By Shane McKinley, PWTorch Specialist

Jarrett And His Shampoo Commercial And Oh Yeah, TNA Fans Also Had Something To Do With Our Success

Gotta love the opening video package of angry wrestlers in the rain yelling. Double J shakes his golden locks. The founder of TNA Jeff Jarrett stars in his own shampoo commercial. Quoting the voice-over guy, "The dream was kept alive by the passion and belief of its founders (cue Double J whipping his hair). It was infused with our own young talent, who we usually treat like crap, and our heelish outside veterans, who we fawn over". No mention of TNA fans at all. They do know that fans are ultimately the ones who buy their merchandize and watch their product, right? Don West came aboard and said that "Mick Foley will change wrestling for-evah!". Sure. Tonight was sort of a "reset button" for TNA (new video packages, etc). But as the night would progress TNA would still be plagued by important details. What is nice about TNA is that usually they over-hype minimal stuff all the time. I can set the bar real low and am pleased that they usually come up with substandard results. Like now I am suprised that they even have wrestling matches now, considering the amount of focus into backstage skits and promos.

The Creation of Main Event Mafia, I Don't Give A Kip

Perhaps I have been staring too long at TNA's backstage skits in Florida, so when the Main Street Mafia were introduced in a classy lounge, it was a welcome change of pace. Sadly, the thing came off as laughable. Good points for everyone looking decked out in cool clothes (being generous here). It had potential, but how anyone could keep a straight face with Booker saying "respect!" randomly throughout everyone's promos is remarkable. Kurt Angle is obviously the main man now. So much so that fans keep forgetting that Sting is TNA world heavyweight champion. I like the concept of Main Event Mafia, predictable as it was (No, Sting joins the evil veterans? Nah). Was it worth 5 months of predictable, lazy booking? Nope. But it is here, and fans will have to keep their fingers crossed to see what direction TNA takes MEM in (at least we got to this point, now let us see what they do next).

Kudos to the crowd chanting "No More Accents" to Booker. You see, it is not mocking Booker, it is pleading with Booker. Booker might win the 2008 Absurd Award for "the wrestler who continually says the dumbest things ever". It is quite an achievement. Anyways, Booker has this new championship called The Legends Championship. I guess TNA validates the championship belt (I now crown myself The Internet Wrestling Writer Champion! Whoo! Look at this tinfoil belt I have!) and the match between Booker and Christian Cage. If Cage wins, he gets to be called Legend Champion. If Cage loses, Cage suddenly becomes not what he has been stressing the past month (his own man, nobody makes decisions for him) and has to join MEM.

You will notice that I did not cover the Beautiful People/Kip vs. Christy Hemme match starting the show. For some odd reason my hand moved towards the controller and I changed the channel. I cannot stand the Beautiful People, Kip, or a meaningless feud with Hemme. So I can agree with many people that the opening match was not even considered a real contest. I did like these two slower-paced promos (compared to the frantic style we get usually on Impact).

Abyss Has A Tummyache And Oh Yeah, 3rd Degree Burns

The devil is in the details. TNA has a backstage skit like the ones we see on Impact all the time (We are back in Florida! No!) Matt Morgan and Abyss proceeds to launch themselves into a promo where the volume of their voices must drown out everything else. In the entire world. TNA would tell me to say something positive about this bit. Okay. It is hard for me not to change the channel when I have to hear two guys yell and scream about really minor stuff. And it is hard for me to applaud how you guys are handling the character of Abyss lately.

Does TNA know what 3rd degree burns are? That is when your flesh gets burned so badly it becomes dead skin. When you get 3rd degree burns, you have to get skin grafts, new skin. And you are in the hospital for months. You are lying in bed in tremendous pain. You are not cutting promos or doing Black Hole Slams on Kurt Angle.

But Mr. Abyss apparently is not human. After getting these 3rd degree burns at Bound For Glory, he shows up at the next Impact to hit Kurt Angle. Sure, he shows up in bandages but it does not cover the fact that he got 3rd degree burns on his body. TNA throws out some bull logic of "it covered 10 percent of my body." To be positive, I once got 2nd degree burns on my stomach (thanks to hot coffee being thrown at my stomach). I got better in about two weeks. I still have the mark of it. Do people in TNA honestly believe that they made this "Abyss-fire" bit truly bulletproof? No, they do not. Abyss could have gotten 2nd degree burns and that would have been believable. But TNA continues to go the hyperbole route and make things absurdly believable. They seemingly cannot resist going against what the fans believe. I think I can be negative when I have doubts if what you are presenting is "believable" and "true". You continue to either do nothing to prove me wrong or just force me to accept it as true. You continue to write bits in that are very generic and sadly very stale. But no, let us just praise bits that revel in stupidity, absurdity (even by wrestling standards) and laziness. Bravo.

So the next time a wrestler is set on fire or goes through fire, just know that Abyss can apparently shake off 3rd degree burns much like if he got a stubbed toe. They are all wusses compared to Abyss. Triple H once survived being trapped in a falling car that slammed to the ground after being dropped by a forklift being manned by Austin. Hunter showed up on Smackdown and did a promo saying he survived because he crawled into the backseat or something and barely made it out alive. Unbelievable? Sure. But as long as that seed of doubt is planted in the fans mind (Gee, I guess Triple H could have survived that), then it is working with fans. Having Abyss have 3rd degree burns but yet continue to wrestle because he is Abyss is not working with fans. There seemingly were no truly painful consequences for Abyss (oh, he has a bellyache. Oh, he continues to scream his promos even though he is in so much pain. Give me a break) going through a table lit on fire. That is bad for business.

Blink And You Will Miss The X Division Championship Match

Nice bit with the X division championship logo bit, but sadly not so much with the match. I can understand TNA going the route of training their fans into accepting quick regular matches. But quick championship matches? Now that is a hard pill to swallow. And even so, people get excited about seeing the X division champion Bashir against Jay Lethal. Sadly, the only thing I remembered about this match was this: a cool spot by Lethal, fans jacked up, Lethal does a suicide dive, misses the elbow, Bashir does a DDT, gets the win. Did pretty much nothing for Bashir as champion, and if Lethal is getting beat in about 2 minutes, I guess Lethal is just not all that good. As stated before, I can understand why TNA has usually quick championship matches on Impact, but it is counter-productive.

This quick match pretty much made Lethal's win at the PPV meaningless. If TNA goes down the route of quick championship matches (because they just want to have teasers for the PPV championship, where suddenly wrestlers go longer than 4 minutes in their matches), soon fans will plain stop caring about the belts. The X division belt has been pretty much defended on every Impact for the past month and they have all been forgettable affairs. Some kudos to the announcing style of this match (seemed more focused), but wrestling fans agree that championship matches should not usually last as long as squash matches. Just a thought. Whoa this match is going longer than 4 minutes! It must be a epic battle! TNA: Setting The Bar Lower Than You Think We Can. How low can we go?

Rhino vs. Bashir next week? Bashir wins cheaply and xenophobia reigns supreme? Not very much to look forward too. And something is wrong with Lauren, the backstage interviewer. Maybe she is not Crystal. Who knows. But I would rather have the show focus on wrestlers instead of continually showing the overacting of Lauren.

The Texting Tag Team Match That Apparently Never Had Text Votes

Two words: visual proof. The start of the show says that the fans can text the order of the entertainers. Fans were confused. Are we just texting for one guy, or for a tag team? And is it really ground-breaking to text the order of the entertainers? Anyways, the match starts and what a job for ring announcer Mr. Penzer: "Ok, every 60 seconds somebody will come in. It is an over-the-top rope match. The last two teams (?) in the match will face each other in a tag team format, with the fans texting the choice of their weapons. A rubber ducky may be involved."

Visual proof. I can only guess that the reason TNA showed no visual proof of the text results is because they want to condition their fans to believe everything the announcers say, did not think of it, were too stupid to think of it, did not care if the fans believed the concept or not, or knew that it was a big lie anyway and did not want to put attention towards it. "Oh visual proof will help your product more because people then can believe in it more oh".

TNA showed no texting results. No percentages. Nothing. All we had was the announcers telling us that the texting took place. I can believe that TNA accepted the notion of the "user-friendly" texting, but having no visual proof of the texting results (and having the announcers just say so) makes me strongly think that this match was planned, texting be dammed. Proof? Abyss was picked number one. Matt Morgan was picked number two. Meanwhile, Team 3D were picked somewhat close to last because the announcers explained that the fans "really wanted to see the heel tag teams of Team 3D and Beer Money get theirs". Uh-huh.

So apparently Team 3D is lower on the fan hype scale than Morgan and Abyss (they are not, even LAX is bigger than Morgan/Abyss). Morgan proceeds to eliminate LAX and some other people (this match was confusing to watch), thus getting wrestlers to feed him. Somehow in all of this chaos Team 3D and Beer Money are the last two tag teams to face off each other. And coincidently enough, the fans pick the table option in their texting. Which coincidently enough sets up a bit where Abyss has a moral dilemma with the fire table. Right. Would had been funny if a "fire chair" or even a "fire ladder" came into play. The ladder is on fire! Oh, man!

So did TNA need to go to all of the trouble of portraying the match as "fans get to text how the match goes" when everything comes out as planned out beforehand and seems like it was regardless of the texting? TNA would just say that I am being negative. It is hard to be positive when you expect me to believe that TNA fans would select Matt Morgan as number two and Abyss as friggin number one. You can applaud them for trying to do too much, but the lasting impression of the match that perhaps it was a dud. People were going crazy because they thought they were going to see somebody go through a table lit on fire. They certainly loved Team 3D and did not care for Morgan or Abyss. I understand that I very well could be wrong, but Abyss as number 1 in the text polls is tough to believe as true. In these situations wrestling companies should have fun in proving me wrong. "Take that, you naysayer!" But they did nothing of the sort.

Was pretty funny when Team 3D was setting up the fire table and the crowd was chanting "ECW! ECW!". Or when "number one" fan favorite Abyss got booed because he stopped the notion that a table was going to be set on fire. TNA has got to give wrestling fans more credit and stop writing the fans reactions ahead of time. And I got to see some Brother Ray dancing. The ref makes a sloppy count and Beer Money continues their forgettable reign of tag team champions. I enjoyed it because it was laughable and chaotic. I can sure be positive when TNA willingly digs itself into a hole they created and expects me to help them out. But TNA was not built and carried by wrestling fans in the first place, supposedly.

Kurt Angle Wants To Have Tea Time, The Young Dudes Are Weak

I love Kurt Angle. I think that there will never be another wrestler like him. Does he need to have a beef with Mr. Penzer, the ringside announcer (from all of the camera shots to Penzer when Angle was in the ring)? Nope. "But you want us to follow up on things, right?" Yeah, on things we care about and things that should be followed up on. Angle apparently also harbors a deep desire to go over to Jarrett's house and hit Jarrett's daughters. How nice. To be nice, some credit must be given that at very least TNA did not produce sappy pictures of Jarrett's daughters to produce sympathy. Kudos for TNA for not being more horrible, I guess. If Angle has a beef with anyone he can threaten to do bodily harm to the family of any of his opponents. Even low-lives and scumbags sure cannot root for a guy who picks on little girls to fight.

"No, that is all wrong. Kurt Angle wants to go over to Jarrett's house and have tea time with his daughters. Or play house! Yeah, that's it. Hey, what do you want from us? We need to have 'fighting words' to coax our gentle, humble leader known as Jeff Jarrett to stand up to the big bully Angle." Double J comes out and says, "You know what, Angle? Forget the fact that I should fine you, attack you, threaten to fire you, or even fire you for even mentioning my daughters. No, let me talk about our backstage talent." Wow, two scumbags. I need some more of Jarrett's shampoo commerical.

Cross the line? More like "Shoot the foot". Speaking about being counter-productive, while MEM is all big and bad with their group of guys, the Young Dudes consist of AJ Styles, Joe, Jay Lethal, and Motor City Machine Guns. Kind of one-sided, eh? Boy, would I have liked to be a fly on the wall of that meeting.

"Okay, we need some Young Dudes. Young Dudes who are TNA originals. Who is going to be in this group?"

"A.J. Styles?"

"Yes!"

"Joe?"

"Wasn't he TNA champion at one point? Oh, we need something for Nash to do. Yes."

"Jay Lethal?"

"Yes! He is young and fresh! Although I cannot remember the last time he won a match."

"Eric Young?"

"No, he has got that killer superhero gimmick going. And he loses all of his matches."

"Consequences Creed?"

"He just came in two months ago. Nobody would believe him, especially with his gimmick."

"Christopher Daniels?"

"Remember he was 'fired'? Heh heh."

"Uh, Shark Boy?"

"Not believable in this group."

"Um, Petey Williams?"

"No, he is one of our bad guys. And he has apparently vanished off the face of the Earth."

"How about the Motor City Machine Guns? They are never on TV anymore and not a lot of people still care about them."

"Yeah, whatever."

I love to watch MCMG in action. Problem is that TNA never shows them because they have a grudge against them. And when they are showed, they are showed only to advance another storyline (MCMG was apparently heel for a month for Sting's respect storyline, now they are back to being good guys). And think about this. AJ Styles, Joe, Jay Lethal and MCMG versus the likes of Kurt Angle, Booker, Sting, and Kevin Nash. New fans are going to root for MEM. Heck, even old fans will be strongly tempted to root for MEM.

They Do It Well, But Do It For A Short Time

Liked how Don West brought in psychology into the Knockout Division championship match, saying that Taylor Wilde uses Kong's own weight against her. Good stuff with the hurricana and near falls. Another short championship match, but I think I have a crush on Kong. I love you, Kong! But apparently TNA does not love Kong as Knockout Champion, as they quickly shuffle to yet another MEM skit (sniff, sniff, smells like NWO in here). According to AJ Styles the original TNA is falling apart to the seams to the big, bad veterans. I could not make sense of his promo.

Speaking about NWO, NWO Red (Sting, Nash) face off against AJ Styles and Joe in a PPV match that got treated as subpar compared to the earth-shattering Mick Foley announcement. Fans are already harping on WWE for not hyping Undertaker vs. Triple H on Smackdown enough. Joe continues his role as a angry loser (although he did have a nice promo), while Styles does not fare much better after pretty much MEM (You see, MEM can be shuffled and flipped to spell WWE) continue their NWO rays and suck the life out of any opposing force. There is something lodged in my brain that perhaps they should be hyping Sting up more as TNA world champion and maybe perhaps Joe should ask for his mandatory re-match clause for the championship seeing how he got screwed at all, but I guess storylines take precedence over logic and previous examples.

Mick Foley Is Wrestling's Brett Favre (Mr. Hardcore Diva)

Nice bit with Foley showing up in a bright green bug. But it does not covered up the fact that TNA tried to do a "Ric Flair Sendoff" to this man who was only with the company for about a month last Impact. According to Mick Foley, he is a rich, frugal man. In a way he is reminding me of Brett Favre. Like Foley, Favre jumped ship from a bigger organization (Packers) to a lower one (Jets) because he was concerned about how his reputation and legacy was going to be handled. He was not happy about how he was being treated.

And much like Favre, Foley is already the subject of too much hype and attention. Sure, it is fresh and exciting, but the appeal of Foley should not take away from the core substance of TNA (at least, in theory). Much like how the focus should not whether or not Favre contacted the Lions to talk game strategy about the Packers (i.e. Favre is a Diva), Foley should realize that he too, is viewed as a diva. The next time TNA hypes up the fact that Foley is going to say something important next Impact, I will not believe them at all (I did not give them a lot in the first place, so I was not really shocked at Foley becoming GM again).

So Foley has a lot of money but dresses in sweats because he is a frugal man (or because he knows if he dresses in a suit and cut his hair it would hurt his image). He invests a lot of dough into TNA because all of the time he was announcing matches on Smackdown he was watching TNA on his own private TV by his feet. He saw the potential and thought it would be a good bit. And like any sound leader would, Jeff Jarrett handily gave him part control of the company (exactly how many founders does TNA have?). Mick Foley then becomes the new boss (so long, Jim Cornette). I guess that Jeff Jarrett is the head of the family while Foley is the number two boss.

Which means that Mick Foley will become GM again (through a long-winded promo that had too much time on its hands). Which I like. But is this earth-shattering? No. Does this change the face of wrestling? Not even in the slightest. Mick Foley wrestling Kurt Angle at the next PPV would have been huge. I would have jumped for joy. Foley joining MEM would have been huge as well. But Foley as boss? Look, TNA fans have been promised before (a lot of times) that things are going to change around here. Foley (or TNA) did not cross any sort of line. They have introduced some new things into the mix, but it is not ground-breaking. And like any TNA fan I appreciate the fact that they are introducing new things into the mix but it does not excuse the fact that there are some glaring holes in the product itself. Foley, MEM, and this "respect" angle might be flashy and ratings-getters, but the devil is in the details.

And the bit about how Kurt Angle can join the rocket ship known as TNA or be history. I hope TNA does become a rocket ship. I hope that it does become big. Fans will have to wait and see.

IMPACT'S FINAL VERDICT: Very Absurd

Compared to the usual drivel fans get on Impact, this show was a nice road trip. The crowd was hot, and I enjoyed this Impact much more than the others I have seen lately (at least it felt like a big night). But this was a not the company's best effort. It still showed the rotten aspects of the company. TNA shows up in its new model, and in on the whole it looks good. But once you get inside and drive the thing, problems start to show up. The brakes are shot, the engine stalls, it is leaking oil and there is a smell coming from the glove compartment. The texting tag team match was a dud and went out of its way to work against the fans instead of working with them (thus helping each other out). The Beautiful People and Kip bring nothing new and are not even worth watching. Main Event Mafia is a powerful force, but the problem is that who is going to stand up to them? Some punks named Styles and Joe, fighting for the "honor" of TNA when even TNA shows itself to fall in love with MEM by how MEM is presented.

Cage was the star of the night, while Booker continues to be a joke. Not "funny ha-ha" but more "groan please make this guy more believable". Abyss continues to no sell everything and TNA continues to spout off lies they expect fans to believe. Championship matches are fast-paced and the action is hot, but cannot be believed by many fans as true championship matches (if you go to the bathroom, you will miss it). Foley as boss is a nice touch, but fans can doubt whether or not TNA will succeed in the months ahead. TNA fans have been promised the moon but the cold hard fact remains that the TNA rocket ship is not yet close enough to breaking orbit.

LEAVING YOU WITH MY ABSURD THOUGHT

I have often given thought into what sort of demographic TNA appeals to. Let us call him TNA Ted (in contrast, there is WWE Wilbur, who pines for the old days, enjoys lukewarm stuff, and sleeps in Cena PJs). TNA Ted is conditioned to expect short matches, crazy (e.g. dumb) booking, and loads of backstage interviews and promos. I once read on a message board that a TNA fan once wrote, "Screw all you people who doubt TNA". Doubting is a part of being a wrestling fan. Fans should be able to doubt WWE, TNA, and any other wrestling organization without having to feel that they are not "loyal" enough to the brand.

When wrestling organizations plug up their ears and shut their eyes because they do not want any negative reports, they fail to realize that while, yes, wrestling fans (myself included) can become too whiny, smarmy and fickle, they generally want to help make the product better. Because ultimately fans are the ones who watch the product, buy the product, and believe in the product. That is the lasting impression I got from Impact tonight. Sure, it is a new make and model. Looks exciting to drive. But the plain fact still remains that in large part following TNA is basically unrewarding. It is not to say that perhaps one day it can become great, but it is dumb to believe that fans are just supposed to say wonderful praises all of the time. Fans need to point out the bad stuff, because something is wrong when examples like that text tag team match with Team 3D and Abyss are being booked as believable. I got a kick out of that match, but it was a pure mess.

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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