A FURTHER LOOK AT TNA'S RECENT BOOKING PROBLEMS
By Doug Brown on 10/30/2006 2:40 PM
I had actually been thinking about this column for a couple of weeks, and Lance Storm kind of stole my thunder. He made several valid points though in last week's rant regarding the booking of TNA lately. Everyone that was read a past column of mine knows that I have been one of TNA's biggest supporters here at Pro Wrestling Insider. However, lately I cannot deny the problems within the brand.
I think one of their biggest problems is overthinking. A good example of that would be this "Fight for the Right" tournament. As Storm mentioned, it is to determine the #1 contender for the NWA World Heavyweight Title, and yet several of the company's biggest names were not in the match. I would also have to disagree with Mike Tenay's comment on Impact about how we'd rather see the tournament than a Sting vs. Christian Cage title match. This has been one of the biggest gaps in logic. Christian cost Sting the championship in his match with Jarrett a couple of months ago. Yet, instead of Sting wanting to seek revenge on Christian, he takes two months off to get ready for another match with Jarrett, while Cage gets into a feud with Rhino.
They also have Sting put his career on the line in the "Bound for Glory" match, and yet instead of him appearing at the Impact Zone to hype the match, we got lame vignettes that gave me Black Scorpion flashbacks. I do give them credit for finally putting the belt on Sting, and having Jarrett take some much needed time out of the spotlight.
Speaking of the former champion, there has been talk of a babyface turn, which is going to be difficult to pull off. If they were still doing the show in Nashville, they might have a better shot. I think it is going to be very difficult for the Orlando audience to try and buy Jarrett in a babyface role. Most of the Impact Zone crowd are internet smarks, and more than likely aren't going to accept it. I don't really see the need to change him anyway. With Scott Steiner holding out for a bigger payoff, Monty Brown leaving, Kevin Nash no longer in a wrestling role, and if Jarrett comes back as a babyface, they are really short on upper card heels.
The upper card will get a boost if the Kurt Angle-Samoa Joe match lives up to expectations. I do have some complaints about the way they are handling it though. I think they should not have thrown this match together so fast. This is a match that if they would invest some time in, could be a big moneymaker for them. The confrontations have been good, although in that first encounter, I wish that Joe wouldn't have popped up so quickly from the Olympic Slam. Of course, that may have been just the way it was edited. Still though, I thought he should have sold the effects longer. My other complaint is that there is no real issue between them. Tenay and West were talking on Impact about Joe and Angle hating each other, but as the home viewer, I'd like an explanation as to why they hate each other. Oh, and for the record I still hate the "Joe's going to kill you!" chants, and find them completely disrepectful to those who actually have died because of their wrestling lifestyle. We all know he isn't really going to kill Angle or anyone else for that matter. To me, whenever Wrestler A says he's going to kill Wrestler B, it does not add drama, it just comes across as lame.
Getting back to Christian Cage and Rhino, I do not understand why they are having a barbed wire cage match. What's worse is that they are giving it away on free TV. I understood when they had Sabu and Abyss do a barbed wire match last year, because Sabu has long been associated with barbed wire matches. Christian and Rhino don't use barbed wire as part of their respective characters. To me it would have made sense to do a "Full Metal Mayhem" match, because that plays more into Cage's past with the TLC matches. Giving away this type of match on regular TV just comes across as desperation.
Switching to the tag team scene, I cannot stand LAX. I'm sick of Konnan trying to cram them down our throats week after week. I used to really like Konnan, but nowadays he just comes off as completely annoying. To start off with, they were given a title shot out of nowhere after several weeks of refusing to work, as part of the latest racist gimmick in wrestling. They couldn't beat Styles and Daniels in a regular match, so they have the "Border Brawl" and get a heavily assisted win from Konnan. Styles and Daniels get the belts back in Ultimate X, but then lose them back to LAX in the cage. I would rather they have kept the belts on Styles and Daniels, and move them onto a feud that they had started planting the seeds for with Team 3-D. To me, the former Dudleys have more to offer as opponents. That's not to say that Homicide and Hernandez are not talented, because they are, but Team 3-D has a longer track record of success. When Brother Ray and Brother D-Von took their time off, they kind of blew off Styles and Daniels as the champions. Styles and Daniels should have been wanting them in the ring just as soon as they got back. There is also the 5 time former WWF Tag Team Champions, the James Gang, who have yet to get a tag team title shot. Who does the next shot at LAX go to? America's Most Wanted? These guys have been losing every match for the last couple of months, and were on the verge of splitting up, and now all of sudden they're getting a title shot?
I like that they are attempting to add some personality to the X-Division. While I know some folks would rather see them compete, wrestling has always been a character driven business, and for the division to succeed, they need for the X-Division wrestlers to distinguish themselves. Bobby Heenan had an item in his first book where he told Eric Bischoff back in WCW that instead of bringing in all those different luchadors, to just bring in two guys, and buy a bunch of different masks. The same holds true for the X-Division. Many of those guys have the same build, the same look, and the same moveset. I know several casual fans that feel like, "You've seen one X-Division match, you've seen them all." I hope that the recent Chris Sabin-Jerry Lynn confrontations are leading somewhere, because that has the makings of not only a good match, but a good story too.
I also wanted to mention Lance Storm's point about Eric Young. Him getting a reinstatement match made no sense. They could have at least made up a story about fans petitioning Cornette to give him another chance instead of Borash just finding him in the parking lot, and mentioning it in passing. Truthfully, had he lost to Zbyszko, it wouldn't have bothered me in the least. Personally, I just don't see the fascination with him. He comes across to me as another Eugene. I think they ought to change up his character. One idea I had about him came to me this morning while watching the A-Team. I think they ought to make Young more like Murdock. Have him be crazy, instead of an idiot. Young does have talent, but they just need to take it in a different direction.
One of the things Storm said in closing is that they also should be picking Jim Cornette's brain more. When he was booking SMW and OVW, Cornette's biggest strength was the K.I.S.S. method (Keep It Simple Stupid). He didn't try to overdo it, he just presented a simple product, that was easy for folks to understand, and follow. You knew within a few minutes, who the babyfaces were and who the heels were. There was also always a focus on wrestling. TNA's shows used to provide quality wrestling matches, with shows that were easy to follow, and their ratings went up. However, since they've gone to a style that incorporates more talking and vignettes (i.e. the WWE approach), their ratings have gone down. If they want to move forward, they need to go back and look at the shows they were producing earlier in the year that regularly were cracking the 1.0 barrier. With the new timeslot approaching, they will need to step things up against a difficult Thursday night primetime lineup.
