One fan’s plea…

Now I would normally not do something like this but recently I’ve become very concerned with the direction that Total Nonstop Action Wrestling is going in. This letter will cover many topics but my reasoning for creating this plea is because I feel “disgusted” after watching the 7/31/08 broadcast of iMPACT! Now before I go into detail, I would just like to point out that this is not me saying to you that you’re losing a fan. This is simply just one die hard fan’s opinion on how I view things in TNA.

The basics: Since I am a true professional wrestling fan at heart, I heard about TNA during its early stages. Even though I was looking for something else to watch other than promotions created or taken over by the folks up north, I was still hesitate to watch because of how unfamiliar I was to the promotion. Honestly, it wasn’t until one of my favorite performers Christian Cage joined TNA that I began to really notice the company. Slowly from then I started to enjoy TNA as the true alternative. Going back to see what TNA had to offer before I started watching, I soon realized that I had missed some of the best wrestling to occur this millennium. It was in the summer of 2006 that I fully gave up and converted to TNA. I could no longer stand watching 40 year old men prancing around like it was 1997 all over again. What also help my decision was the fact that one of the greatest wrestlers and one of my all-time favorites Kurt Angle jumped ship and join TNA. From then I became sucked into the feud of Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe. It was all TNA for me at that point and nothing nor could anyone change my mind.

It was exciting to see this company grow. Things were certainly changing…for good and for worst. I love the fact that TNA is traveling out of the iMPACT! Zone. When I watch a wrestling show, not only am I looking for great wrestling and promos, but I am also looking for a great crowd. The fans in the iMPACT! Zone have become way too over saturated with the TNA product. It’s as if they have been trained on how to react to certain situations. That should be the last thing you would want to have out of a crowd. Fans are supposed to be spontaneous on how they react to your product. It’s like every time I tune into iMPACT!, there must be a sign hanging over top of the ring and when it lights up, the fans must start chanting, “THIS IS AWESOME”. Yes there should be some boundaries as how far a fan can go but when they are treated like trained monkeys, it’s never fair for both the viewer in the crowd and the viewer of your television program.

Come on now. We can all agree that once a child makes up their mind, it’s hard to recover them from the “dark side”. That “dark side” I’m referring to is one filled with roided-up monsters, superheroes, flashy lights, pyrotechnics, and performers who are way past their time. I chose TNA to escape away from that torture. But now as I watch Spike every Thursday night, I’ve come to realize that TNA may be crossing into this “dark side”. It’s always good to build for the future. Hell, you can even build for right now. Now I can be the first to admit I love the nostalgic feeling that I get when it comes to professional wrestling. But even I understand that the past should sometimes remain in the past. This thought brings me right to Sting.

Sting will go down as one of the greatest wrestlers of all-time, but that time has clearly past. Honestly, it past nearly 10 years ago. Here’s the bottom line: no one cares about Sting anymore. It’s like you’re forcing us to like this guy again, and it’s not working. Every time this man pops up on my TV, I suddenly become angry. Angry at the fact that no one wants to see this guy anymore yet not only do you put him on TV, you’ve given this man the TNA World Heavyweight Championship each of the past two years. It’s as if you’re scared to try new things when that was exactly want got you noticed in the first place. I don’t understand how you can revolve your entire show around Sting when: A) he wasn’t even at the show and B) he’s been complacent ever since he stepped in the door. I completely understand why you’re using guys like Sting, Angle, Cage, Rhino, Team 3D, and other: it’s because they’re a “name”. Well the fact of the matter is they are not yours. They were made by someone else. If you’re afraid to pull the trigger and make your own stars, then how to you even expect this company to become the number one promotion? Speaking of Kurt Angle, do you realize that he’s been on the cover of every single promotional poster and DVD cover except two? That equates to over 20 pieces promotional material in less than two years. You cannot expect this man to make this company all by himself. You have to create stars for the present and the future.

Samoa Joe is our, and as a loyal fan I emphasize “our”, world champion. But hold on a sec…why isn’t he wearing his title? Oh yeah, that’s right. He’s letting his current foe and challenger carry it around. The same man that vowed that if he didn’t defeat Kurt Angle at TNA Lockdown for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, the same title that he chased for nearly 3 years, that he would not only leave TNA but he would quit wrestling. This same man that put his career on the line for that title acts as if the title really doesn’t mean much to him anymore. Now is he at fault? Absolutely not. But why does it seem that way? Why does it seem as if you’re reigning champion and one of TNA’s most dominating figures, doesn’t give two craps about the company? This can’t be tolerated. I’m not saying that Joe doesn’t care about TNA or the title but the way he is portrayed on iMPACT! These past few months makes it seems it’s just that. Your champion is supposed to be the front man for the company. The guy that when people ask, “What’s your product all about?” you point right to your champion. As of right now, if someone were to ask me to give them one reason on why they should watch TNA, I don’t see myself pointing to Joe at all.

I understand that you’re trying to appeal to the masses. You’re getting more air time on Spike, the video game comes out next month, and you’re growing little by little every day. There’s one thing that you must understand and that is you have to win over the wrestling crowd before you win over the casual crowd. Each time I watch TNA, it’s as if you’re trying to do the complete opposite. Gimmicks are supposed to be used to change the aspect of a character or a match. But when they overfill your roster and PPVs, it just gets completely out of hand. As wrestling fans, we don’t like to see silly gimmicks like “Stone Cold” Shark Boy, or “Black Machismo” or especially ones like Super Eric. Things like that just make me feel as if I’m too dumb to understand the performance of a wrestler. There needs to be a character behind them for me to enjoy their work. I think that charisma goes a long way in this business but when you’re forcing a character onto a wrestler just to get them over with the crowd, it’s never good. Gimmick matches aren’t always needed either. This year alone, I’ve been terrified at the amount of gimmick matches that you’ve put on PPV. This year alone we had, Ultimate-X, Elevation-X, Barbed Wire Massacre, a street fight, a “Fish Market” street fight, a “Stand By Your Man” strap match, Queen of the Cage, Cuffed in the Cage, Deuces Wild Tournament, Makeover battle royal, multiple ladder matches, Terrordome, Full Metal Mayhem, multiple Six-Sides of Steel matches, Last Man Standing, New Jersey street fight, and a “Black Tie Brawl and Chain” match. And the question I ask is…for what? Why are these needed? If people don’t care about the match, then drop it. Gimmicks don’t always get people interested in the match. Sometimes people just don’t care. Even last year, the Robert Roode/Eric Young feud was dragged on for way too long because you kept throwing gimmicks at them to get people to care but it didn’t work. You have to learn to move on and give up on things that don’t work.

As I said in the opening synopsis, this is not me saying I’m done. It’s just me saying I’m concerned. Concerned that the company that I’ve grown to love for everything that I wanted in a wrestling product slowly beginning to push me away and say, “You’re not welcomed here”. People of the internet, especially on message boards and YouTube, love to talk about how bad they think your company is doing. Yes I am part of the Internet Wrestling Community but I’m in the section that actually stands up for your product. I don’t follow in with the norm, even when I’m being hit from all angles about how wrong I am, I still back up most of the decisions that are being made in TNA. There comes a time when I have to stand up for my own beliefs and voice my opinion on how I truly feel. Millions of us out there feel that this can be the true alternative and can be the number one promotion. But when this “alternative” is turning into the “lite” version of its competition and seems as if they don’t care about their own success, why should I care either?