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SHOOTING FOR HEAT: SAMOA JOE VS. KURT ANGLE - WHY TNA IS WISE TO DO THE MATCH NOW

Welcome back to Shooting for Heat. A week has passed since my last column and I received a good amount of feedback on then topic, CM Punk. Keep it coming, I always enjoy hearing from you, whether you love or hate what I’m writing about.

This week I’ll be taking a look at the big main event for the upcoming PPV. No, not Cyber Sunday, since everyone I talk to has little-to-no interest in that PPV. No, I’m talking about a main event that actually has some interest behind it; Angle Vs. Joe.

Obviously, this is the biggest match TNA has ever put together, and many have been quick to criticize that it’s come much, much too soon. In practically any other situation I would have to agree, but in this one instance I couldn’t disagree more.

For many, TNA represents not just an alternative to WWE-branded wrestling; it represents hope, a hope that one day they might actually be able to rise-up and pose some type of real competition to Vince McMahon and WWE, which in turn would help spark a possible 2^nd current-day wrestling boom, or at least light a creative fire in WWE to create match-ups and storylines that are actually compelling.

Of course, TNA is a long ways off from being there. Their ratings every week show that in plain black & white. However, they’re not without hope, and in fact they are very much heading in the right direction. They have an incredibly impressive roster of talent, they have Spike TV solidly behind them, and shortly they’ll debut in a new time slot which can only help them at this point.

However, the main complaint (or I should say criticism) that many have of TNA is that while their wrestling is very sound and often cutting edge, frankly…their writing and match ideas aren’t. I love a great AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels match as much as the next wrestling fan, but that’s been done before, way too many times, sadly.

The day they signed Kurt Angle TNA quickly became a hot topic, which hasn’t really happened in a while. Sure, they signed away Christian (Cage) and picked up Sting as well, which were both very solid and smart signings, but neither have come close to generating the amount of interest that signing Angle has done for the company.

Without touching on the situation surrounding Angle’s WWE departure and eventual TNA signing (which is call for a column all its own), you’d be blind not to see the amount of attention this has helped draw to TNA. The spotlight is clearly on them now more than ever to deliver. To their credit, I think they’ve done the best thing they possibly can right now, and that’s keep the attention on their product before another news story comes along and people look away from them.

Logically, the smart thing in wrestling is always to book long-term and position two wrestlers strongly, building interest in their feud over time so that eventually when they do square-off, people will be clamoring for it. The thing is in this instance, TNA doesn’t have the luxury of hoping people will stay interested in the newness of Angle in TNA; they have to strike while the iron is hot, and that’s exactly what they did.

Lucky for them, I really believe they made the right call. Almost any wrestling fan’s dream match from the moment they heard of Angle’s signing with TNA was Joe vs. Angle. After all, besides how great the match would be athletically, Joe is easily the most over wrestler TNA has…and he’s undefeated, I might add. For the average viewer, Samoa Joe represents TNA (even though he’s more a product of Ring of Honor).

Angle, despite his most valiant attempts to put down WWE, is currently viewed as a WWE wrestler coming to TNA to challenge the best they have to offer. Clearly WWE is considered to be the bigger promotion of the two, and for good reason. Forgetting about the fact that they are light-years ahead of TNA in terms of business and position, they (WWE) have always gone out of their way to bury incoming talent from outside promotions upon arrive, just to ensure that no one would get any crazy ideas that wrestlers from a different company are on-par with theirs.

Backwards McMahon logic aside, this is one instance where I firmly believe that TNA should take the same approach. No, not by burying Angle of course, but he should lose his first match in. Normally, that would be a horrible idea, since you want to keep your talent (especially freshly signed talent) looking strong, but I don’t think Angle would lose anything from a clean loss to Joe, while Joe would gain a great deal from beating the recently former 6-time WWE champion.

Samoa Joe is the most over face (or wrestler period) they have, he’s undefeated, he’s considered to be home-grown, and beating arguably the WWE’s best wrestler in his first TNA match would go a long way to help solidify not just Joe as a wrestler and main-eventer going forward, but the belief that TNA just doesn’t have a full roster of talented wrestlers that can go, but they have wrestlers that can beat top-tiered WWE performers. Seemingly Angle is going to be with TNA for a while, and if you hear him say it, for life. Having him lose won’t hurt his legacy, or his career in TNA. He can always make up the loss by being the first person to beat Joe down the road.

TNA has done an excellent job in protecting Joe and you can only have his first loss once, so you better make it count. Much like Goldberg and “The Streak”, Joe’s undefeated record is one of the few things storyline-wise TNA has going for itself. Taking that away this early would do them no favors, both from an entertainment and business standpoint. I hope they make the right call on November 19^th, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t exactly put all my faith in former then WWF, WCW and now current TNA booker, Vince Russo. Still though, I think even he can see that going forward Angle means more to TNA chasing Joe, than Joe does chasing Angle.

Personally, I haven’t been this interested to see a PPV wrestling match in a long, long time. In this match-up TNA has really sparked the wrestling fan inside of me, and I know I’m not the only one. The majority of people I know don’t watch TNA, but those same people will be watching Genesis on the 19^th of this month. There’s a reason for that. Having Joe lose however would be a horrible call. I can see the logic in