Welcome to the premiere edition of “The Wrestling Files”, or the W-Files for short. I’ve been tempted to shy away from The Marshall Report for a while now, mainly because it went from being a report to just something random. Sometimes I had news, other times I had rants. This is something to make things slightly better and it creates a better name than TMR. This name should stick much better. Without further delay, let’s go on.
The purpose of this column is to take something interesting and provide some commentary for it. I may not have to endure painful neck surgery like Kurt Angle, but when Kurt Angle makes some kind of sense, you have to notice. Vince Russo is more evil than Vince McMahon and just like there is a Planet Jarrett, there is also Planet Marshall.
Welcome to my world, leave your hatred at the door.
TNA: We Are (NOT) the Alternative
Here I am about to pen down a column that is going to be anti-TNA in general. This does not necessarily mean that I hate TNA. Hell, I sadistically enjoy TNA every week, but there are some things that make me scratch my head. In order to understand what is wrong with TNA in general, there are two places to look at.
Oh god, Mark Neeley was lucky that he didn’t get to review this show. There were a few matches. Christian Cage defeated Abyss, Awesome Kong defeated Roxxi, Taylor Wilde defeated Angelina Love in a Beauty Contest, and Kurt Angle & Booker T defeated Matt Morgan & Abyss. I left out the Kevin Nash invitational for one reason. Can anyone guess what was involved in the other four events?
Interference. I like interference angles as much as the next person, but is there a need to have interference to occur EVERY TIME? Kurt Angle & Booker T busted Christian Cage up to gain some kind of advantage heading to No Surrender. ODB attacked Awesome Kong to make a match happen at No Surrender. Ugly Kip and the Beautiful People sacked Taylor Wilde until Rhino came to her aid to build their bout at No Surrender. Team 3-D attacked Matt Morgan & Abyss to make that No Surrender Match seem something.
And all of that interference to build No Surrender turned me away from buying the show. Why would I want to invest money on a show that was only driven by interference? That show was their go-home show and it did not do the job that it is supposed to do. Who cares if a million people are watching your show? You want as many of those people to invest in the pay-per-view. There are so many other ways to build feuds. Look at the WWE for example. I could waste an entire column summarizing the epic Edge v. Undertaker feud or the major Chris Jericho v. Shawn Michaels feud. The only feud in TNA that is remotely close to epic involves Sting…and Samoa Joe.
Homegrown v. ex-WWE talent. This brings me to another fault with TNA. The company is centered on ex-WWE stars like Booker T, Kurt Angle, Rhino, Christian Cage, Kevin Nash and even Mick Foley. It’s also centered on an ex-WCW star in Sting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to say that none of them are worthy of being involved in the World Title picture, but alas…TNA has overlooked their home-grown talent. You have Samoa Joe (Close to home grown as you can get), Chris Sabin, Petey Williams, Robert Roode, AJ Styles, Johnny Devine, Eric Young, Curry Man/Christopher Daniels, James Storm…I can go on and on. Has any of these stars received main event pushes that stuck? Aside of Robert Roode, who main evented Slammiversary in the King of the Mountain Match, no sir. AJ Styles has not held the TNA World Heavyweight Championship since they went to Spike TV. You have former WWE stars coming into TNA because of whatever excuse you want to use at any given time and they are treated as if they are the saviors of TNA. If I wanted to see WWE stars in the fold, I’d tune into WWE RAW, ECW, or SmackDown each week. When I tune into TNA, I don’t want to see former WWE stars hogging the spotlight…earning a paycheck that is undeserved. This is probably the biggest reason that TNA will never catch up to the WWE at this rate of speed.
TNA: “We’re F***ing Gimmick Matches”
Another fault TNA has and Kurt Angle was very open to this in an interview with the UK Sun is that there are too many gimmick matches done. TNA has the following gimmick matches on display throughout the year.
- Six Sides of Steel
- King of the Mountain
- Reverse Battle Royals
- Lethal Lockdown
- Match of 10,000 Thumbtacks
- Falls Count Anywhere
- Last Man Standing
- Ultimate X
- Elevation X
- The Terrordome
- Barbwire Massacre
- Monster’s Ball
- Street Fight
- Hardcore Match
- Ladder Match
- (Something) On A Pole Match
I’m sure I’m missing a few matches, but that’s a nice list. The WWE also has a lot of gimmick matches, but they don’t do what TNA does – overkill. TNA likes to throw a gimmick match away on iMPACT in an effort to bump up the proverbial 1.0 or 1.1 to a 1.2 or above and it never works. Not only that, but TNA has to attempt to reinvent the wheel when it comes to gimmick matches. Take the Last Man Standing match. In TNA, you must make a pin or submission before you actually get counted for a ten count. Not only that, but TNA loves to go from one gimmick match to another. Take the Sonjay Dutt/Jay Lethal feud. They feuded in a standard match, then a “Black Tie Brawl & Chain” Match, then a Ladder Match…and yet the feud is NOT over! Dare I ask what is more brutal than a Ladder Match, Mr. Russo? Don’t tell me you’re going to tie So Cal Val on a pole and make the first wrestler to untie her win the match.
Damnit, I should have stayed quiet. I’m giving Vince Russo some suggestions. I talked interference earlier, but I’m expanding on it a bit more based from Angle’s interview.
“I’m trying to make our younger guys more popular.
I let AJ beat me the last four times we wrestled for a reason. To make him a bigger star.
I wanted Joe to beat me and Christian at the PPV to make him a bigger star.
But what’s been happening is we have run-ins to create the wins, so I get protected.
I don’t want to be protected and I don’t need to be protected.
I’m having a real struggle with it.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Kurt Angle being smart. He wants to make stars, but TNA’s creative team wants to protect him and the other veterans. How do you make stars when you’re protecting them? Seriously, what’s stopping TNA from allowing their home-grown talent beating established stars like Kurt Angle. Look what it did to Jay Lethal? Jay beat Kurt Angle CLEAN on Pay-Per-View. Look what it did to Kaz? Kaz beat Christian Cage in his own trademark match – the Ladder Match! These two people were for real…even if TNA Creative crushed them the following week on iMPACT to the reigning World Champion. Kurt says it truthfully that “Wrestling is very simple, keep it simple.”
TNA: Two Things We Are Doing Right
After all this talk about the negative in TNA, there has to be something positive. One of them is something that they are working harder to develop. That is the Knockout’s Division. Of course, you have former WWE stars like Gail Kim, Christy Hemme, and Jacqueline, but I’m willing to let those three slide because they are doing a great job along with the rest of the Knockout’s to make the division work. This is one of the main reasons I keep watching is because the Knockout’s perform much better than WWE “Divas”. All the women from Awesome Kong to Taylor Wilde have a different style and it’s much easier to follow them than anything else the company has to offer. A while back, I heard the rumors about a second TNA show and how it could be devoted to the Knockouts. Give 30-60 minutes a week featuring the Knockouts and you might be onto a huge money making idea. This is one area TNA excels at.
Another area that I’m willing to give them credit for is the revival of the X-Division. Petey Williams as champion was more lame duck than anything considering the main wheel of his title reign, Scott Steiner, was out due to injury. By interjecting Sheik Abdul Bashir into the title picture and putting the title on him makes the division very important. The title is on the one person that hates America worse than when Christian, Test, & Lance Storm formed the Unamericans back in WWE. This is TNA’s huge chance to capitalize when WWE couldn’t with Muhammad Hassan and I actually have high hopes of them succeeding.
TNA: Cross the Line
To sum up, TNA is still the #2 promotion behind the WWE and they have their viewers. Sure, some of what they do may drive most of us crazy or they may get us to not care about their pay-per-views. However when TNA’s top star, Kurt Angle, is saying that they need to change, Dixie, Jeff, Dutch, and Vince all need to listen to him. Trust him, Kurt Angle knows what he’s doing and he wouldn’t be saying all that if he didn’t care if TNA succeeds or fails.
What do you all think? Post your comments about this article or about TNA in general. I’ll post the best comments in the next edition of the W-Files.
Other Files of Interest
Pulse Glazer settles in the Tuesday slot with another edition of the Wrestling Analyst.
Kace Evers gets to the Point by taking over Mondays with Kace in Point. This week, he discusses the money angle going around in TNA right now.
Brad Curran barely finds 10 things to talk about last week’s iMPACT!
Norine Stice covers for yours truly this week as RAW celebrates Episode # 800. It’s surprising that this show was more watched than a show that hyped a Steel Cage World Title match. But the NFL does that to you.
John Wiswell talks about Kevin Steen & El Generico finally winning the ROH Tag Team Titles. After reading this column, I went over to one year ago tomorrow when I covered ROH Driven while I was still learning the ropes as a wrestling writer. It’s slightly buggy since I wrote it last year under the old posting system, but you can view my write-up of the Steen/Generico v. Briscoes Tag Title Match here.
One Year and 94 Posts Later
Yesterday, I officially celebrated one year with Inside Pulse & Pulse Wrestling. I believe I went quite a long ways since I originally was here to report on RAW and whatever other shows that I volunteered to cover. Now I’m still doing RAW and I’ve started to do some column writing. I may not be the best columnist out there, but I’m still learning. Here’s to another year of good times on this site.
Until Next Time
This wraps up the premier edition of The W-Files. I hope you like the slightly different format and the new name. I’ll be back Monday night for RAW # 801. Until then, have a great weekend and don’t forget to check out Pulse Wrestling tonight and tomorrow for more wrestling coverage. Adios!
