THE KURT ANGLE-TNA PARADOX

In this post, I discuss how there is an apparent paradox involving Kurt Angle’s involvement in TNA, and what it could mean for the company and professional wrestling in general.

Originally this was intended to be all one post, but when I started getting into the Kurt Angle-TNA Paradox it just took a life of its own. There is simply so much that needs to be said in regards to this matter that I had to give the topic its own posting all together.

In my previous post, I just rehashed why TNA is light years away from being the product that the WWE offers by noting some glaring faults in the TNA production. At the same time I also noted that I desperately want for there to be other successful promotions in wrestling outside of the WWE and therefore offered some suggestions and made references to some aspects the TNA can hang their hat on.

I noted that the biggest asset the TNA has, is having Kurt Angle under contract.

TNA is never going to be able to compete with Vince head-to-head and win. Not now, and not ever in the immediate-to-distant future. WCW started topping the WWF in the late 90s because they had an innovative product and put on top-notch cards each week. This was something the WWF had only reserved for their pay-per-views. It wasn’t that WCW had the better draws in 1995 & 96, even though they actually did…WCW did in fact have the top draws and used them well. Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Sting, Ric Flair, Lex Luger, etc… these were top draws in the 1990s, irregardless of what you want to say about any of them now. When you added to that mix two of the WWF’s hugest draws, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, the results were almost terminal for Vince’s company. BUT REMEMBER, WCW WAS A BETTER PRODUCT THAN THE WWF NOT WHEN HALL AND NASH ARRIVED, IT WAS WHEN THEY STARTED THEIR NITRO PROGRAM PRIOR TO THEIR ARRIVAL. So keep in mind when WCW was winning, they had top draws, not necessarily the top talent. TNA already runs pay-per-view calibur cards each week, relative to the talent they have and they simply can’t compete. Add to this, the sobering fact for TNA that there is nobody coming from the WWE who will ever put them over the top. It’s not because nobody from the WWE would ever leave, but simply because the top talent in the WWE is watered down as well.

In having Kurt Angle under contract however, TNA has the drawing power of a Kurt Angle, plus they also have his ability to perform in the ring; which as of now there is nobody who even comes close to being able to match. Not in Japan, not in the WWE, nowhere. Kurt Angle is that good. Having Angle gives TNA immediate legitimacy and global recognition. Here are the facts, if TNA does not have Kurt Angle, The Dudleys and Shelley & Sabin do not go to Japan and win IWGP belts and display them on American television. That’s the kind of stroke Angle has in the industry. I’m not saying Angle told the Japanese promoters to put the titles on TNA stars, but what I am saying is if TNA didn’t have Kurt Angle then they never would have TNA wrestlers with the titles while under contract to TNA.

But here is the flip-side to the Kurt Angle coin…

Having Kurt Angle under contract is a plus, no question, landing Angle was a major coup for TNA. But this now brings us to what I call the Kurt Angle-TNA paradox. TNA bookers have been faced with it ever since Angle came aboard and they’ve gone about confronting it in entirely the wrong way.

The paradox is this: when you put Kurt Angle with the TNA talent you have what amounts a legitimate wrestling immortal from this era, or any other for that matter, juxtaposed against wrestling ‘children’ by comparison in the talents known as the TNA originals. This constitutes a major talent gap.

If Kurt Angle was better than anyone in the WWE, which is pretty much an unarguable fact, then try to imagine how much of a talent-gap there is when you place him aside Samoa Joe, for example (someone who’d never make it in the WWE). It’s silly, even stupid, for me to have to watch Samoa Joe on the same stage as Angle, competing against him as if he were an as equally talented performer. Yet that’s what I was subjected to when Angle first came in. TNA had been dying to put Samoa Joe over for years and they couldn’t do it. It took Kurt Angle to come in and put him over – and yet almost two years later we see that all along Samoa Joe is nothing more than a wrestler who is Samoan and whose name is Joe. That’s all. The man is simply not a star on the national stage. Put him in a match in Combat Zone Wrestling against the Necro Butcher and you have something compelling – but there is a limited market for that. Meanwhile, Kurt Angle is still the best in the business.

But if you’re a TNA booker and you don’t want him to work a program with a ‘TNA Original’ then you have him up against older stars who have long since seen their better days. I’ve never been a big fan of Sting, but I’ve always respected Sting and what he’s meant to professional wrestling – particularly in the late 80s and early to mid-90s. But when would Sting ever have been physically able to match up with Kurt? The answer is never. Now it is 2009 and Sting is pushing 50. It’s just as silly for TNA to have Sting carry that belt with Kurt right there in the foreground.

Here’s the irony in it all: Kurt seems to prefer it this way. Kurt is a professional, so he wants to put over his colleagues. I’m sure he sees it as the right thing to do and 49 times out of 50 it is. But for the company at this time, it’s all wrong.

Not only is Kurt Angle one of the top talents the industry has ever produced, but he is in the absolute prime of his wrestling career right now. In the WWE there are at least names and talents whom you could see giving Angle a legitimate run for his money (so tp speak), and matched with Angle you’d get a hell of a show. In TNA right now, there is nobody you can say that about. The one guy who is signed to TNA now you might say, ‘maybe’ about is Booker T. And even he has seen his better days (although he’s more entertaining in TNA now than he ever was in the WWE).

When you listen to Angle in shoots, away from the TNA cameras, what you hear is basically a guy who wants to make everyone else look as good as him. Kurt Angle is a guy who put Taz over at the Royal Rumble in 2000.

Kurt Angle is always going to look to put the other guys over. He is intelligent enough to know that for him to look good, his opponents need to look good. This was the mind set he was brought up in when he first made his way through the WWE. This was the right attitude to have at that time. But Angle is a such a good guy, he has brought that mind set to TNA as well, and as I’ve said: in my opinion this is the wrong approach for Kurt to take. Especially if he is as pro-TNA as he says he is. If Kurt has every intention of returning to the WWE, well thent his whole debate is rendered null and void. But I’ve also heard Kurt speak of his devotion to the TNA brand.

Kurt Angle must be the most respected guy in the history of the TNA locker room due to his willingness to put over inferior talents like Samoa Joe, Sting, AJ Styles, Booker T, etc. but the truth is for TNA to build itself as a legitimate brand you need to utilize what Kurt Angle brings to the table. The fact is Kurt Angle should never lose a match in TNA. At least not until TNA is big enough to bring in a big talent whom you can legitimately book as pinning him. I’ll get to whom that person is in a bit, but for right now the TNA World Belt needs to stick on Angle like it was made of gorilla glue. Whether it is for one year or five, doesn’t matter how long. Remember, Bruno Sammartino put the McMahon promotion on the map with a title reign that lasted almost eight years while the WWWF established itself as a major player/brand.

The TNA is in its infancy now. Kurt is a better talent than Bruno ever was, and I love Bruno – he was in the first wrestling match I ever remember seeing on TV. Bruno built up the legitimacy of the WWWF’s title in a landscape far more hostile to up and coming promotions with his title reign. Relatively speaking, the TNA should look at itself like the old WWWF in the territory days and use Kurt Angle as the foundation, much like Vince, Sr. did with Bruno.

It would take someone of extraordinary ability to dethrone a Kurt Angle, and more importantly make TNA the top wrestling product in America. Again, there is simply nobody in TNA who has that ability. And again, there is the fact that there is nobody they could bring in from the WWE whom I see as being able to legitimately defeat Angle, make TNA the more compelling product. I’m not a fan of John Cena, but I do recognize the fact that he is one of the more visible wrestlers out there who has crossed over into other mediums. He is also, perhaps, pound for pound the strongest guy in the industry – So I suppose if there was anyone TNA could bring in that would at least boost ratings, it would be him. But Cena isn’t even on the level of the top tier of the WWE’s roster, talent-wise. The draw of Cena would simply be his ability to draw, it wouldn’t improve the product. Besides, he’s in no way anywhere close to Angle’s class anyway. Add the fact that Vince McMahon would never let Cena leave, so it’s all but a TNA front-office pipedream to have Angle & Cena headline one of their main events. Helmsley is never leaving the WWE (for obvious reasons). The Rock no longer wrestles, and he pretty much owes his allegiances to Vince whenever it comes to the realm of his returning to professional wrestling. The Undertaker and Michaels are still top-notch performers, but probably too old to really be considered an option. So, as you see, there is nobody TNA could even bring in as ‘free agents’ a la Nash and Hall in 1996 to have the smiliar impact they had when they jumped ship in the WWF to join WCW. It would have to be a mass exodus, where TNA was able to lure Cena, Batista, Edge and Orton. Individually none of these wrestlers are as talented or compelling as Angle, but as a group they’d probably cause major ripples. You might also need to throw in a Rob Van Dam for the ratings and quality shift to occur. But this is simply never going to happen. Again these scenarios are mere pipedreams.

But TNA can render this fact irrelevant if they just have Angle hold on to the belt. I cannot express enough that in doing this, the reputation and the legitimacy of the TNA title only rises. Your wrestling product is only as compelling as your title. That’s why the WWE, while still far superior to TNA, is a watered down product. Their titles have little to no meaning anymore. They are bounce around like hot potatoes. Not to mention the fact that they have two world titles.

Will the real WWE World Championship belt please stand up?

But having the world’s greatest wrestler as your wrestling champion is not anything to sneer at. Vince McMahon has to be up in his offices laughing his rear end off seeing guys like Samoa Joe and Sting being put over at Angle’s expense. What that essentially does is take your top asset, with no other viable options who are anywhere near as talented, and diminish what it was you brought him aboard in the first place for.

Think about it, whom would look better and as a more legitimate champion? Edge, Cena, Orton, Batista, etc, etc trading any one of the 500 trillion championships the WWE now has at every other pay-per-view? Or having Kurt Angle hold on to the TNA belt for a 5-10 year reign? It’s not even close.

Paul Heyman has recently gone on the record stating that TNA’s problem is that they have no brand. He says if you look at Lesnar you think WWE. This is 100% true. However, if you slap the TNA Title on Angle and leave it there for however long it takes, 3,4,5,6,7 years +, you begin to have that title reign mean something. Kurt Angle is no longer looked upon as a WWE guy. Kurt Angle begins to be associated with TNA, and you build the brand from there – and in all seriousness, who better to build your brand around than Kurt Angle?

The younger guys in TNA are hoping to go to work in the WWE anyway, and the older stars have already had their runs -It almost boggles the mind to think that anyone other than Angle would be the recognized TNA champion. TNA should have the young talents in the WWE wanting to jump to the TNA to have a shot at getting over enough to be the one who dethrones Angle. If any TNA wrestler has a problem with not getting to hold the TNA world title, then tough. They can be let go. TNA cannot be an old folks home for wrestlers who still want to be paid as well as be put over – but that’s what it is, and it’s at the expense of Angle! To compete TNA has to start looking at anyone other than Angle as expendable, because that’s what they are! There is no reason why anyone in TNA should have a problem with having the minimal travel schedule they have and being paid as well as they are with the understanding that Angle is the man around that company. It’s better for Angle and with the talent that Angle is, what’s best for him is what’s best for the company. Kurt Angle has to be the ‘Hulk Hogan’ of TNA, so to speak.

Kurt Angle is the Lou Thesz of this generation. The fact is, and I say this in all seriousness, Angle might be the greatest English-speaking professional wrestler the industry has ever seen.

There is nothing he can’t do as well as anyone that one needs to do well in order to be a successful professional wrestler. He is comfortable in front of the cameras, he is glib, legitimately funny as a heel, can take bumps as good as anyone, and unique: he’s done something NOBODY has ever done, he won a frikkin’ gold medal at the Olympics! (Oh, it’s true) …and with a broken neck! So yeah, we know he can actually wrestle as well.

So who is the one name that I can see TNA bringing in as a legitimate foil for Angle as well as leading to TNA being the better and more interesting product than the WWE? Well, there is one guy who is out there that I could ever see Angle dropping the belt to justifiably. He is a guy with whom Kurt has worked with before. In fact, they’ve put on some of the best matches this decade in the States and in Japan. He is no longer a professional wrestler, at least for now anyway, we all know him, we all love him – it’s Brock Lesnar.

If TNA could ever lure Brock Lesnar back to wrestling and begin matching him up with a Kurt Angle who has been the reigning champion for x-amount of years it would surely do wonders in contributing to a skyrocketing effect of TNA into the stratosphere along with the WWE. It’d be one match I’d pay to see again. I can’t say that about any potential match in TNA now or ever. Another Angle-Lesnar program, in a different company no lessl on the heels of a lengthy Angle reign would be huge.

It’s the WWE’s bad luck that Lesnar decided to leave the industry when the WWE was pushing him hard – which was the right thing for the WWE to do, Brock was simply better than anyone else. I don’t know what kind of feelings Lensar holds towards the WWE these days, I know there was some friction in the years after his departure – so when Brock is done with the UFC and MMA and wants to start making multi-million dollar pay days he is lgoing to return to professional wrestling again. I think TNA is as likely a place for Lesnar to land as anywhere else. Spike already has an affiliation with UFC as it is now. In fact it seems like it would be tailor made to have him come back with the TNA, especially to dethrone Angle.

Brock is the only wrestler with whom I could even accept having a debate with in regards to someone arguing that there is another wrestler as having more ability than Angle. (My opinion on this matter is I’d still go with Angle, but it’s close).

Their matches in the WWE and Japan are legendary. They are also both young enough to have even better ones in the years ahead.

I am a fan of the WWE, and if Brock does decide to comes back to professional wrestling I actually hope he’d come back with the WWE, simply because I know Vince would utilize Brock in a better fashion than TNA. I would never be able to watch TNA again if I was subjected to seeing Brock get beaten by a Samoa Joe – but at the same time I’m sorry to say that the WWE’s flock of young champions: Edge, Cena, Batista and Orton are just not in way as compelling or physically talented as Angle or Lesnar. Those four WWE wrestlers I’ve mentioned in this post are all talented, I’m not saying they’re not – but remember, I’m comparing them to Brock and Kurt. Brock would be better off going to face Angle again than to get invovled with anyone the WWE has now (A Brock-HHH program would certainly be interesting however).

With Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle TNA wrestling might be able to get picked up by a TNT or TBS. Spike is not the worst spot to be on in the world, it’s better than being exiled to Versus for example. But Spike TV is not in every home in the country like 10-12 other national cable outlets are.

Will TBS be the future home of TNA? Not likely

Ideally it would be TBS wh0 would pick up the TNA program, simply because TBS has long been the home of professional wrestling. Anyone who was a fan back in the WCW days remembers that WCW Nitro was on TNT. Things have sinced changed over at Time Warner. Time Warner has undergone an initiative designating TBS as their home of sitcom reruns and Hollywood comedies. TNT is now the home of the drama-based reruns and movies. This may, or may not, bode well for a wrestling promotion to be aired on TBS. I’m sure as of now TBS execs are not looking to bring wrestling back into the fold, but they might see it as a viable lead-in to a station that primarily airs re-runs and movies if there is an attractive wrestling product out there that is not run by anyone named McMahon. Television stations prefer to use wrestling as a lead-in, they always have. But again, TNA has to improve to be competitive and compelling product on a truly national cable outlet like TBS.

I’d like to see TNA come to its sense and realize what they have the potential to do if they have the patience to do things the right way. It all begins and ends with their number one asset: An as of now (March 2009) the still WWE-branded Kurt Angle.

Angle holding the IWGP Third Belt Championship and the TNA World Heavyweight Championship.

TNA WRESTLING – A WORK IN PROGRESS

In this post, as well as the next, I point out the positives and negatives of TNA and why TNA still has a long way to go before they can be considered on par with the WWE.

The Monday Night Wars of the late 90s were a wrestling fans dream come true. Today, with Vince having consolidated his control over the English-speaking wrestling universe professional wrestling is a shell of what it was in those days gone by. Today we have two and half WWE shows and then we have a little upstart with the wrestling affiliate known as TNA.

This post is going to be about TNA Wrestling and where it stands.

Some of it is going to be pro-TNA, I’ll save that for the latter half of my post, but most of it is negative. I don’t expect to make many friends with fans of either the WWE or TNA with these next two posts. I am not a mark for any other wrestling organization simply looking to put down TNA for the sake of putting down TNA. On the contrary, I’d like to see TNA be a successful wrestling company. I think its silly how in North America, in 2009, we still have fans who cling to a wrestling brand, where if someone insults that brand its as if someone has spit in their mother’s eye. Professional wrestling was far more interesting when you had more than one company in the fold and I’d like nothing more for the development of the old territories to come back. This is never going to happen so long as the WWE doesn’t go under so the only hope is to see TNA succeed.

TNA desperately wants to be viewed as an ECW/WCW hybrid to counter the WWE. But the TNA has a long, long, long, and I understate long, way to go before it will ever be on par with the monolithic promotion of the Western Hemisphere known today as the WWE. There are a lot of things that work against them while there are other faults that are rectifiable.

1) The first thing that works against TNA is their ring. I have nothing against a six-sided ring personally. I would rather they go back to the square ring, but the six-sides doesn’t bother me. I know they want to appear ‘innovative’ (a la ECW), but here is the thingl, TNA didn’t come up with the six-sided ring, so it’s not as if it was their own idea. They did this as an attempt to brand TNA with some sort of concept. But the thing is, when I think of a six-sided ring I don’t think of TNA, I think of AAA. The AAA promotion out of Mexico has been using a six-sided ring for forever now.

AAA also uses a ‘real’ six-sided ring and not a toy ring like TNA uses. What I mean by that is the size of the ring. AAA is a real territorial promotion, and the sizes of the rings they use for the arenas they perform in, to the naked eye appear almost twice the size of the one TNA uses. TNA rings are the smallest I’ve ever seen. It almost looks like a toy.

An example of what a real six-sided ring looks like is here in a clip of AAA wrestling

The reason for this is that TNA television tapings are not done in arenas, they are done in a tiny TV studio which they call the ‘Impact Zone.’ This brings me to my second point.

2) I’ve already touched upon it in my first point, but to flesh it out in more detail: TNA does not do arena shows on a regular basis. I know that in recent years they have toured a little, I really have no idea how successful or unsuccessful those arena shows have been (I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they were a success simply due to the public’s thirst for an alternative to the WWE) but they certainly never do a TV taping at one. The so-called ‘Impact Zone’ is a television studio at Universal in Florida (remember the old WCW Saturday Night days?).

TNA is contractually obligated to tape from this location, if they don’t they have no show. TNA is also not allowed to charge any admission to these shows they tape. TNA Wrestling is nothing more than a side attraction for tourists who visit Disney world. The fact is, when you hear people chanting ‘TNA, TNA, TNA’ on the show – these are not people who bought a ticket. For all I know there is one of those lighted signs which prompt the audience to start the chant at certain high points. The ECW fans who used to chant ‘ECW, ECW, ECW,’ among other things, paid admission fees, and you can rest assured there was no TelePrompTer to tell the audience what to chant.

I’d like to see TNA improve enough to the point where they are able to tour the country and host a show where 2-5,000 people pay to get in. Don’t get me wrong either, the WWE will certainly paper their events at times…but the fact is they are in the business of putting a product on their stage that is aimed at having people purchase a ticket to get in to see. TNA doesn’t have this burden, yet they try to project this image as if they are over more than they really are. If TNA tried to put a show on at Ford Field does it even sell 10,000 seats? I doubt it.

3) The second point leads me into the third, so let’s touch upon the talent on the TNA roster. There are essentially two types of wrestlers under contract to the TNA. The first are comprised of ex-WWE stars who want as big a pay day that they can find with as little travel involved, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. However, in this first type there are also wrestlers who never made it in the WWE and simply need the work, and there is nothing wrong with that either. The second group of talent on the TNA roster is comprised of those who are essentially waiting to get a call from the WWE offices. Sanjay Dutt essentially confirmed that after he was released. Anyone in TNA who has not been in the WWE is essentially trying out for the WWE. That’s how they see it. Once again, there is nothing wrong with this. But am I supposed to believe, as TNA would have me, that a better than average talent like A.J. Styles doesn’t want to go work for Vince and do his thing in front of 20,000-75,000+ at a Wrestlemania show? Incidentally, I can’t take A.J. Styles, or anyone brought through the TNA system seriously until they are put through the meat-grinding loops where performing night-in and night-out in different cities is involved. Whether that somewhere be in the WWE or someplace else, it doesn’t matter. It’s not fair to try and compare what you see on TNA, where you have a group of guys who work out of a TV studio (meaning minimal travel) to guys in the WWE, who have to perform in Japan one day and then South Korea the next when they do a tour of Asia for example.

4) My fourth point concerns the TNA commentators. I have no love for WWE commentators, however, this post is not about the awfulness of JR and Michael Cole or how the WWE goes about their announcing-business (that’s another post). This is specifically about Mike Tenay and Don West.

Tenay and West are brutal. I don’t know if the rest of the country got to see Don West on the home shopping channel like we had here in New York, but his voice is just grating. It always has been. Whenever I hear him I can’t help but think of the sports memorabilia or kung-fu weapon he’d try to shill in the early part of the decade. What association does West have with professional wrestling prior to his position at the TNA booth? None I’m aware of. But that’s besides the point. The fact is West is bad and Tenay is not much better. Tenay knows wrestling, I’ll grant him that, but he has no presence. He’s just a pipsqueak behind the mic who is as irritating to listen to as West is, but on a different level. Tenay has no ‘presence’ at the commentator’s table. This is not a commentating team you want to brand your product with. Ideally, TNA would axe West and switch Borrash’s job with Tenay’s. Borash is no great shakes either, but if you listen to him speak he has a better wrestling voice. Borrash would have to stop trying to act like wrestling’s resident metro sexual clown, a la Ryan Seacrest. His segments are not funny. If Borrash was a guy who simply stuck to the nuts & bolts of a wrestling show I think Borash could do well. Let Tenay have the role of interviewing the wrestlers backstage, or put him on the website somewhere in some info-reference role. Then bring back Zybyszko, or another heel color commentator to put next to Borash. I think Kevin Nash, who really has no business trying to wrestle anymore, would be perfect for it. A commentating duo of Borash & Nash the commentator is the type of tandem you can brand your show with.

For the JV wrestling program on TV these days, which is what TNA is they – should be looking to improve anywhere and anyway they can – and this is something they can easily do.

5) My fifth point, and probably the most important point regarding TNA is also the most easily overlooked. It’s founding and association with the Jarretts. Jerry Jarrett and his son Jeff are career underachievers in the national market place when it involves professional wrestling. If we want to simply look at their past track record to project TNA’s fate, then TNA is doomed to fail, plain and simple. Jerry Jarrett’s wrestling promotion career can be summed up by his latching on to the career of southern mega-draw Jerry Lawler when he was hot in the 80s and merging his fledgling CWA with Lawler’s startup USWA promotion, (only to have the USWA lose popularity as Lawler became more of a WWF fixture in the 90s). Meanwhile, his son Jeff the so-called ‘King of the Mountain,’ who has the book in TNA at the present and perhaps the most instrumental in founding TNA, is another underachiever.

Has anyone ever noticed Jarrett’s association with him either underachieving in a wrestling promotions while he was in that company and the company was doing well or having him overachieve only to see the company either fold or get zero attention? I’ll grant you that Jeff & Jerry both have a following in the mid-south, but when you try to take the Jarretts national or the Jarretts themselves try to go national, in any capacity it’s simpply not going to work. I can’t underscore this fact enough. If TNA were to remain a territorial wrestling promotion I’m sure the Jarretts would do well enough promoting shows in the various arenas and civic centers in places like Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas, perhaps even Georgia. These are some of the great wrestling territories historically and this is what they should have done. But if they did that, they’d have no affiliation with a national cabel outlet like Spike. Without a national TV outlet there is no product to compete with the WWE. What they’ve opted to do is try to build a nationally recognized wrestlng company hoping for a sustainable success in the way of WCW in the 90s and trying to create a following like ECW.

But as I’ve pointed out, it’s a joke to even try and think of TNA as anything conceivably akin to ECW and the Spike channel has work to do before you can consider it in the likeness of anything TNT was.

6) My sixth knock against TNA, and this is more of a nitpick, but TNA needs to improve in almost every conceivable capacity and that is the music they play for their wrestlers. It’s so badly produced it’s laughable. If you can’t come up with anything good for them, then don’t play anything. There is nothing wrong with not having entrance music for a wrestler!

I know I’m killing TNA here, it’s like clubbing salmon in a kiddie pool. But I want to reiterate how I still want to see TNA improve and do well. It fosters a competitive environment amongst companies which provides the audience a better product. My beef with TNA at present is I don’t think they are anywhere near competing with the WWE. Yet they go out of their way to pat themselves on the back every chance they get, as if they’ve provided wrestling fans with something on par with Vince.

Now WWE fans like to laud Vince McMahon with all kinds of praise for having conquered the industry – and it’s all well and deserved, but think about it…

Is the landscape of professional wrestling really better off now that Vince won the Monday night wars? I will be publishing a post in the future regarding my opinion on this matter, but for now I’ll stick to the topic at hand.

Despite all of TNA’s warts, there is still potential for it. To be fair TNA has a few assets and circumstances that work in favor for the future of the company. That’s what Dixie Carter knew when she had her parents at Panda Energy purchase 3/4ths of the startup company in 2002. That immediately brings me to my first plus which TNA has going for it:

1) Dixie Carter taking over as the majority stakeholder from the Jarretts’ J Sports & Entertainment. I can’t say I know much about Dixie Carter other than A) she has rich parents and B) recognizes a latent marketplace with the will to try and offer the market an alternative. Panda Energy taking over meant that now she was the major stakeholder and not the born to lose Jarretts. Of course, Dixie is not a wrestling aficionado, so unfortunately she’ll still listen to the Jarretts. As people behind the scenes at TNA are finding out now though, this is not necessarily a good thing.

Dixie Carter and Jerry Jarrett

[photo credit: Bob Kapur, SLAM! Wrestling --http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/home.html)]

Such as things are, its a better situation now than what it started out as. Ideally I’d like to see Dixie cut ties with Jeff Jarrett all together. Keeping Jeff off of the show and keeping him from booking immediately improves the quality of TNA. I know it’s not likely to happen, and perhaps might even sound a little cold-hearted, but this is a billion dollar marketplace when you play your cards right. There is no room for incompetence and loyalties to those who simply hold the company back.

2) The attractiveness TNA offers to older stars from the WWE. As I’ve discussed, everything TNA does is done out of a studio… there is no travel schedule. That alone would make TNA attractive to wrestlers like Booker T, The Dudleys and Kurt Angle for example. You take that and include the lucrative contracts they can provide such stars for a job that requires little travel makes it a haven. I will predict that pretty much everyone signed to the WWE as of now, March 21, 2009, will at some point take a detour down to TNA – either to take a break from the crazy WWE schedule or to make money before retiring all together. This promise of new attractions who will surely come through Universal studios is sure to help TNA sustain audience viewership in some capacity, just like WCW, but pre-1996.

Unless it is a pay-per-view, where TNA can charge admission and make money off of buys, there is nothing to generate revenue and force TNA to come up with and promote their own wrestlers like Vince has always done. TNA’s money is generated primarily by television advertising, which is big – but it doesn’t generate stars. Television is a showcase for existing stars. Wrestlers like A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe, Eric Young or anyone else who is what TNA likes to call a ‘TNA original’ will never achieve superstardom and will essentially always have second-rate pull in the company simply because TNA does not have the means or the know-how to make stars like Vince. This however segues into TNA’s third plus…

3) Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle is the top wrestler in the industry, period.

In the world of professional wrestling he is a big bright shining star whom Vince had promoted and he just so happened to find TNA a worthy venture. I shall explain in more depth why Angle is such an asset in my following post because I have a lot to say on this matter. Having Angle is the biggest plus TNA has going for them by far.

4) Oftentimes Vince McMahon’s worst enemy is not rival wrestling promotions or companies – but it’s Vince McMahon himself. Although the WWE is the top wrestling promotion in the western hemisphere there are times when they force their fans to sit through som eof the most ridiculous segments ever conceived. Try as I might, I can’t get that segment where we had the fake Rosie O’Donnell wrestling the fake Donald Trump.

The WWE fans were chanting TNA in this segment…and there was no prompt. So every so often, when the WWE gets full of themselves, as they are want to do – they’ll put garbage like this on, which will slowly erode viewership. This can only bode well for the TNA – assuming they can get their act together.

Now, I have critiqued TNA for running television tapings out of a television studio, but the fact is, in the wrestling world, this is nothing new. A promotion can be successful doing television tapings out of a studio. When pro-wrestling was as fractured as it was in the territorial days before the advent of national cable channels, wrestling was only aired on regional syndicates, so wrestling tapings were often held in a television studios. However, when WCW hit its wave, its flagship show was no longer Saturday Night, it was Monday Nitro. This was the WWF’s main competition and it was aired in different arenas across the country weekly. TNA as it is presently comprised can succeed, but there is a ceiling there. At best I see TNA as its presently run and operated as reaching the heights of success of the old WCW days, circa 1990-93. WCW had a NES video game released in those days as well. Just because you release a video game does not mean you’ve breached the hump. But it’s not a bad sign either.

I think TNA recognized the problem they had with the broadcast booth, as you see Don West turning into a heel announcer. It’s a step in the right direction, but just remember he’s Don West. If you want to fancy yourself a big boys wresting show you need to do better than plucking the guy from the home shopping channel – and although I killed the entrance music TNA uses, I do have to say I love the piece they composed for Angle.

But as of now TNA is still a Mickey Mouse organization in comparison to the WWE, plain and simple.

A couple of weeks back they had a segment written where Jeff Jarrett beat Kurt Angle in some sort of a street-fight thing they had set up in the television studio, where Jarrett threw Angle out of the building. It was one of the single worst segments in professional wrestling TV history (perhaps only the Rosie-Donald WWE match was worse). TNA cannot do things like this if they want to compete. Now I’m sure that in places like Kentucky and Tennessee people were clapping when they saw this. They love Jarrett in those states. But the rest of the country was left, like me, shaking their head. TNA cannot have Jeff Jarrett manhandle Kurt Angle, it kills the product because when you air that kind of a segment it shatters the theatrical illusion wrestling is supposed to provide. Telling their audience Jarrett can take out Angle at anytime would be like telling someone that the earthworm is going to go beat up that black mamba.

Hopefully for the sake of all wrestling fans TNA will learn. But until then, TNA will simply remain a work in progress.

If you have not already, check out Part 2 – in regards to Kurt Angle and his association with TNA.

CHRISTIAN CAGE – A STAR FOR ALL SEASONS

Now It’d be silly for me to question why Vince McMahon feels the way he does when it comes to certain “Superstars” he has under contract with World Wrestling Entertainment. The man is the greatest wrestling promoter to have ever lived. Period. But I’m a silly kind of guy, and Vince leaves himself open to a lot of second guessing, so here I go.

Christian (Cage) – all you hear about is how Vince has no use for him. I understand that Vince has a hard-on for large cartoon character looking titans which he wants to associate with his brand and that Christian is the anti-cartoon character. So right then and there Christian is behind the 8-Ball. This is unfortunate because I’ve always been a fan of Christian back in his Suicide Blonde days with Copeland two years before “the brood.”

How many wrestlers have the personality & charisma of a Christian Cage? Sure, there are some, but let’s be honest – Christian is a genuine showman when it comes to what he does in the ring wrestling and when he cuts a promo – he’s about as good as anyone. I have loved wrestling not for the ‘thrill of competition’ – it’s an exhibition, not for the ‘spectacle of seeing two men with million dollar physiques grapple, that’s cliche and rather boring. I am a fan of wrestling for the theater it provides. That means letting people with persoanlity shine, irregardless of how they look. Classically, there are two types of theater. In professional wrestling there are three. You have dramatic theater, comedic theater (which the WWE goes completely overboard with) and in the world of wrestling you have what goes on in the ring. The WWE tries desperately to be funny and 14 times out of 15 it fails – the shows are far too scripted and you try to force feed ‘funny’ with people who have no business even trying to be (what’s worse is you have the WWE comentators chuckling at what is supposed to be funny, like a bad laugh track to a bad sitcom). In Christian, you have one of the truly most entertaining personalities, as far as comedic theater goes, who has ever appeared on WWE television.

Is Christian ever going to headline a major pay-per-view? No, probably not. How many wrestlers were ever as good as, let us say: Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig? How many ppvs did he ever headline? The only one was Survivor Series ’92, and that was in a double main event, where you had Shawn Michaels meet Bret Hart in the other – and he was teaming up with a perpetual headliner (Savage) to take on another perpetual headliner (Flair). I am not calling for the WWE to put one of its many title straps on Christian. But for Christian to be what he is, and do it to the best of his ability, he doesn’t need a title. In fact, it’s probably better to never give him another title in the WWE – but yet he should get more mic time – because he sells the product. When Christian is on the mic, you watch. When Cody Rhodes or Vicky Guerrero or Kane or most of the current roster, the list goes on and on, has TV time allotted to them that’s not in the ring, I’m more apt to flip the switch depending upon what’s going on.

I think Vince is missing the boat big time on this. So I am going to have to go into my first If I were Vince modes and project what I’d do with Christian.

First and foremost, I need to make it clear that I’m a fan of stables, particularly when it comes to heels. And I don’t mean stables that are slapped together for the sake of having a stable (a la DOA and Los Boricuas), I refer to stables where there is past history, be it real or fictitious, so that the fabric of the illusion of the stable maintains integrity (a la The Four Horseman or The Hart Foundation). So the first thing I’d do is reunite Edge and Christian, these two were hilarious together. I don’t mean reunite them as a tag team again, but I mean just have them together. Bring back the Major Bros. (a highly under utilized team) and put them in the stable with Edge & Christian. If you do this you can do something I’ve been wanting to see the WWE do since the first time I saw her as GM, and that’s eliminate Vicky Guerrero. She has zero personality and is just over enough as a heel to make up for it. Let Christian be the mouthpiece for himself and the Ryder & Hawkins (Major Bros.), Edge can take care of himself in this regard. If you wanted, to make things interesting for a period of time, (not sure how this would work over the long run or if Reso & Copeland even get along with him) but bring back David Heath/Gangrel as a manager (the position of managers in professional wrestling is sorely missed). If you don’t like him on the mic, fine – again you have Edge & Christian to sell the stable and put it over – Heath could simply be someone who fascilitates heel victories.

With Edge & Christian spurring it on, this would have the potential to be one of the most memorable stables and makers of great theater ever. And I mean this quite literally, because as TV personalities Edge & Christian are artists.

The Edge & Christian posedown was classic. Bring this dynamic back to the wrestling fans and let Edge & Christian run with it, now that they are both a little more grizzled and have more experience on their resumes, for as long as they want. Bring back Christian and Edge as a stable – let Christian be the mouthpiece and have him wear all the fuzzy hats or nutty goggles he wants… it works!

Simply ask yourself this, would you rather watch Vicky on the mic, or Christian? Professional wrestling is a poor product these days, the independent shows are shoddy productions at best, TNA has a long long loooong way to go, and the WWE is just watered down and lacks personality for the most – If you do this you have an instant improvement. And oh, by the way, Christian isn’t just a mouthpiece – he can be one sure, but the man can put on shows in the ring as well. Does anyone remember the TLC matches? Did anyone notice his match on ECW against Jack Swagger two weeks ago? That was probably the best match ECW has ever aired (I personally think this WWE version of ECW is a bad idea and needs to go – originally I wanted it to go two hours, now I’d just like to see it go all together, it’s the worst nationally syndicated show on TV now).

If the WWE wants to bill itself as the number 1 show in the world then Christian should be a WWE fixture for this generation. When he’s done performing can’t you not see him as the color commentator on a RAW broadcast? The man has the makings of being another (and I say this with baited breath) Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan. He’d be better than anyone by a mile who has done a wrestling broadcast.

To keep reading reports of Vince’s disenchantment with Christian is continually disheartening. Maybe Vince is trying to motivate him, after all he did resign him – but even so, if that’s the case, motivate him for what? What more does Christian need to do? I don’t feel Christian needs to be motivated to make it to main event status, he doesn’t need to be a main eventer. Sadly, what I think Vince might be doing is bringing Christian back, as quiet as possible in order to squash TNA by A) luring one of their top draws and more importantly B) having Christian return quiet and with little fanfare in order to understate the insignificance of TNA in the eyes of the WWE offices.

Anyway, here is to hoping that the powers-that-be sitting up there in the Connecticut offices come to their senses and realize what a goldmine they have in Christian Cage.