Well, we’re three weeks in, and can anyone honestly say they knew Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff’s grand plan for TNA was to turn it into a comedy?
Of course, while I say comedy, it’s really a tragedy.
On air it’s actually not so bad; certainly nowhere near as bad as the first hour of the Monday Night special. There are even minor improvements that can be noted. There have been more clean finishes, less jarring camera cuts, things of that nature. But the booking choices… Ken Kennedy (excuse me, Ken Anderson) being hyped as a man who will change the face of the business? For all the potential Kennedy may have had (mostly on the microphone), at this point the man isn’t even a has been; he’s bordering on never was. The Nasty Boys are in a serious feud and not just as a nostalgia act? Orlando Jordan and Sean “Val Venis” Morley actually WINNING matches, and alienating the fans to the point they turn their back on the pinfall? Are there really people backstage coming up with this and thinking this is the future of TNA? It’s laughable.
Especially laughable is the so called “coup†the company pulled off when Jeff Hardy came out of the crowd on the Monday Night special. What is that result of TNA getting the man who was possibly the WWE’s biggest star of 2009 you ask? Nothing. There has been no Jeff Hardy to be found on TNA programming since. Probably for the best, given his legal problems, but it still leaves TNA (and the fans who audibly stuck up for Hardy’s appearance as being a big deal) with egg on their face.
Credit where credit is due however, they do seem to have picked a young, company mainstay as world champion, and they seem to be sticking with him. It’s just the thing is… how do I put this. The focus seems to be more on AJ Styles being a surrogate Ric Flair. Cheating to win, coming to the ring dressed to the nines, accompanied by beautiful women and bragging about having them (do they think the tv audience hasn‘t noticed that the man has been wearing his wedding ring on a chain around his neck for years?)… it almost give one the impression that they simply wish they could put Flair’s brain in Styles body. Putting Styles and Flair together is certainly a reasonable idea; in fact having Flair try to shape Styles into his protégé is a pretty good one as well, despite the fact that there isn’t a wrestling fan out there that doesn’t know a certain triple initialed McMahon in law has already laid claim to that title. But the execution thus far has failed to play to either man’s strengths, resulting in AJ “Stylin and Profilin†Styles (an awkward nick name if there ever was one. Better to have simply replaced “The Phenomenal†with “Stylin and Profilinâ€) doing an uncomfortable Flair imitation while Flair stands there in silence, having already shot his load on a 5 minute promo focused mainly on Hulk Hogan and Dixie Carter. AJ’s promo felt closer to a Black Machismo or Stone Cold Sharkboy than a HHH.
And then there are the behind the scenes stories that have been making the rounds. The ones that make it sound like the entire backstage is in chaos. Those are the ones that really crack me up. The two best examples, of course, are:
-Awesome Kong beating up Bubba the Love Sponge over his comments about Haiti. Just thinking about it makes me laugh out loud. Sadly, it appears that this incident (which Hogan has chalked up to female problems. Seriously) has soured Bubba on the wrestling business. A business he was barely in for a month, and had no business in in the first place. Ok, so maybe that’s not so sad. But word from the Wrestling Observer is that Kong has asked for her release from the company. That’s got to be a blow. The Knockouts division is one of the things that sets TNA apart; letting one of it’s cornerstones go because Hogan is buddy-buddy with a useless shock jock would just
-A video of the production team instructing the crowd to behave leaks onto the internet, why? Because the crowd revolted over the loss of the six sided ring and the subsequent berating from Hogan and Bischoff. The two of them did themselves no favors by letting the hostile crowd get to them on live PPV either. These men are professionals, there is no doubt that they have dealt with hostile crowds before. To treat the fans like children, no matter how childish they are being, isn’t going to help anything. The fact that the fans, who as I understand it get in for free, basically act like their own stable, with hand signs and catchphrases and so on, adds a whole extra layer of ridiculousness to the story.
Personally, I always hated the six sided ring, yet watching the show now… it’s weird. I kind of even, dare I say, miss it. But I certainly don’t CARE enough to start a chant over it or threaten to riot via message board post. But that’s the environment that’s being created.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I want to see TNA succeed. They have all the potential in the world. But what I see and I hear these days… it makes me laugh. Not a good, wholesome, healthy laugh, but that awkward, “I’m so uncomfortable” laughter the British version of The Office so often produced.
And that makes me sad.
