By Shane McKinley, Torch specialist

-Man, I'm so bummed out about TNA's plummeting ratings, I feel like I need a little pick me up. Maybe they should debut a weed smoker to counter Jeff Hardy "living in the moment." Elijah Burke would be the perfect choice. He's an alien. You've heard it here first. Eijah Burke comes from planet Zjork and breathes through his fingernails.

Many would point to several factors that contributed to 0.96 mediocrity. Well, it's football. Well, we're bringing up new stars. Well, that handsome, virile wrestling god Jeff Jarrett isn't performing anymore.

Here's what I think brought TNA ratings down.

(1) Angle retaining the belt at No Justice while right smack dab in the Rhaka Khan mess. This showed that TNA is gutless.

(2) Matt Morgan being pushed into the main event. TNA fans were excited about Hernandez being the next big thing. The always suffering A.J. Styles was having the best matches on Impact. So who got the big "I'm so face it hurts" push? Matt Morgan. TNA did a piss-poor job of preparing fans for largely unlikeable Morgan's big push. This showed that TNA is clueless.

(3) Cody Deaner winning the knockouts championship. This showed that TNA is idiotic.

(4) There's like 20 titles in TNA and not one of them means a damn thing.

(5) Impact has too much largely pointless, crammed in skits to really change the channel from football. Like it or hate it, Monday Night Raw's guest host deal is enticing for those football fans: "Oh, Lebron James is hosting? I'll check it out." By comparison, when you change the channel to Impact, you'll probably get another MEM talkathon. Or a commercial during key time frames.

(6) Not enough Daffney.

(7) Rhino is depressing.

(8) Abyss is depressing.

(9) Taz is depressing.

(10) Not enough Daffney.

(11) Don West's Insane deals are, sadly, just not that insane anymore.

(12) Not enough Vince Russo. (I had to go there. Sorry.)

(13) Not enough Raven sitting outside the women's restroom.

(14) Not enough Daffney.

And so on. Maybe it's because the Bobby Lashley tease turned out to be just that: just one big long tease. There's such a thing as "striking when the iron is hot." Lashley's been chilling in the back for three months and worrying about his MMA fight? Uber lame.

However, here's the main reason TNA ratings are down:

"The s--- got old."

TNA can put that on their quarter progress reports.

Yeah, I know. They've got Elijah Burke. They've got a lot of independent female wrestlers who are fun to watch. But the main event feud is two sad sacks of crap trying to pretend that they are the masters at Scrabble while busting out words like "job" and "cat." They were hoping that fans wouldn't notice that they have no idea what they're doing. But looks like there's no more sand left in their hour glass. Wait 'till after the PPV when hopefully they don't serve up crapburgers for feuds.

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

(pic credit slam.canoe.ca)

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