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Before I get into the review, I’d like to introduce myself (I know nobody cares so I’ll keep it short and wrestling-related). I am a former writer for 411mania, Suite101, Examiner, InsidePulse and a lot others. The reason I quit all those places is because I got burnt out and busy. Due to it being the Summer, I have more free time and like to get back into writing and talking about wrestling. In fact, my friend and I created a radio station on blogtalk radio called NoBsWrestling. We’ve only been doing it for about two weeks. Nothing big. But I am proud to say that we had former ROH and IWA:MS star, BJ Whitmer on the show and we are going to have Gabe Saposkly on either this week or the end of the week. So there’s that and enough of that, so let’s move on.

When TNA first started on Spike TV in 2005, their motto was “We Are Wrestling”. It stayed TNA’s motto for about three years until when I believe Vince Russo (who came back again in late 2006) couldn’t take it anymore—since he’s the anti-christ of professional wrestling and deeply demises every part of the wrestling aspect of professional wrestling, thus they changed their motto to “Cross the Line”.

Allegedly, the purpose of the entire motto was to create a wrestling product under the circumstances where they wasn’t any bad or good guy (in wrestling terms babyface or heel). Russo thought that having a good guy and bad guy were obsolete and impractical (albeit any booker past or current would call the idea asinine). He went with his plan: trying to booking wrestlers as just people with no roles. Of course, this made it difficult for the fans to choose whom they wanted to cheer or boo for and just made a very ‘shade of gray’ atmosphere in TNA. Consequently, the idea was dropped and TNA went back to having babyfaces and heels (even if it never stopped Russo turning wrestlers every week from heel to babyface and vise-versa).

TNA never did change the motto until recently; they changed it from “Cross the Line” to “Where Wrestling Matters”. When I read this, I truthfully snickered. I got a great kick out of TNA believing their wrestling matters, especially seeing as the time I watched TNA and Mike Tenay said, “The match doesn’t matter!”, as the post-match brawl erupted. I also got a kick of Vince Russo either disgusted at the idea or maybe so actually convincing himself that he’s capable of writing a product where wrestling matters. I put the jokes in my pockets and watched, or attempted to watch, TNA for the first time in a long time, thinking that they will maybe start caring about wrestling.

It’s hard to really distinguish whether or not they were trying to emphasize that wrestling mattered but didn’t know how to or something to that nature. Whatever the case might have been, they did no wonders for themselves if they were trying to because a 50 whatever old man pretending he’s the Joker, matches with tons of shenanigans that took away from the matches flow, 50 whatever year old men going on and on about things that happened 10 to 15 years ago, and some off the most cartoony backstage segments that would make even Mad TV shake their head, doesn’t spell out wrestling matters to me.

Being the nice guy I am (sarcasm alert), I watched Destination X, the x-division filled PPV, to give TNA another shot. As cliché as this sounds, the x-division is what got me into the TNA. The matches were fast-paced, cutting-edge, put me on the edge of my seat, and a lot of the wrestlers intertwined their high-flying abilities with psychology and storytelling. This reminded me so much of the cruiserweight division that it made TNA must watch. Sure, I had to sit and watch the overbooked and stale Jeff Jarrett matches, but it was worth it because of the fact that the x-division (as well as the tag-division) was awesome. So, I was a bit optimistic about watching the PPV, but on the flipside kind of knew TNA’s inept booking staff wasn’t truly capable of booking this properly. I am not fortuneteller but my prediction was sadly accurate. Aside from the 4-way match (which was very, very good), Daniels-AJ (even if it was far from their strongest match), and even RVD vs. Jerry Lynn (which picked up down the stretch), the PPV had a lot of spotfests and bad booking. The PPV wasn’t necessarily bad but the booking really held it down.

Obviously, I could go on and complain about TNA all day and night. In fact, a lot of people actually do to that. But I am going to take the word of the somewhat wise and instead of complain about TNA and not fix it, I am going to attempt to fix it by writing tips that could in my opinion assist them to live up to their motto “Where Wrestling Matters”.

*Warning, this isn’t a going to be an article where I say, “They should get rid off all the old guys and push the x-division and more importantly AJ Styles and Samoa Joe”.*

Emphasize the importance of winning and losing.

That way every single match has some significance, and more importantly, you create an ability to design angles off the winning/losing dynamic. The most obvious being undefeated streaks, but you can obviously get much more imaginable than that. In any event, acknowledging wins and losses makes the wrestling aspect of the show appear as if it matters.

Have more clean wrestling matches.

This allows ref bumps, interference, heels cheating, etc. to have much more meaning when it occurs. I also believe the usual viewer rather see matches unsoiled rather than have matches with a lot shenanigans.

Distinguish the roster and have them have distinct roles.

By having distinguished characters and distinct roles, the audience will be allowed to get a certain understanding of each wrestler – who they are, what they stand for, their morals, etc. Once you build up those attributions of a wrestler, switching them right away not only will screw up their characters’ believably but also confuse your audience, something you never want to do. In other words, don’t change wrestlers from heel to face every week. Do it less often so not only will the fans not be confused but also because it will be a bigger deal when it happens.

Set in stone rules and regulations to a match.

What this will do is not confuse the audience while watching a match. They will understand why will happen if some particular event occurs. More importantly, setting rules and regulations helps your heels become more over because it allows them to cheat and break the rules. If there are no rules in a wrestling company, then there’s no great way for the company to make their heels hated. Even if there were a way, it would be excessively complicated and less effective. That’s why a company must have strict rules and regulations: so the heels can utilize and take advantage of breaking the rules (while not being caught).

Have announcers stress the points where something good or bad is happening and have them call the match move by move.

Announcers are the voice of a company; therefore, people listen to what they say. Have them say what you want to get over by stressing whatever might be happening and make them call the moves in the ring and talk about the match itself, as it makes the match seem more important and exciting. If your announcers are not paying much attention to a match or something that is happening, why should your audience?

Have wrestlers be more straight-forward in their promos

Instead of having long-winded, incoherent promos (and for the love of god, promos that talk about things 15 years ago), have the wrestlers talk more about what they are doing in preparation – for instance, working the gym or how they are preparing for an upcoming matches – like if they are wrestling against someone with a different as them or unique style, or someone bigger or smaller than them. These kinds of elements in promos will bring a more realistic environment into the product. After all, isn’t wrestling suppose to be pretended to be real?

I could get more specific than this – someday I may upon request; but in any event, these are just common ground rules that I believe could make the wrestling aspect of TNA’s product matter more.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

Source: wrestlingtruth.com