The Reality of Wrestling: Joe/Angle As a Metaphor
By Phil Clark
Joe, get out while you still can
What has happened to this promotion? It did seem that after the first month of Russo’s second tenure that TNA could still maintain a good product with Russo at the helm; his first PPV as booker was entertaining and was the highest bought of the three-hour show era. However, in the nine months since, this promotion has managed to dilute a dream feud, pull the plug again with ROH, and lose its very sense of creativity. The buys are going down each month, but nothing seems to change. And with one show that could start the turnaround, they managed to blow it again.
P.C. Says: Joe should be back in ROH after his TNA contract ends
There were other mistakes, but the main-event ‘obviously’ was the biggest of them all. This was the final opportunity of many for TNA to showcase Samoa Joe as the definitive future of wrestling, and it was pissed away over the same finish that has plagued wrestling for around ten years: The Russo Swerve. What happens is a face will lose the big match to further the feud for the eventual blowoff, which doesn’t always even happen in Russo’s world. The problem there is that people’s careers are put on hold or even sent down a peg just because of one guy’s short attention span amongst a group of likeminded individuals. The main reason (I’m guessing) that Jarrett loves the Russo swerve so much (he has used it at least once in every one of his title reigns) is because he has the one thing Angle didn’t: a weapon. Weapons are cool for swerves only if they’re established and a chair shot ending is just weak these days. Trust me, it would’ve put over Joe HUGE if Team 3-D and Karen Angle would’ve interfered because fans like nothing more in wrestling than a face overcoming every possible odd to win a big match. That did work for Steve Austin, remember.
The opening tag seems to be the consensus feel good match of the night as it did show that the X-Division still has talent that can at least put on a good but fun match. In an eerie similarity to WCW, these X-Division matches are being used as the opener for the last two PPVs just like they did for WCW in its final days. I’m not implying anything with that, but for anyone who sees how WCW-ish TNA has gotten these days can’t be liking that realization. Still it was a good match and I’m very glad that The Motor City Machine Guns are at least being used as a tag-team. Give the tag division to the X-Division. I said it a while back and I’ll say it again.
Did LAX really need a restart to beat VKM? Couldn’t they just have stabbed one with a fork, Border Toss another and end it? If you remember back in 2000, VKM — as The Outlaws — jobbed the tag belts to what is now Team 3-D in a very quick match clocking in at 5:20 and soon after, they were one of the hottest tag teams on the planet. Did The Outlaws make them stars? Not on your life (Ladder Matches and tables did), but it was very symbolic as is the jobbing of the old in any old v. new themed match. It doesn’t have to happen all the time, but it does have to when it’s needed to. And that isn’t very hard to spot by the way. First meetings are usually a must as they make that first impression on the public (not hard to get huh?). Had LAX came out there, bloodied VKM, and destroyed them with some combination move with the Border Toss ala XXX’s finishing sequence, I doubt VKM would lose much in stature as most people’s perception of them are never going to change (like Flair). For LAX, it would have definitely made an impression as the guys were the hottest act TNA had in 2006 and people still do remember how cool these guys were just a few months ago. It seems that the only young guy to benefit in this type of match has been Kazarian.
That’s exactly how they f*cked up Joe/Angle right out of the gate: the first meeting. In ’02, Rock/Brock could’ve happened a month after Brock won the shot, but they stretched it out a month and got a great buyrate since it was at one of the Big Four. That extra month gave The E a shot to make fans really salavate at the prospect of this match: and it wasn’t even a dream match. Joe/Angle has been a dream match since Joe’s ROH title reign set the wrestling world on fire back in ’04 and they still blew it. Even with the quickness of it, to have Angle win was the absolute wrong move; especially considering it was Angle that made the call to end the match somewhat abruptly after only around fifteen minutes. This is by no means a rip on Angle, but he was in the position as a surprise castoff of The E (ala Luger in ’95) to create a new star out of this young promotion. Trust me, a conclusive Joe win back in November would’ve done that much for his career if not necessarily for TNA. Plus, they could’ve done things the same way they did with Angle and Joe in each other’s faces all the time, but they don’t actually face each other in the ring. Three matches: the first could’ve been in December, second in the cage, and third for the title in Atlanta. Instead, most of the drawing power of the match was lost since Angle was established as the higher of the two with his established stature within the business and that all-important W.
Yes, wins and losses do matter in wrestling. Even if Joe beats Angle for the belt in October (my guess for Atlanta), that won’t even make their series even, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who realizes that. And don’t say that won’t matter since it’ll be a title match, this last match was for EVERY TITLE IN THE COMPANY. Sorry, but that is a big deal even if titles don’t mean what they used to.
When it comes to Samoa Joe, I do believe that Ring of Honor has more to offer him right now. At this point, TNA has managed to create their promotion’s first star of the Spike Era in Joe and job him out in pretty decent time. Whereas if he went back to ROH right now, he would be greeted with open arms and would be inserted in ANY feud that was at the top. And this wouldn’t be as gratuitous as that booking move usually is because Joe is to Ring of Honor was Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan is to The E. Period.
The Reality is… TNA is likely where Joe will stay. It is a bigger platform for him to become a star and TNA will always push him in some form. It is likely that he will become the face of TNA by the time November comes around and who knows, maybe TNA could pull a miracle and begin to turn around. Maybe it will all turn out to be a slower than usual process. I, on the other hand, have more faith in Ring of Honor making Joe a star because it was where Joe first gained popularity amongst the wrestling community (and you know it’s where TNA first saw him). I’m not saying that ROH’s PPVs are going to skyrocket because of Joe or really anybody; ROH is an Indy fed as it should be, but ECW was able to help launch the careers of people while being an Indy promotion. I believe it will have the same effect on Joe especially at this point in his career. Looking at a lot of booking decisions showing how unwilling America’s Big Two are to make new stars in recent years (Orton’s first push getting f*cked, Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, Michaels’ mega push since his return, Hogan coming back and back) because it seems that Japan is beginning to learn their lesson. In recent years, wrestlers like Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima, Jun Akiyama, Shinjiro Ohtani, Masato Tanaka, and others have suffered somewhat from shortsightedness and poor booking within the company. However, yesterday one of New Japan’s ‘New Three Musketeers’ Hiroshi Tanahashi won his first G-1 Climax — Japan’s biggest singles tournament — beating New Japan’s world champ Yuji Nagata. Nagata ironically was the man who ended Tanahashi’s first title reign (a pretty good one) earlier this year setting up a rubber match in October at Sumo Hall. The show itself by reports drew the promotion’s biggest legit attendance in the building in years. Nagata, not the biggest draw in his first title reign, now has legend status and thus was able to help Tanahashi in what could’ve been his star making win despite already being champ once. Good move, and Nagata hopefully will get the rubber match because Nagata/Mutoh would be perfect for the Tokyo Dome in January.
TNA, please smarten up. People are looking for you to succeed by being different from The E. There’s the message. I bring up so many references from the past, because I told TNA to learn from it a while back and it just seems that the people within won’t do that. Not to get prophetic, but if Joe actually does leave when his contract is up, that very mistake could lead to the end. It happened under Russo’s watch once, who’s to say it won’t happen again?
This week’s ‘FUCK YOU!’ goes to:
MAINSTREAM SPORTS MEDIA
As if Joe/Angle wasn’t disheartening enough, Pacman’s welcome was no surprise to me. What did TNA think was going to happen? Wrestling fans these days don’t care about celebrities that aren’t really celebrities. Pacman Jones is a pro football player on suspension for allegedly being involved in a shooting at a strip club in Las Vegas during NBA all-star weekend. Was this the best celebrity these guys could think of? The MLB stars didn’t do anything for the promotion, but Wycheck at least fit since it was in Nashville. Mainstream sports media — ESPN, CBS, etc. — saw right through this (as they should’ve), but please DO THE FUCKING RESEARCH. To come out and openly say that you don’t know about this promotion is not helping. How does that help? Not only that, but it is downright insulting… more so when it happened during the fiasco that was the MMA v. Boxing feud. First off, it’s not Ultimate Fighting, it’s Mixed Martial-Arts because there’s more than one style at work (‘dee-dee-dee’ to quote Carlos Mencia). Not only that, but it seems that after Liddell/Rampage that nobody on ESPN really cares about MMA, a fact that is particularly sad considering a unification match — something big in the fight game — is coming up. Now I know wrestling isn’t a real sport and people still think that MMA isn’t a sport like Boxing (it is), but the people that have been reporting on these things are better than this; I know they are. Doing the research is part of your job and look like idiots to insiders, which may not mean much, but they are part of the audience too, and they are to their sport and fake sport what you are to all sports.
