so hard for them to change up their strategy and try something new when the old stratagem has clearly proven itself to be a major failure? And trust me this current direction has been an utter failure.

Of course, much like with every aspect in life, a scapegoat will be made, and in this case it’ll be the deserving guy who doesn’t to be pinned as the reason for this failure: Samoa Joe.

Many will point to this failure as being a product of Samoa Joe’s reign, and TNA‘s listening to the “smarks” or “smarts” to put the title on him. It’s similar to the situation of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit’s title reigns. The WWE wrote off those title reigns as epic failures and used those reigns as reasons why they don’t have to listen to the fans, because in those scenarios, after years of crying and complaining that they were deserving champions, the fans didn’t back up those words by supporting the company and supporting their reigns by buying the product in large bulks. The same could be the case here, with TNA laying the claim to failure on Samoa Joe – it’s his title reign, he’s the main attraction and if the product isn’t drawing he isn’t drawing.

Is there any way to salvage this monstrosity, or is Joe pretty much just fucked? Doomed to forever be labeled a failure and never again trusted with the big gold belt, or is there a saving grace to Joe? I may not be an optimistic man, but I always feel there’s salvation in everything, including the Toronto Blue Jays. Well, okay, there’s no saving the NFC West, that’s just a cesspool of bad teams, poor coaching and overall shit and it shows with the Seahawks slipping into the playoffs on the technicality of being “the best from the West”, like that’s an accomplishment at JUST .500!

So what could be done to help out Joe’s reign? Well, if the undercard is a huge draw, it makes Joe look like that much better an attraction. Hey, it even helps out the selling point of a match like Faber and Pulver.

…And the Pitch!

Some will discredit the TNA Knockouts division just because of the gender of the workers. Sorry, it’s true. There is still a thing called sexism, and it’s still alive and well in today’s society, along with racism. In addition to that, some will also describe the division as a novelty act with no legs to really sustain long term appeal. Understandable on that front, the Knockouts can only do so much that would get people interested in them, and then to maintain it would take a lot. But it’s not completely unheard of in the post-WCW world, where the only thing keeping that place afloat was the tremendous Cruiserweight division.

Hey, if the Cruiserweights could keep us all entertained on a fledgling company, why couldn’t the Knockouts do the same for a struggling, not-yet-dead promotion?

The first thing I’d love to recommend and it’s something that helped distinguish the Cruiserweights as being radically different, was its characters. I know, it’s not an issue with TNA as they load everyone up with characters: Shark Boy is a delusional little fish who thinks he’s part rattlesnake and part cold stone; Jay Lethal is a black man that once lacked charisma who is finding his own now by channeling a 1980’s porn star on acid; Sonjay Dutt is the guy pestering you with flowers they grew in their backyard at the airport; Velvet Sky and Angelina Love are self-hating lesbians; Samoa Joe is a growing weary and achy bad ass; Kurt Angle’s a schizophrenic (ex-)drug abuser and so on and so forth. Everyone’s got a gimmick, and some suck more than others. But let’s focus on what’s slowly becoming one of the main attractions:

The Beautiful People
Everyone needs a hook, and mine is that sometimes I’m a funny bastard. Okay, well not really. I’m just all over the place.

With the brawn and toughness of Mickie Knuckles, perhaps LuFisto looked more acceptable into The Beautiful People?

Recently The Beautiful People [of Angelina Love and Velvet Sky] went about adding to their ranks in order to neutralize the opposition of ODB, Gail Kim and Roxxi (Lavaeux). The addition of a dolled up Mickie Knuckles was a welcome change of pace, as usually the only crimson to be found on this young lady would be that of her own blood – or the blood of her enemies that splattered its way onto her. While Mickie can make the easy transition to solidify her role, an easier fit for her muscle role would have been LuFisto. I’ll admit, Knuckles isn’t the easiest on the eyes and fits more of the brutish, loner type character, but the magic of TNA‘s make-up department did wonders on her to make her more presentable, and easier on the eyes. She didn’t walk out looking like a Perfect 10 model who could whip some serious ass, but she didn’t come out looking like some dude with a bad perm looking to break Spike TV’s golden “no-man-on-woman-violence” rule. While this will probably put Mickie down, the person that most fits the ideal of a beautiful person while still being the brawn the team requires would be LuFisto. After all of the smack talk Sky and Love laid against ladies of appeal in ODB and Gail Kim, it’s hard to really imagine them being so accepting of Mickie with acceptable muscle ladies to do their bidding with the persuasion of money. Namely I’m thinking The Beautiful People could have paid off Awesome Kong [with Raisha Saeed] with not only riches that Kong could obtain on her own, but a means to further prove her dominance by further eliminating all of her competition, namely the “Diva” Trio [Gail Kim, ODB and Roxxi] in a single blow. I guess with Mickie it’s going to be a case of them pulling her into [The Beautiful People’s] world, convincing her of her beauty and offering her their service to make [Mickie] as desirable as they are. Perhaps they’ll use the same tactic to lure in Roxxi before viciously throwing her to the side. But the idea that Mickie would end up being that gullible after all that’s happened between Roxxi and The Beautiful People. I’d believe that anyone who doesn’t believe themselves to be beautiful of the caliber as these two would have to be suspicious of their desires of them. That’s where LuFisto comes into play as she would certainly believe her own hype to such a degree posing as a model for her own site.

LuFisto could certainly hold the views that she’s on equal footing as Velvet and Angelina, and could easily be lured into their world based upon her own perceptions of herself. One wouldn’t easily think her accessibly gullible given her own views and the general consensus that she could be viewed as beautiful. Her small flaws could be overlooked much in the way Angelina’s flaws are overlooked – not so much with Velvet, that woman seemingly has no flaws on her.

Mickie and LuFisto both fit the role needed for The Beautiful People: brawn. Strength and brutality, only the package of these two is completely different. One holds the poise and charm of an elegant woman and the other comes off very butch and manly in her demeanor and posturing. Mickie gives off the presence of a dominating force that could actually rival Awesome Kong, which would buck the status quo of what Love and Sky hope to achieve. While LuFisto could actually add to the persona of The Beautiful People as she plays a very convincing cocky heel, from what I understand.

So what can salvage Mickie from not looking like the poor shmuck she’s going to end up being? Perhaps if the deal wasn’t just to pamper and treat her as one of their own, but rather pay her for her services and guarantee her a shot at many splendors. A shot at money, men, gold or maybe even exposure to lure her talents in to help out their cause, which is a bit, undisclosed itself.

Now strikes me as the appropriate time to explain what it is they’re trying to accomplish. While Kim, Kong and ODB have made it clear their interests lie in proving themselves superior to all other women in their craft through their constant battles over the Knockouts championship; Roxxi seems a bit muffled as her aim tends to pull her in and out of revenge and desire to prove her mantle by claiming gold. With The Beautiful People I feel their goal would be to exploit their looks and gain heavy notoriety and press thanks to their beauty. Would be telling if they stated their mission was to land covers and fantasies, all for bigger pay and less dates to work, or if their goal was to land Hollywood. It would be a simple admission as they only play along with Cornette’s fantasies of the Knockouts involved in gimmick matches as it complies with their goal of getting their faces out there. Forget about fame and glory through the thralls of wrestling, their ambition is to rub shoulders with the beautiful people of silver screens and magazine covers while they’re still young enough to benefit from such a shallow society.

The end of the day, The Beautiful People, whether with Mickie or LuFisto, has the recipe for success, though I’ve seen nothing but disaster surrounding them in the booking. Sure, they’ve benefited the most from this feud with Roxxi, as they’ve managed to split Kim and Roxxi to war at Sacrifice, turned the fans on Kim for accepting the aide of heels to win a match that didn’t harm her to lose, and every week get face time to beat on and look dominant over the “Diva” Trio for weeks on end. But what’s truly soured them, much like it has with ODB, is the mike handling. Velvet has managed to coin enough solid catchphrases that should rattle about in people’s minds and remind them of who they are, but beyond that Love and Velvet both seem stuck on downing themselves when attempting to down their opponents or “inferior” women trying to interview them. Talk about blonde bimbos when they’re clearly blonde, and in the case of Angelina overly dyed platinum. Criticism of crow’s feet as a sign of age and weakness when clearly Angelina looks aged herself with very strong, if not downright masculine, features. It is little things like that adding up to knock off the foundation of their credibility. Why should I buy their words seriously if they can’t even reason what they don’t like about other people? Seriously, if I strolled on here talking about how I hate fat, balding virgins, how many people would call me out on that before I could say another word? I’m being dead serious: just how many?

Slammiversary Note: Are you fuckers serious? Moose? Oh boy, I’d love for this company to go out of business just on that note, but apparently then I’d just be a bitter “fanboy” or “mark” for thinking such things. Ugh. Oh, and it was so nice of this company to remember who the main focal point of this Beautiful People feud was – Gail Kim and ODB. Yeah, it had nothing to do with Roxxi, what-so-ever. Of-fucking-course. Let’s just move the fuck on before I end up ranting.

Roxxi
Considered the dark horse of the division because of her unknown mystique walking into the company aiding the two men that the internet and all wrestling fans hates the most, VKM. While her character was once that of a voodoo queen aimed at helping out the duo, and solidifying the secondary nature of their name “Voodoo Kin Mafia” her direction and appeal has changed course over time. No longer is she needed as a practitioner of voodoo magic, an element of her gimmick never played up, and fans grew to like her once they saw what she could do in the ring when she wasn’t gyrating her stomach about like some Indian belly dancer on a Bollywood film.

Now her character has dropped the last name, Laveaux, the gimmick had shifted from voodoo queen to generic goth chick, and at no point did anything around her work. Clashes with The Beautiful People and Awesome Kong back around March, April and May certainly got fans to dig her as part of the Knockout trio, but the character was flat and unappealing. It wasn’t like ODB, where the fans gravitated to her and called her one of their own. So when time came for someone in the division to volunteer their hair for a pay-per-view match, Roxxi took the challenge and gained instant credibility with the fans for two things TNA hadn’t planned on: her gutsy showing in the ladder portion of the match, and her willingness to go through with such a perceived horrible idea.

It was necessary for her career in TNA. She claimed the purple dye had done damage to her hair so it was necessary on her part to fix that, but more importantly, it was necessary to freshen up the character and give it new direction. She’s never been the goth girl of the group, that seems to be more Shelly Martinez’s forte as documented with her non-wrestling projects.

Though it wouldn’t make much sense to radically change Roxxi to fit more in line with her indy gimmick of Nikki Roxx, it is necessary she be pulled away from the early makings of her character. A cross between the two could be welcomed, but the style probably wouldn’t work out to her favor. As it stands, her character is looked upon as an outcast because of her look, but with every week that passes with her hair growing back there’s a chance to implement subtle enough changes to allow a complete make-over when she’s finally back to her full length by the end of the year. A shift between that “ugly” loner into the fun loving girl behind the “Roxx” name.

And after the debacle of her failed feud with The Beautiful People (with Moose *GRUMBLE*), it’s time to reinvent her and pull away from her current direction, which seems aimless. It’s time to build her up to where she can pull away from those who are stealing her spotlight and momentum, Kim and ODB, and allow her to swim or sink on her own.

I know the goal should be to keep her face, but considering TNA already dropped the ball on her after Sacrifice, and focused this entire feud around Kim and ODB more so on the newly hot Roxxi, it only makes sense to make her resentful of them stepping over their boundaries and taking away from her chance to seek out revenge. Not only that, but she has legitimate cause to go after Kim as she’s the one responsible for her falling to these circumstances due to her acceptance of The Beautiful People’s help. While on the surface she’ll look to be a heel, challenging the two major faces of the division, the core of her is still a face as she is justified in these beliefs. That’s where heels fail to be sympathetic; they are never to be seen as justified in their beliefs by the general public.

The end result could be the moving away from this madness of a failure, and find her fixture as part of the top contenders to Kong’s reign. After all, that’s what the end result needs to be, creating a new face for the Knockouts division to center around and Roxxi should be viewed as one of those faces seeing as she’s very talented in the ring.

But for the right now, Roxxi’s focus needs to either shift to her being the focal point of this feud with The Beautiful People, possibly going down the road of trying to reason with Mickie (Moose *GRUMBLES*) by pointing to herself as an example of their true nature, or to shift completely away from these ladies and onto Kong.

Though the challenge will probably be used as a tool to introduce a true upset to the field, possibly Shantelle Taylor as many are already speculating, it could also be the tool utilized to help turn focus in Roxxi’s character for the future. Long term booking to establish a realistic change in her as she grows tired of being the whipping girl of The Beautiful People and Kip James, being outshined by Kim and ODB, and tired of coming up short against Kong when she knows she’s capable of ending her title reign. These items are already there to be built upon to lead her into becoming more of a glamour girl trying to fit in with everyone else. And much like any character change we’ve seen in the WWE, a tournament could help to solidify this new attitude. And no, I don’t mean an overly gimmicked and overly saturated with rules tournament, either.

Claiming victories over a field of competitors in Tracy Brooks [who should be playing a role in this division to keep diversity within its ranks] Gail Kim, ODB, Christy Hemme, Angelina Love, Mickie Knuckles (just fuck you, TNA, for this one) and even Raisha Saeed, Roxxi could shake off the last bit of TNA influence to her character and become more focused with a different character that TNA could lay claim as being a product of their own brainchild.

With her hair about chin length, she could begin to show signs of transformation, and with this tournament victory she could cement her position and her character’s direction. Becoming more cocky and arrogant, Roxxi could become that more fun girl she’s noted as being. With this change should come the biggest change from Roxxi: an active speaking role.

That’s the one thing that’s eluded her, even after her booming appeal with the fans following Sacrifice; she never got a chance to speak. She’s been the mute of this feud despite the fact that it was hers and no one else’s. The fact that ODB has been the one to do all of the talking to counter The Beautiful People’s promos should be noted when Roxxi does finally speak.

For now, Roxxi will probably remain directionless, and will be hard to tune for any short term booking strategist. But the value of her for a long term deal is opened to many things. Her stock value in the Knockouts is far too valuable to throw away much in the way the company discarded Judas Mesias and Payton Banks, so for their sake, it’s probably time to start investing before they further plummet it with ass-backwards booking that’s plagued her this past month.

Finding a Nitch *ROCK*

Along with characters, the hook on the Cruiserweights was clearly their innovative style in the ring. That’s a tougher fix when you consider that the Cruiserweights didn’t have any other division to overshadow them, unlike with the Knockouts who’d have a hell of a tough time against the amazing styles of the X-Division. While both divisions are appealing, one trumps the other at every turn for its in-ring action as it houses many young, bright stars of the future. The Knockouts don’t hold such a claim as you see Diva like workers in Velvet Sky and Tracy Brooks (who has been M.I.A. now for some odd reason) continues to display she’s not improving after every return trip to the gas station’s air pump.

While many will look down upon this concept, I think what the Knockouts have over their competition is the sex appeal of its workers. TNA bills their ladies as being serious workers of their craft, but they still sell them upon their looks and at one point that was all they did. It’s a tactic that the WWE uses for their Divas division but unlike them TNA have built serious interest into their ladies with solid storylines (to an extent) and tremendous in-ring wrestling. They’ve sold us on them being an actual division of wrestlers that just happen to be of the female variety who are attractive.

The hook could be a mixture of the two, though the balancing act of this would be a tough one. When one thinks of selling sex in wrestling, especially in women’s matches, one quickly comes to think of gimmick bouts that place the worker in skimpy outfits and doing more rolling around than actual wrestling. I am, by no means, suggesting TNA go down the route of implementing water balloon brawls, but rather that they also, at points, feature their ladies in the light of being models. That means doing what the WWE had perfected with Trish Stratus, Stacy Keibler, Lita, and Torrie Wilson.

It works out, especially in the case of The Beautiful People as that should be their goal, to launch pad their careers in the same manner of a Stratus or Keibler, using wrestling to launch their looks out there and land them bigger and better deals. As it stands now, the focus of the early Knockouts seems to have faded, though Karen Angle is still considered a part of the division.

It’s the only thing that can differentiate the Knockouts from the X Division, and could help to further pull in interest to it as being a serious division to keep an eye on, as both men who scoff women’s wrestling could be groomed to think differently as they’re eased into the door by the posters and “Hedonism” like DVD specials, and those who still want the serious wrestling focus of the Knockouts get to keep it without seeing a single display of demeaning material in-ring.

What could also help out is determining what gimmick matches belong to this division, and only this division. After all, what defines the X-Division is the Ultimate X so a specialty match of the division could help to differentiate it from their counterparts up in Connecticut. It should be a bout that shows off their strengths and caters to a market looking for something new and fresh, and be seen as something that hasn’t been done before. But it should also be simplistic as the rules should be easy to understand and follow, as well as simple enough to remember.

So because of their competitive nature, perhaps the best specialty match they could claim their own be a match similar to the Iron Man bouts. Stripping the match down to restrict count-outs at ringside, much like in ROH, it could allow the brawling aspect that TNA loves to feature in their bouts. They could also include the dismissal of rope breaks for holds and pins, much in the way of the Pure Title rules in ROH after a certain number of usage (3), to force clinches to either be countered or broken up by tapping out, or simply allowing pins to conclude either through kick-out or being pinned. A time limit could either be left in to control how long a match will get in the minds of fans, or it could be seen more like a best 2 out of 3 falls bout where a certain score must be obtained to conclude the match. The end result would always be that both women walk out looking more legitimate as athletes.

For these ladies right now, fortune smiles upon them as no matter what the Knockouts do that would seem way too over the top and downright awful, because of the big three in Kong, Kim and ODB, the division is solidified as being the best women’s division of the “big three”. It’s a soaring success story that sounds oddly familiar to the swan song of the X Division once its three masters [Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles] were moved away from the division.

Slam It On In There

Well, this edition is going to a close. Not only was it totally centered on TNA, but on its Knockouts. There’s a lot I could say about the restructuring of the X Division, or I could rant about ROH‘s decision to place the titles on another team whose members names are not Kevin Steen or El Generico, and there’s still a world of things to suggest about the WWE, but we’re calling this an early edition.

I’d plug all of my usual favorite writers to read here, but at the moment, I don’t feel up to the task of hunting down the links to their pages, their columns, or their LiveJournal accounts.

Instead, I’m wrapping things up early because I’m torn on what else to talk about here, and it’s not a matter of not knowing what to say but rather censoring myself so I don’t say things I feel probably shouldn’t be expressed. Or at least, things that I feel shouldn’t be expressed at this time. I’ll admit, I’m not one to shy away from controversy or the taboo, but at the moment I think tact is the better part of valor in this edition. We hit a good roll of staying mostly positive with this edition, and I’d hate to muddy that with a topic that is more rant than fantasy booking.

I will say that while everyone is up in arms arguing the usual daft fucking point about which current airing pay-per-view was better in viewing, that Slammiversary was just above the usual grade of shit I’ve grown used to seeing from them. Seriously, a strong match from Kaz and Petey Williams, and a show stealing performance from both AJ Styles and Kurt Angle was well worth the rest of this pay-per-view just kind of being there. Some will be all over themselves, busting nuts over the wedding angle finally delivering unto us the Lethal and Dutt feud that’s going to “steal” the summer, but for me the highlight was seeing Petey solidify his position as a solid mid-card performer, and Kaz demonstrating that all of the hype placed onto him by Raven is justified. If Kaz isn’t a serious contender to the main event in many minds, than I don’t know what else he needs to do to gain that acclaim from some of you.

The previous edition of iMPACT! did a rather poor rating, but the episode wasn’t as ghastly as previous editions I’ve seen that did far better in the numbers. I guess that only further proves the theory that ratings aren’t a guide of how good or bad a show is, only a measuring stick of how much care people have in the product at the moment. Right now, I think what’s going on is more and more people are setting up their DV-R’s and Tivo’s to record their favorite wrestling shows, and it’s beginning to really attack the figures as the Neilson Ratings don’t really keep track of these viewings. Perhaps we’ll find out more in the future, but as it stands it’s a good theory, and could be comforting knowledge to some to know that these promotions probably haven’t lost any portion of their audience.

As it stands, things could be looking up. TNA has a potential bout for the World title between Kaz and Samoa Joe on Thursday; I’ll be praying they go ahead with that rather than the scheme of Steiner knocking Kaz out of the bout to take his spot. WWE is debuting Matt Sydal. And ROH looks to be rewriting their history as Bryan Danielson is building up to get back the loss he sustained to the champion, Nigel McGuinness, at Sixth Anniversary Show in New York. Doesn’t look to be at all a bad week ahead of us.

I’ll try and play catch up with some of my DVD’s, try and catch Take No Prisoners, and see if I can’t clear out my hard drive and DV-R of wrestling. As it stands, I may just burn myself out playing so much catch up, but I don’t mind it considering at least now I’m kind of up for seeing some fun action.

Then there’s the weekend of fun, as I’ll be exposing, and raping my friends virgin eyes with the awesomeness of OldBoy. I wonder how much more fucked up that film is when you’re completely blistered off of Corona, Smirnoff Vodka and African heat? Seriously, I think the heat in his apartment is going to be a big factor, as I’m sure some of us will be placed under its spell and end up hallucinating.

Anyway, that’ll do it for this edition, until next week.