Interinactivity: 08.09.2013 – A Return To TNA (Insider) [Part Uno Of Dos]

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Welcome back to “Interinactivity”. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

In the past few weeks, quite a bit of news has come out of TNA. Now, I’ve not commented on TNA in quite a long time, because quite honestly it’s taken me this long to give a shit. But when something important happens in TNA, I always like to see what the unwashed bumblefucks over at TNAInsider have to say.

If you’re familiar with TNAInsider, then you’re probably already looking forward to this. If you miss the TNA Impact recaps I used to do where I’d interact with the TNA fans who yelled at me for not blindly loving Gunner and Crimson, and everything else TNA put in front of me, this is going to be right up your alley.

Anyway, if you’ve not been paying attention, in news that surprised absolutely no one, TNA had to let go a bunch of people and have had trouble even getting a thousand people to show up for Impact. As well, Kurt Angle got his fourth DUI and is in rehab. I assume that TNA already have plans underway to have a match between him and Jeff Hardy with heavy cross-promotion from that JAIL show that Spike TV puts on, in a feud over who has been arrested and convicted more times than the other.

The first part of the Q & A is the entirity of a single comment from a lady or gentleman (a gentleman) on TNAInsider called “Dizzy”. Next week, we’ll deal with some of the responses that his comment got.

 

Dizzy: After the massive cuts (in TNA) I felt the need to speak on the real problem. Rant in 3, 2, 1…

2010 – TNA signed Hogan, Bischoff. The IWC reacted like Satan himself came on national TV and said “hello, I’m back”, TNA brought in Flair, RVD, Mr. Kennedy….Kennedy, brought back Jeff Hardy. Brought in cameo wrestlers like Nasty Boys, etc. The IWC called it the END. The move to Monday Night was the sign of the end. Now, TNA drew it’s highest ratings ever that telecast.

BD: Van Dam didn’t debut until months after the January 4th show you’re referring to, and right off the bat your memory seems fuzzy – were that many people really upset about Hogan and Bischoff going to TNA? That’s news to me, from what I read people were quite excited, just to see what happened – whether they thought TNA would do better as a result or not.

But you’re absolutely correct that they did their highest ratings ever that week.

Now that I’ve agreed with you on that, I want you to seriously consider what you’re saying. TNA brought in Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman, Ken Anderson, Val Venis, Orlando Jordan, The Nasty Boys, Shannon Moore, Bubba The Love Sponge and Jeff Hardy, and they drew their highest ratings ever… for one show.

One show.

All that, and they did a great rating for one show.

Does that really seem like a good result to you? Does it seem like a good use of money and promotion, to get a result that lasted for one week?

And yeah, people did laugh TNA for going to Monday nights, thinking they had no chance – and look what happened. They were right. TNA abandoned Monday nights within weeks because they were getting their shit kicked in.

 

I think the harshest opponents of the move were just the people who stated Hogan and Bischoff’s track record… correctly stated it, by the way. Their fear was that Hulk and company would come in and change a bunch of stuff, which is exactly what they did. Remember when Hulk got rid of the 6-sided ring, and the TNA fans chanted “WE WANT SIX SIDES” at him? He then claimed he did it “for the business”. Hulk also brought in Ken Anderson and a ton of other talent – within a few weeks, Christopher Daniels was losing clean to Val Venis – Daniels then left the company shortly thereafter. Aside from Hardy, how is everyone Hogan brought in doing in TNA today? Not so good. Almost all of them are either gone or nowhere.

And that’s the thing about that January 4th show – the very first match they put in a giant birdcage that no one could get out of, and after it fucked up the crowd chanted “bullshit” at TNA. The main crux of the show was an angle with Hogan, Nash, Hall, X-Pac, Eric Bischoff, Sting and Mick Foley that was literally never resolved. And I know that storyline was never completed for obvious reasons, but what WAS their ACTUAL plan to begin with? How could they possibly have planned to ride this story to completion? Was their plan to actually put the nWo against Foley, Sting and maybe Hogan in a TNA ring in 2010?!

Which is one of the other things that people were skeptical about with Hogan and Bischoff coming in – their ability to deliver on what they say. Not that anyone was really disappointed that they didn’t get to see the nWo against TNA Nitro, but THEY said they were going to give the fans what they wanted – the TNA fans almost unanimously wanted a good in-ring product, yet the matches on the show were all laughable aside from AJ Styles and Kurt Angle in the main event – which was a fantastic match. Maybe one of the best matches ever put on Impact – and then, Hulk Hogan came out and said that stuff like THAT is what we can expect to see on Impact.

As we all know now, that never happened again.

More importantly, I think people were concerned with Hogan and Bischoff even really being able to COMPREHEND what fans are actually saying. When fans said they wanted more complex or reality-based storylines like they’d see during The Monday Night Wars, they didn’t mean they wanted to see the ORIGINAL New World Order in a ring in 2010. When they said they wanted something akin to the Attitude Era, they didn’t mean they wanted ACTUAL Attitude Era mid-carder Val Venis. And when they said they wanted a more old-school wrestling product, THEY DID NOT MEAN THE NASTY BOYS.

For the amount of promotion and hype they put into that show, no one was surprised when they did a reasonable rating. But what did they do with that rating? Nothing. That trend didn’t continue – which is why the January 4th show DIDN’T deliver. No one cares about a good rating when it lasts for all of a week.

 

Dizzy: Later that summer, they ran a basic similar angle to the legendary screwjob, It became the Orlando screwjob…which drew a 1.5 in the segment. While the IWC said it was pathetic, disgraceful and made TNA a joke…It reaped benefits where it matters most.

BD: Again… where are these people that are saying this? I remember people not really being all that interested or entertained to begin with, but I don’t remember anyone saying that it was pathetic or disgraceful. Sure, people probably said TNA was a joke, but that’s because TNA IS a joke.

Anyway, let’s ignore the facts that 1.5 is not a successful rating and that the “Orlando Screwjob” is just one of countless examples that TNA is over a decade behind with their ideas for a moment, and say that you’re right (you’re not.)

Again – they did a good rating for ONE week.

ONE WEEK.

It’s one thing to get people to tune in – that’s difficult enough. But if you can’t come up with something that people want to see that will KEEP them tuning in, then what’s the point?

 

Dizzy: Later in 2010, Immortal was born towards the end of that year. Another angle, the IWC hated. The post-BFG episode of Impact drew 2.1 million viewership and even sparked the interest of Randy Orton to tune in to Jeff Hardy’s talked about heel turn….Again, the IWC reacted like It was a crime.

BD: Immortal is the last thing that TNA did that I truly believe could have turned things around. This was back in the days that I worked for a now non-existent site called WrestlingOpinions with Swayze. Swayze covered RAW, and I covered Impact – this was back in the Nexus days, which I thought were horrible beyond belief. Now, TNA was no treat, but I thought I saw in the Immortal storyline a chance for TNA to FINALLY elevate some younger stars that, despite the audience’s audible protests, TNA had pushed aside in favor of many of the superstars you listed that showed up for the January 4th show.

Swayze said I was crazy, and that it would never happen, and this was the last time I ever defended TNA. He will back me up on this. He was right, I was wrong. NOBODY wanted Immortal to work more than I did. I didn’t think TNA had any real chances left to turn it all around after all the years of wasted potential, so I was legit excited when this Immortal thing started. I hadn’t truly been entertained by anything aside from the odd thing on WWE for YEARS before this. I had EVERY intention of giving this a chance.

But, guess what? It was terrible. Just because I found WWE to be terrible at the time does not make what TNA was doing good.

Instead of doing a well-written company-wide angle that could have pushed some wrestlers that would have actually done something for TNA, the first foils for Immortal were Ken Anderson and Matt Morgan, who had horrible garbage matches with Jeff Hardy. Bully Ray was murdering D-Von’s children, and Sting started forcibly painting people’s faces and force feeding pills to a weeping Hulk Hogan.

The Knockouts were insane. Angelina Love was confronted by a woman only she could see, at least for a little while before she became visible to everyone. The woman then drugged Angelina and turned her into a rape bride. Velvet Sky had to save her – one of the backstage scenes from this story is Velvet talking to the woman with her back turned, and the woman is staring at a pair of scissors on a table. She’s contemplating murdering this woman with a pair of scissors.

Another Knockout named Madison brought Tara into TNA, which apparently meant that Madison then owned Tara. Madison was fighting Mickie James at the time, and to get out of the match Madison suggested that Tara run down Mickie James on a motorcycle. Tara was like “I don’t know about this.” and Madison was like “HEY! YOU WANT TO BE UNEMPLOYED! NO I DIDN’T THINK SO! SO LET’S GO KILL THAT FUCKING BITCH RIGHT NOW!” and then they went and ran down Mickie James in full view of the cameras. MIckie was wrestling again two weeks later.

Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett then did a months-long angle that continued to prove TNA’s pattern of going with ideas that are long out-of-date with their “worked shoot” involving Karen Angle, which was outdated when Matt Hardy and Edge did it in 2005. This storyline was impossible to follow – one week, Kurt Angle had Karen covered in shit from Eric Young’s horse, and another week he was trying to murder Karen and Jeff with an axe. It even involved Chyna.

And, how did this ENTIRE year culminate? Hulk Hogan, with Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff in his corner, against Sting at a TNA PPV.

In 2011.

You watch TNA. You know this.

 

Dizzy: 2011 – The IWC ranted and ranted…and ranted about the product of old folks while WWE was pushing the young talent at the time that was NXT. TNA finally fell victim to that pressure, rebranded to “Impact Wrestling”, pushed the X-Division, brought in everyone’s favorite Indy wrestlers. Austin Aries was the toast of TNA. Meanwhile, in WWE they tried to build those NXT wrestlers as the next NWO and EVEN that failed. Does anyone remember Nexus anymore?….Yeah…Exactly. After 2011, WWE put their “strict youth movement” out the window. What the IWC say? Nothing.

BD: I think we all agree Nexus was shit, but what does “EVEN that failed” mean, and what could that possibly have to do with TNA? Just because something WWE was doing was terrible doesn’t mean whatever TNA is doing must be good. As far as what fans wanted to see, I think you confuse “young wrestlers” with “good wrestlers”. Nobody said anything when Nexus hit the skids because the only guy in there that anyone cared about was Daniel Bryan… that’s a guy that people cared about. There are several points in Bryan’s WWE career where the fans could have easily given up on him, but they didn’t because they wanted to see him even though WWE gave them no real reason to want to see him for a long time. They just DID. And look at HIM now.

The saddest thing about TNA is that they have those guys too. They have MORE of these guys than WWE does – AJ, Joe, Sabin, Daniels – and more. Many of them, they’ve had forever but consistently push under the albatross that WWE either fires or passes on. The period you’re referring to is also when TNA debuted Gunner & Crimson. This type of wrestler are basically TNA’s version of the wrestlers that were in Nexus that weren’t Bryan. They may be young, but are they any good? Does anyone care about them? Now contrast that with guys like Aries and Bryan, and look at TNA’s track record and consistency over the years with wrestlers like Aries and Bryan versus ex-WWE guys like Ken Anderson and Matt Morgan, and versus new wastes of time like Crimson and Gunner.

Now take a look at how Crimson, Gunner, Matt Morgan and Ken Anderson are doing today, as opposed to wrestlers that people actually get into like AJ Styles, Austin Aries, and Samoa Joe.

When you’re done with that, take a look at what was ONCE AGAIN at the top of TNA in 2011, and you won’t find Austin Aries there. You’ll find Immortal, Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett, Jeff Hardy, Matt Morgan, Ken Anderson, and Rob Van Dam. The climax of all this was… again… Hulk Hogan, with Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff in his corner, against Sting at a TNA PPV.

In 2011.

You watch TNA. You know this.

 

Dizzy: 2012 – TNA began really focusing on micro managing the TNA Originals and WWE/WCW cast offs as they are always called. They began finding a solid formula of it. Started going on the road more, pushing Austin Aries….But where did it show up? Not in the ratings. They never once peaked to 2 million viewers at least once in 2012.

BD: That’s ridiculous. There was a LOT of dumb shit they did in 2012 that was WAY more prominently featured than Aries. Halfway through the year, they did another dumb outdated stable storyline about masked wrestlers in a motorcycle gang “invading” the building, which led to speculation on who the masked wrestlers were, and who could possibly be their leader. The masked wrestlers turned out to be ex-WWE guys that most people didn’t remember or had never heard of in the first place like Mike Knox and Luke Gallows, and the leaders turned out to be The Dudley Boys.

This of course, was after the main-event storyline where Bully Ray married Brooke Hogan, and Hulk Hogan didn’t approve but Sting told him that Bully was a good guy. Then Ray ended up being in Aces, and after this happened, Brooke Hogan came out to cry and Hulk Hogan came out to SWIPE AT THE MOTORCYCLE GANG THROUGH THE CAGE WITH HIS CRUTCH.

Literally, that’s what happened.

In 2012.

And, you know who the main foils for Aces & Eights were?

Hulk Hogan, Sting, and Jeff Hardy.

 

You know what else they did in 2012? They did a giant round of PR for Impact being “unproduced” and “unscripted”. I can only imagine that you left this out because it’s one of the most embarrassing things that TNA has ever done, and I’m talking on the level of “catering invasion”, the time they almost burned their own building down on PPV, and that horrible January 4th show you mentioned that EVEN TNA FANS make fun of to this day. This was where Dixie Carter claimed that they would be “pulling back the curtain” and showing the “real life drama” behind the scenes.

She said the show would be “unscripted and unproduced”. I didn’t make that up. That’s what she said. In the same press release, they said they’d be showing post-match critiques and production meetings.

An unproduced show… with production meetings.

Unproduced.

Production.

Then, on their post-show, they had an interview with the producer.

Unproduced.

Producer.

It’s just amazing.

Up until this point, I gave Dixie Carter a lot of credit. More than anything, I gave her an A for effort. She seemed like a smart lady – I figured she’d just been dealt a bad hand, was listening to the wrong people, or just had bad luck. THIS made me realize she couldn’t find a map with a fucking map.

 

And THEN, they didn’t even bother to change their show – not one bit. The “real life meetings” consisted of the fat ex-WWE production guy arguing with Al Snow with a camera 2 inches from their face about whether a guy should get a contract or not.

ALL of this was WAY more prominently featured than Aries.

You watch TNA. You know this.

 

Dizzy: Roode/Storm was built to be a GOAT rivalry. Like Triple H vs Shawn Micheal type of rivalry….Yet, it did not draw a dime. It was a great stretch of wrestling for alot of us to watch (don’t want to really speak for anybody) but It did not draw a damn dime. That same summer, Aries wins over Roode….Still did not draw anything spectacular. They even added their own version of NXT but that simply did not go over well either.

BD: This is just kind of thrown in at random, and I can’t really tell what you’re going for. At least before, you were kind of going in one direction.

Yeah, Roode / Storm sucked, and I wouldn’t call it a great stretch of wrestling either. It wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t even bad, it just wasn’t what people wanted to see, and just another example of TNA giving people stuff they haven’t asked for while ignoring guys that the crowd HAD asked to see. Did a lot of people really look at that roster and be like “Roode & Storm are the guys I want to see on top?” I mean, it’s a step up from Ken Anderson & Matt Morgan, but really, if it’s not what people want, then who cares?

Yeah, Gutcheck was a horrible failure. No argument there either, but this was just an extension of the horrible “reality on Impact” concept that they tried.

 

Dizzy: 2013 – the product structure stays the same as 2012 (not a bad thing).

BD: You JUST said you didn’t like the product structure from 2012.

 

Dizzy: Ihe Russo era is fully behind us. So, what was left for TNA to do that the IWC begged for the last 6 years? “TNA MUST GO ON THE ROAD GODDAMNIT!!!!!” So, TNA and Dixie come together to take the biggest step needed to “pop ratings and get out the impact zone” as it was touted by the delusional wisemen of the business like Bryan Alverez, Mark Madden, etc.

BD: Again, where are the people that said that TNA has to go on the road? Sure, the Impact Zone sucked, but I think most of the people who wanted TNA to go on the road were the ones who wanted it to grow, expand and succeed. So do you even hate TNA fans now? You’re all over the place here.

 

Dizzy: Well, TNA has been on the road officially for half of the year and guess what? They not popped a SINGLE rating that peaked to anything they accomplished in 2010. When they were a “mess and garbage”. In fact, you could make an argument they have gotten worse.

BD: Whether the show travels or not has the square root of fuck all to do with ratings, and everything to do with the fact that they’re still, as you say, a mess and garbage. Messy garbage, if you will. Going on the road was never going to change this. No one said “they can keep the show exactly how it is now, all they need is to go on the road it will all of a sudden be good.” That’s just silly.

 

Dizzy: What’s more mind boggling is Chris Sabin wins the gold and it’s a sign of the end according to many. Three years ago that would be called “Pushing the homegrown talent”

BD: WHO. WHO is saying that?!

 

Dizzy: Now, Pritchard the genius behind the current structured product…a guy from WWE with all the experience that IWC wanted at the helm, in fact hurt the company more than helped. I remember a few people on here who said he was nothing but trouble since day one and they were right.

BD: Who. WHO wanted Pritchard at the helm? Show me. SHOW me the guy who, when TNA signed Pritchard, said “this is exactly what they need!” None of these people work inside WWE. They wouldn’t have the first clue about whether Pritchard good, bad, smart, stupid, straight, gay, hot or cold. So they certainly can’t know anything about how he’ll do for TNA, especially not with so many other clowns in the car.

I don’t know how much or little of the blame for the current state of the show should be placed on Pritchard, nor do I pretend to know. But didn’t Hogan, Bischoff, and Russo all hurt the company more than they helped too? You could make the argument that the show has gone downhill, or could at the very least factually state that the company has not grown one bit since they arrived. How is what Pritchard did any worse?

 

Dizzy: So, Eric Bischoff now is at the helm but that spells the end of the company and product? Give me a freaking break. The most hilarious part of it all is Bischoff has been the only one that remotely did his job correctly. Him and Harvey did a masterful job upgrading the company’s production from looking like total crap to looking professionally done.

BD: Okay, cool. They improved the camera-work and the lighting. He did that correctly. That’s Bischoff’s entire job done and done well then, is it? Your whole point up until now has been ratings, and Bischoff has not been able to raise them for longer than one week. And, you spent paragraphs telling us how the show hasn’t improved under his leadership. Either he’s responsible like Pritchard and Dixie are, or none of them are responsible.

Also, Pritchard was in a prominent backstage role in TNA for several of the storylines you mentioned that you DID think “worked”. Your examples are all tongue-in-cheek – some of the stuff you felt “worked”, Pritchard was involved in, and some of the stuff you felt “didn’t work” Bischoff was involved in. But Prithcard is bad and Bischoff is good? How does that work? You can’t have it both ways, dude.

Eric Bischoff put The Nasty Boys and Val Venis on TV. In 2010.

 

Dizzy: Now, we all have done it but last time I checked, didn’t the IWC used to make lists of talent cuts that they wish they could do of wrestlers that don’t help the product or company? Well, we are seeing the live version of it. So, how and why is this such a surprise?

BD: Yet AGAIN… SHOW me who was surprised by this. SHOW me who thinks they need Matt Morgan or Crimson. Seriously. SHOW me who thinks that the show is going to take another nosedive without the guys they released.

 

Dizzy: TNA is locked into TV deals through 2015, they aren’t going anywhere.

BD: Is this another argument you’re having with yourself, or did someone actually tell you that they are?

 

Dizzy: They wasted their own money pleasing morons who begged for less PPVs to HELP the company and more “Specials” THAT THEY DON’T EVEN PAY FOR.

BD: As much as I love this continuing theme of yours that TNA is constantly held hostage by people who hate TNA, which totally makes all kinds of sense by the way, take a look at how few people were actually buying their PPV’s.

You’re not even thinking straight anymore. I’m curious – did you ever think that maybe it could have been the fans that WERE paying for the PPV’s who suggested that TNA should maybe have less? After all, it stands to reason that THEY’RE the ones who would stand to benefit the most from such a move. You know, because they’d save money – all the people who stream PPV’s gain from it is LESS FREE PPV.

 

Dizzy: How many times have we heard the excuse “Meh…Doesn’t look good enough for me to buy” but they want to dictate what the company SHOULD run but won’t support it?

BD: Dizzy, what the fuck man? This just may be the dumbest thing ever written to me by a wrestling fan, and if you ever saw any of my old TNA recaps, you’d realize that this is saying something. I was once adamantly and sincerely told that Mike Tenay would never dare lie to the wrestling fans about the identity of a masked wrestler, and this is actually stupider than that. That takes effort. My hat is off to you, but before I jump to any conclusions, I want to make sure I understand what you’re saying here.

It sounds like what you’re saying is that the fans will only buy PPV’s if they’re dictating what the company can run, even though they have literally NO means of doing so. Whatsoever. AT all. And then it sounds like you’re saying they won’t support it even if they DO get that.

That can’t be what you’re saying, right? Because that statement would imply that no one has ever or will ever buy a TNA PPV until the end of time, since that’s an impossible set of circumstances. When TNA looks at their PPV buyrates, I’m sure it FEELS like that sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it’s literal.

 

Dizzy: TNA will only begin to take off on it’s own when they cut out the middle man and stop allowing these morons to dictate their product, their venues and their talent. They are clueless. It’s honestly embarrassing now seeing them create excuse after excuse instead of owning to the fact they are clueless to what works from what doesn’t in the wrestling industry because they hated what DID work and TNA is currently producing what they wanted and it is FAILING BADLY.

BD: The thing is, what DID work? If the stuff you say TNA came up with that generated such “great” ratings (for a week) like January 4th, Orlando Screwjob, Immortal, and Aces & Eights were so fucking great, then WHY HAVE THEY NOT GOTTEN ANYWHERE BY DOING THIS STUFF? You talk like TNA tried this stuff for a week and then went right back to what “the fans wanted”. You can argue about what’s worked and what hasn’t until you’re blue in the face, but where did any of the above listed “TNA” angles get them that things “the fans demanded” like pushing Aries, Roode and Storm didn’t? A good rating for ONE WEEK?

The “TNA” storyline Immortal went for over a year, and the “TNA” storyline Aces & Eights just hit a year as well. Around 2011 is when you state that TNA started giving the fans “what they wanted”, yet most of 2011 was taken up by the Immortal storyline which culminated in… again, Hogan / Sting and Angle / Jarrett. Fans did not demand that. You state that this trend continued in 2012 when they hired Aries, yet most of that year was taken up by the Aces & Eights storyline, which has so far culminated in… again, Hogan, Sting, Kurt Angle & Jeff Hardy against a motorcycle gang of former WWE jobbers led by The Dudley Boys.

In 2013.

 

Dizzy: I’ve also been keeping an eye on WWE and I’m starting to see why they pushed the PG era. Because it does work and it’s what’s relevant today. TNA needs to either decide to rebrand to PG with X-Division focus that will draw in children or go back to being a nostalgic edgy product like in 2010.

BD: Yeah, great idea. TNA needs to go back to 2010, because that was such an awesome year for them.

Are you shitting me? 2010 was a horrible year for TNA. You pointed to one show which did one good rating which they couldn’t maintain, and another show which did an okay rating which they also couldn’t maintain. That year of being a “nostalgic edgy product” got them NOWHERE. Val Venis beat up Jeff Jarrett in bathrooms and Orlando Jordan was doing stuff with police tape and fake / possibly real splooge that I just refuse to try and YouTube.

 

Dizzy: Dixie Carter can reach to an audience and soccer moms and dads in ways that Vince can’t.

BD: Dixie has repeatedly proven her inability to do that.

 

Dizzy: There is alot of potential with their roster and with directions they could go IF they commit to what is relevant but again, what is relevant is what is most hated by the IWC and it will forever cause TNA’s downfall listening to these morons with no clue on anything but their own imaginations.

BD: I agree with you that there is potential with the roster. I actually believe that, up until a few years ago, TNA actually had a much stronger roster than WWE. And that’s what makes the case of TNA such a sad one, because of how they squandered existing and previous talent. Especially when so much of it was done to bring in WWE castoffs or guys that people just don’t care about.

They had AJ Styles, who the TNA audience loves, and yet they needed to push Ken Anderson ahead of him as a babyface for years, and that got them what? They had Samoa Joe, who the TNA audience loves, and yet they needed to job him out to Matt Morgan and Crimson for about half a year, and that got them what? Neither of those two even work there anymore, and yet Joe is still loved. They had Christopher Daniels, who the TNA audience loves, and yet they brought in Val Venis, who nobody asked to see, and he was cleanly beating Daniels, who had been in TNA for years in his second or third week in TNA, and that got them what? What did Val Venis EVER do for TNA? They had Jay Lethal, who the TNA audience loved, and yet they needed to bring in a no-talent guy like Gunner, who never impressed anyone, and give him a push where he beat Sting and AJ Styles back-to-back even though AJ was about to main-event a PPV that Gunner wasn’t even on. Jay Lethal, who the audience loved is gone, and what has Gunner done for TNA since then?

Don’t get me wrong – no reasonable human thinks that any wrestling company is going to get it right all the time, but even if you remove the guys of value from the previous paragraph and just look at ALL the guys TNA has tried to unsuccessfully force-feed their audience, it really is just kind of amazing that a learning curve hasn’t kicked in for them, especially when they’ve been sitting on some of the talent they’re sitting on.

 

Dizzy: Just like ROH. Remember when they were taking over with Jim Cornette at the helm? LOL!

BD: Again, you’re making this up. When did ROH ever claim they were going to overtake anyone?

 

Dizzy: Or Paul Heyman’s vision (which was garbage)…Meanwhile Heyman ran ECW into the ground but he’s praised for his views while Bischoff gets crapped on daily. Anyone see the hilarity in that? By the way, Heyman wanted MORE money than Hogan makes and more power over Dixie…Anyone see an issue with that? Not to the IWC.

BD: If Paul Heyman’s vision was so garbage, then why the fuck do Dixie and TNA try to rip it off and recreate it EVERY CHANCE THEY GET? Not that they only do this with ECW, because they do it with almost every other prominent fed as well – they take their hardcore matches from ECW, even going so far as to run ECW reunion shows, they take outdated stable and takeover angles from WCW to this day, they took their X-Division & “Code Of The X-Division” angle from Ring Of Honor, and their “edgy” or “reality” angles from WWE’s Attitude Era, to say nothing of the times that TNA has gone after WWE in the same way WWE went after WCW back in the day… like, 15 years ago.

Monday Night War 2 was TNA’s idea, not WWE’s. Anyone remember the Undertaker ripoff video, the catering invasion, or when TNA made a big deal of putting BILLBOARDS of all things close to WWE headquarters?

So yes, I do see the hilarity in that, because Eric Bischoff is still running a wrestling show in 2013 despite numerous failures, and Paul Heyman never ran another company after ECW. I happen to think that praise for Paul Heyman is pretty overblown as well, but I believe that he’s praised for his views because it’s generally accepted that his vision, while successful only for the short-term, did evolve the business as a whole, in a way that you can actually SEE IN TNA itself, as well as in WWE, ROH and even in WCW when it was still around.

TNA, on the other hand – under Jarrett, Dixie, Bischoff, whoever – has not evolved anything. TNA has NO innovation of their own that’s been successful. EVERYTHING they’ve come up with themselves has been an abysmal failure. The weekly PPV’s failed miserably, that “King Of The Mountain” match was like watching a fucking swarm of bees, the “Reaction” post-show that they did just got them laughed at, the “reality-behind-the-curtain” thing made even TNA fans laugh at them, Gutcheck remains a joke, and that stupid passive-aggressive “Wrestling Matters” slogan that they shouted at WWE fans only lasted long enough for people (the ones still silly enough to still buy into another lame Dixie PR grab) to realize that the general in-ring wrestling quality on TNA shows was no different – if not worse – than WWE.

You could LOOSELY make the argument that the X-Division was an innovation, but you at least have to concede that it was HEAVILY influenced by Ring Of Honor, especially since they were using guys that came straight from or were still competing in Ring Of Honor, and even if you can make that argument, WHAT have they done with the X-Division in the last 6 or 7 years? Almost nothing.

Say what you will about Paul Heyman, but in that same interview you’re quoting he said he had no desire to really be involved in the wrestling business, and that TNA approached him, not the other way around. He said outright that TNA wasn’t ready for him to come in and do what he thought needed to be done, and that’s why he highballed them. Again, I think Heyman is a bit over-praised as well, and it’s far from a foregone conclusion that he could have helped TNA as much as people claim anyway.

But think about it – could he really have done WORSE than the people who’ve had it up until now?

 

Dizzy: So, again…TNA will forever stay like this until Dixie Carter officially says “F*ck Off” and does it the RIGHT way. I always hear “It’s 2013, it’s not the 90s anymore”….Just know, It’s 2013 and WWE is in the NOW and the now does not include Internet morons dictating what’s hot or what’s not.

BD: YEAH! FUCK OFF, WRESTLING FANS! That’s exactly what Dixie needs to do.

Also, you’re right. It’s not like fans have any say in what’s hot or not in WWE. It’s not like CM Punk or Daniel Bryan, those IWC hivemind indy vanilla midget darlings, are prominently featured or doing that well in WWE, right?

 

Dizzy: And before anyone says ” But you are apart of the IWC!” We (TNAinsider) all are but we all aren’t self entitled morons that think they know the business better than our back of our hands. We all genuinely want to see TNA do well without an agenda of imaginary ideas or masked envy. They get zero impact in the WWE. They get TOO much impact in TNA (pun intended) and it’s showing badly why you do not dictate your product to a bunch of nobodies that do not support it.

BD: You have used EVERYTHING you’ve written here to suggest that YOU know what TNA should do. So TNA shouldn’t listen to their fans, unless that fan is YOU, is that it?

YOU know better? YOUR idea is that TNA should stick with the ideas they did on their own (January 4th, Orlando Screwjob, Immortal, Aces & Eights), when none of those angles did ANYTHING to get the company any further ahead than it was before 2010 when Hogan and Bischoff got there, which is the earliest time period you referenced when you started the piece.

 

Here’s something you should remember. If you write about “internet morons” dictating stuff to wrestling company, and then suggest that wrestling company tell the few fans they have left that actually CARE enough about what’s going on to speak up… to fuck off – then it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not the one they need to be taking business advice from.

You’re the internet moron, Dizzy. Sorry man. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that there is one. Also, I know TNAInsider likes to claim they’re “not IWC” (which is hilarious just on it’s own), but it turns out TNAInsider is ACTUALLY the single-best example of YOUR VERY OWN “IWC” DEFINITION than any wrestling website I’ve ever seen.

And I’ve seen Bleacher Report in it’s heyday.

Did you know that one of the RECENT forums on TNAInsider is called “Should TNA do a boxing tournament like the WWE Brawl For All?” I swear to God I didn’t make that up. That’s actually on there.

So as it turns out, you’re right. TNA shouldn’t listen to internet morons. If there’s any better proof of that than one of them suggesting that TNA continue to do things that haven’t worked, then I haven’t seen it.

Well done.

 

Sorry for the length of this – if you’ve made it this far, I salute you. I honestly did not think it would end up being this long. I forgot what happens when I look at TNAInsider – it feels like time is standing still. Next week, I’m going to be handling the responses that Dizzy’s little diatribe got.

And do me a favour – someone post this for the hacks on TNAInsider. Fuckers already had an entire thread devoted to me after they had an aneurism over my TNA recaps, so I’m sure they would LOVE this.

This has been “Interinactivity”. Thanks for reading, check out Part 2 next week, and have a great weekend.

Fuck TNA and I’ll be in my trailer.

Cheers,
BD

BD writes about professional wrestling on Inside Pulse until he has to stop because he's about to have a stroke. Any “errors” that are made on his part are, of course, intentional and represent an artistic choice. He acts as a kind of fly paper for the emotionally disturbed.