Email This Article - Contact Us - VIP Sign-Up - Back to Home Page

|

Editor's Note: At PWTorch.com we strive for our content whenever possible and practical to be original and unique (i .e. not published on other sites), therefore Guest Editorials submitted to PWTorch. com should be submitted only to PWTorch. com. If you submit a Guest Editorial for consideration, please state at the top of your editorial that you submitted it only to PWTorch. com. For more details on submitting Guest Editorials, check out a detailed submissions guide following today's Guest Editorial below.

GUEST EDITORIAL
By Anthony Catalano, PWTorch.com reader

Can TNA eventually be the Number One Promotion in Wrestling? These ten steps might help.

1) By the looks of it, the X Division has gone the way of the dodo bird. I mean the talent is there, but what fresh matchups have we seen lately. Every combination of X-divison stars has been used against each other. Instead i would suggest switching the X-divsion title to the X-division tag team titles. Different matches, new teams, and the ability to get more wrestlers on the card. Here is how i would set up my division. Motor City Machine Guns of Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. XXX of Low-Ki and Elix Skipper. LAX with Homicide and Hernandez. I would reunite Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles. There is Johnny Devine and Michael Shane. Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. Find Petey Williams a partner and reunite Team Canada. But the key to this division if i was in charge would be to bring back Roderick Strong and Austin Aries and have them be the first tag champs. The excelled incredibly in Ring of Honor, and have a great chemistry together. They are an awesome team, and it would bring new exciting fresh matches to Impact and Explosion. Give these X-division teams interview time. Let the fans know who they are and what they are all about.  There doesnt have to be any complicated storylines with twists and turns. Just good old pure wrestling.

2) Give the tag division a slight facelift. Reuniting Americas Most Wanted would be a start. Have them be the team to defend TNA's honor. Have AMW rant on all the existing TNA teams. Have them claim that they are the original TNA team, and regardless of what all these other teams have done in other federations, they have not accomplished what AMW has in TNA. Id bring in Albert to team with Tomko.This is another key factor.  The IWGP tag champs are an incredible team and can be the heel foil to Americas Most Wanted. They are two strong heels, believable monsters that are not washed up. The Dudleys and the Steiner Bros are a stale act but are consistent in the ring. There is VKM and the team of Lance Hoyt and Jimmy Rave to round out the division. Every once in a while id bring in a team from the past to challenge for the titles on Impact. Example the Harris Twins, the Naturals, bring in another team from japan, or a team from Mexico.

3) Create a title that is on par with the Intercontinental title. It can be as simple as calling it the TNA TV title. It will be defended every week, and every PPV. It gives wrestlers like Bobby Roode, Frankie Kazarian and Eric Young something to compete for. These guys will never win the World title. Therefore this title would allow them to be an ever-present part of the company. It wouldnt be the strongest division, but it does give Rhyno, Ron Killings,  Black Reign, Raven and a few others a chance to compete for some gold. It gets these wrestlers on TV every week, with a chance to showcase their talent. I would build this title around Frankie Kazaraian and Bobby Roode with Bobby Roode being my first champion.

4) Stop with the false finishes and constant interference finishes. Stop giving away free main event matches of TV. This was one of the downfalls of WCW. Stop having rematches the night after a PPV. Save the rematch for the next PPV. Build to it through interviews over the next few weeks. Kurt Angle is capable of winning a match without three ref bumps and outside interference. With Jeff Jarrett set to return, the main event picture consists of Angle, Christian, Jarrett, Hall, Nash, Sting, the soon to be debuting Booker T, Samoa Joe, and Abyss. There are enough fresh matches among these wrestlers to sell a few PPV's. Just stop with the ref bumps and the idiotic booking. Make these guys look like real stars. Have a heel win a match for once without anyone getting involved.

5) Simplify gimmick matches. Reverse battle royals, gauntlet challenges and other gimmick matches should be simple and easy to follow.The king of the mountain match is not. A good old over the top rope battle royal, a standard street fight, or an Ultimate X match are just fine. Bring back a War Games style cage match, or even the Battlebowl idea with names being drawn at random to see who ones partner is going to be. Not every match needs to be gimmicked in order for it to succeed. One gimmick match per PPV is enough.

6) Create a super stable. Lump Kurt Angle with Bobby Roode, Christopher Daniels, and A.J. Styles. Bring in Matt Morgan as the bodyguard. Call them THE ELITE. Id eventually have Kurt Angle as the World Champ,Bobby Roode win the TV title, and have Daniels and AJ Styles trade the X titles with Roderick Strong and Austin Aries. Have the Elite group hold all the belts at a certain point sort of like the early Horsemen. I would not overdo the amount of air time given to this group. Just enough to make the fans and the viewers know that they are important and that they mean business. Lump Christian, Tomko, Albert and Rhyno together. This allows for multi-man matches, and gives a face a few men to challenge before he gets to his prime target, the leader of the faction.

7) Either go with a TNA live special on free Spike TV, sort of like what the UFC does, or have a special three hour edition of Impact every few months or so. Limit the amount of interview time on these particular shows, and book some really good exciting matches in order to showcase the talent TNA currently has.

8) Bring back the original four-sided ring. TNA has run its course with the six-sided ring, and if it wants to be seen as a serious player in the wrestling world it should go back to the basics of wrestling, a four-sided ring.

9) If you are going to bring in celebrities, bring in some that will not gather negative mainstreem attention. Pacman Jones was not the way to go. I say have cross-promotional appearances with the UFC. Have major UFC stars appear front row on Impact or have TNA stars appear at UFC PPV's. If TNA gets serious with their storylines, and the wrestling talent they showcase, then the UFC would definitely be a good place to get sports entertainment fans interested in the TNA product.

10) And last but not least... bigger and better venues for TNA PPVs. Having a crowd of 10,000, or 15,000 on hand makes a huge difference as opposed to 3,000-4,000 in the impact zone. Having 20,000 people screaming lets go Angle, lets go Sting, definitely adds to the aura of a match. If you have to give away free tickets for the first few larger scale PPV's then by all means do so. That is how WCW got started just before its boom. If you want to be the big fish in the sea, you have to act like the big fish. Marketing and perception is everything.

With these 10 points here is how one of my first PPV's would look like.

Motor City Machine Guns vs XXX vs LAX vs Sonjay Dutt/Jay Lethal winner gets title shot at next Impact

TV Title Tournament Final: Bobby Roode vs Frankie Kazarian

X-Division Tag Team Title Tournament Final:A.J. Styles/Christopher Daniels vs
Roderick Strong/Austin Aries

Matt Morgan vs Abyss in a Street Fight

Tag Title Match : Americas Most Wanted vs Albert/Tomko

Sting, Samoa Joe, Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Christian Cage whoever scores the pinfall get a shot the World title at the next PPV

Kurt Angle vs Booker T

Now maybe it might not be the best PPV on paper, but every match means something. Most of the major stars are on the show. Strong and Aries win the X Titles. Roode wins the TV Title. Dutt and Lethal get a shot on the next Impact. Matt Morgan wins the street fight. Albert and Tomko walk out with the tag titles. Samoa Joe gets the pinfall on Scott Hall. Booker T defeats Kurt Angle and becomes the new face of TNA. Like Isaid these are just ideas. That are by all means not perfect. Thanks for your time once again.

You are invited to submit a "Torch Guest Editorial" for possible publishing on this site in future days. For submission guidelines and the current email, click here.

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

For more BREAKING NEWS on WWE, TNA!
VISIT OUR AFFILIATE - PROWRESTLING.NET

For UFC & MMA NEWS & BLOGS:
VISIT OUR SISTER SITE - MMATORCH.COM

Upgrade to PWTORCH VIP: DETAILS & SIGN-UP INFO

(c) 1999-2009 TDH Communications Inc. - All rights reserved.