Necro

VIP Room Moderator

I dont really agree with it much, but it's worth the read
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TNA is dead. Not dead as in defunct, like WCW. Dead as in irrelevant. Dead as in, wrestling fans don't need to give a crap about it anymore. It died on January 16, 2005, when Jeff Jarrett pinned Monty Brown at Final Resolution to retain the NWA championship. I didn't order the PPV, but once I read the results, I knew TNA was done for. And I haven't watched an episode of it since. There's no reason to.

TNA's death wasn't a sudden thing, either. It was hardly a bolt out of the blue. TNA's obit is the kind that would include the words "after a long illness." In this case, TNA's long illness began in December, with the Turning Point PPV. That's when things started looking bleak, when TNA developed a whooping cough and started walking with a limp.

Before I go on, I suppose I should say that, for months, I loved TNA. Absolutely loved it. I still remember how excited I was when it made its debut on Fox Sports Net, and for months, I didn't miss an episode. Not a single one. For awhile last summer, when SmackDown! was at its nadir, I actually preferred TNA to the WWE. The X Division guys-Styles and Daniels and Sabin and Primetime and Petey Williams and Sonjay Dutt-were putting on one jaw-dropping match after another. Abyss was pretty badass. And I thought Monty Brown was the Man.

I was so into TNA last year that, when Turning Point rolled around, I convinced my dad to spring for the PPV. My dad's an old-school wrestling fan who still thinks Lou Thesz is God. For months, he listened to me tell him about this "new" federation where the ring has six sides and the guys do amazing stuff like flip piledrivers and super moonsaults and run across the ropes. So, he ordered Turning Point, and I went over to his place to watch it, and we saw…Scott Hall and Kevin Nash wrestle in Elvis costumes. And Jonny Fairplay. And Randy Savage, coming in for the last two minutes of the main event and looking like an old man who'd fallen and couldn't get up. And that wretched, atrociously unfunny stuff with the WWE tape, and those two guys who were supposed to be Triple H and McMahon. Sure, the cage match was indisputably excellent, and the Brown-Abyss-Raven match was pretty cool. But everything else was such embarrassing crap that, once the show was over, my dad and I just sat there for a couple minutes in silence. Then I sort of eased myself out of my chair, said, "well, guess I'll get going now," and slunk towards the door. I'd put my faith in TNA and had finally shelled out for one of their PPVs (well, my dad had, anyway), and what I got as a reward was something rinky-dink. Well, I told myself, I've learned my lesson. TNA's obviously got a little ways to go yet. I'll give it a month or two to shake off its growing pains. Then things will be fine.

Initially, I didn't fault TNA for dragging in past-their-prime big names like Savage and Piper and Hall and Nash and DDP and Ken Shamrock and (egads) Dennis Rodman. That's what you've gotta do to attract attention, right? It's what sitcoms do around sweeps week. Hall and Nash showing up on TNA to stand in Jeff Jarrett's corner was the equivalent of, I dunno, Tom Selleck appearing on "Friends," or whatever. Indeed, that's part of the wrestling biz-the old legends are supposed to turn up every once in awhile to put the new talent over. That's the way you play the game; ask Mick Foley. But, when past-their-primers like Hall, Nash, Page, et al turn up on the scene, then start getting main event pushes instead of young lions like Brown and Styles, that's when something's askew. That'd be like, I dunno, watching a season's worth of "Seinfeld," then tuning in one night to discover that Newman's suddenly Jerry's new best friend, and George is just some guy we see occasionally. It doesn't make sense, and it just ain't the way things are supposed to work. Imagine what it must be like for somebody like A.J. Styles or Monty Brown or Abyss, working your butt off month after month, only to see your place in the main event taken by a guy who once pooped on a plate in an airplane, or a guy who once blew his quad out by walking from one side of the ring to the other. One would argue that Nash and DDP are getting their high-profile pushes because everybody knows their names, whereas only diehards know who Monty Brown is. The counterargument is, of course, that people like Brown are supposed to make their names by overcoming the likes of Nash, rather than by floundering on the midcard opposite nobodies like Bobby Roode while Nash hogs the frigging main event.

And that's another thing. If you want to make your federation newsworthy, you may wanna, oh, I don't know, try giving your belt to somebody else every once in a while. I've read a lot of articles on the net over the past several months comparing Jeff Jarrett (who pretty much runs TNA) to Triple H (whose father-in-law runs the WWE). Both are egomaniacs, both have stupid booking ideas, both are way overrated, both would rather lose two or three of their own extremities rather than give up the heavyweight belt, no matter whose career gets crippled in the process and no matter how bad it is for their respective companies. These comparisons are over and done with now, I assume. Triple H may be an egomaniac, and he may occasionally do stuff that's questionable, and that's harmful to other wrestlers. But Triple H, I believe, is a guy who's gonna put the business first when he needs to (I may be wrong; he may pull off something stupid at WrestleMania and blow it big for Batista-in which case I'll be back here eating my words). Triple H is, legitimately, a highly talented wrestler and a big guy who looks like he could hold his own opposite somebody like Goldberg; the same cannot be said for Jarrett. Plus-and here's the key-Triple H, self-serving though he undeniably is, will occasionally put people over. Who's Triple H put over in the past year? Not just Chris Benoit and Shelton Benjamin, but Orton, Batista, even arguably Eugene, for God's sake. Who's Jarrett put over in the time since TNA's been on Fox? Well, he let Savage pin him in a tag match (whereupon Savage promptly disappeared from TNA), and he let Monty Brown get up from a couple guitar shots. Come the hell on.

Originally, I didn't have a problem with Jarrett going over Jeff Hardy-twice. I figured he was doing it for the integrity of the title. After all, that's the NWA belt he's wearing-a prestigious title, and not one that needs to be dropped right away to some pretty boy WWE émigré who paints his face green and sing-raps his own theme song. Give it to somebody homegrown, Jarrett. Give it to…oh, I don't know. How about the most dynamic, most over star in the company? How about the guy who decisively won two three-man matches in a row, one opposite Abyss and Raven, and the other opposite DDP and Nash? How about dropping it to Monty Brown? No? We're gonna have Monty job to you and then drop back down to the midcard for the rest of the year? Oh, okay.

I hope Jarrett realizes that he has to lose sometime, and to the right person, if he expects TNA to stay afloat. I don't think he does, though, or he'd have let Brown beat him at Final Resolution. That woulda been the perfect way to start off the year, with a rejiggered, rejuvenated TNA. Instead…what? We're getting Jarrett vs. DDP now? There's a frigging match I'll shell out big bucks to see. I love DDP, but he's almost 50 years old. Jarrett's not gonna lose to him, which means we're gonna be treated to the same old "this is Planet Jarrett" speech till at least midsummer, probably. Besides, if DDP wins, how bad will that make Monty Brown look? Brown just beat DDP and another guy in a three-man match. But, what, DDP can beat Jarrett while Brown can't? What about Abyss, now that he's been granted a title shot? How does Jarrett expect us to believe he can get by Abyss? Is he gonna hit Abyss with his guitar? Have about five guys run in to help him?

You know what TNA's good for now? Comedy. It's comic relief. It's the fed that keeps phenomenal talent like Ron Killings and Chris Sabin off the PPVs so Jeff Hammond-that skinny geek who's Fox's NASCAR analyst-can wrestle a match. TNA is far-fetched and frustrating, even by wrestling standards. TNA is the WCW for the new millennium. TNA is where old, decrepit WWE talent goes to fade away.

It's over, TNA. It was over once you started stuffing your main event with substance-friendly WWE exiles like Hall, Hardy, Waltman, and Billy freaking Gunn. It was over once the fans themselves started stepping out of the storylines, chanting "Drop the title!" at Jarrett at every opportunity. And it was over when it became obvious that a person could have watched an episode of TNA last July, then not watched another one till February, and not missed a thing. The same guys are fighting over the same belts, the same talents are languishing in the midcard. It's literally become the same old junk.

by Jason Seals..
William McCracken wrote:
I agree. TNA is deceased. The only thing left carrying the company is the plethora of gimmick matches. Let's see, Ultimate X every other PPV, and people complain about WWE's gimmick match frequency? I count eight gimmick matches in TNA's last four PPVs (including Ultimate X, Six Sides of Steel, and Monster's Ball), and only five in the WWE's last four PPVs (and the WWE total includes the Royal Rumble and Armageddon's TE "Dixie Dogfight"). All things considered, TNA may (and I emphasize MAY very strongly) have had (past tense) better talent; however, WWE have put their talent to better use. Also, as noted, TNA has been scooping up a lot of old, worn out talent of late (including talent that WWE has released for drug infractions). Now, WWE got away with this several years back (Kevin Nash and friends, cough, cough) because they're an established company, but TNA, a new company, can't make the same mistake (Kevin Nash and friends, cough, cough) and expect to survive. And, on a related note, TNA's PPV buyrates are too low to keep the company afloat. And the financial backers of TNA will only support the company's red ink for so long, and their patience very well may run out within the next twelve months. TNA, may you rest in peace. HeartBlakasNight wrote:
I completely agree. I was also very excited about TNA, and I enjoyed quite a few of the shows, but it's all went down-hill. The one big sign for me was the ultimate drug addict... Jeff Hardy. The fact that there are still Jeff Hardy marks out there makes me vomit in my mouth. Wait, did I say marks? I mean 14 year old girls who don't know any better. I was hoping TNA would become a promotion that would bring the hard working, extremely talented indy workers into the spot light so all the sheltered WWE fans could see what they had been missing. But it has mainly become a place for old WWE wrestlers to work. Sure, there have been a few indy workers who have finally gotten their well-deserved spotlight, but not as much or as many as there should have been. Johnny Speckman wrote:
TNA is neither dead nor irrelevant. If you had actually purchased Final Resolution, or at least seen it in its entirety, then you would know that. And don’t you even dare bring Turning Point into this discussion because Turing Point was, by my terms, the best thing TNA has ever done. Yes there was some stuff I didn’t enjoy, but you can’t be flawless all the time.

At this point I should address the fact the Nash and Hall, and maybe DDP were brought into TNA to keep the boys in line backstage. There were some problems a little while ago, problems that go way beyond my knowledge, and since Hall and Nash have been in TNA, I have heard no further complaints. That is about the only credit I will give them. They were also brought in to for name recognition and to push the younger stars, yet they are now being given title shots against a man who needs no further push. This confuses me but my answer is; give it time. How long did it take Terry Funk to start putting people over in ECW?

As for Savage, Fairplay, and the fake HHH/McMahon storyline, I would have been embarrassed two had any of my friends or family seen that. Savage is a joke, Fairplay looks like somebody that I wished died every day (Thanks Corino!) and the WWE tape invasion angle was utter crap. Yes, this is all true, but ask yourself this question: When was the last time you were embarrassed by something on WWE programming? Answer: Probably RAW last Monday or maybe even No Way Out for those of you who say the diva thing. (I didn’t because I chose to buy Against All Odds instead, best move I ever made) My point is that TNA is only a little over three years old. WWE is still making mistakes to this day and they are the longest raining, televised promotion. You might be expecting TNA to be a sanctuary for when WWE slips up, but don’t expect TNA to continue to hold the ball; we all drop it at some point. Again you can’t be flawless all the time.

To address your comment on so called “past their primers” Ken Shamrock was TNA’s first World Champion so I doubt he was past his prime as the company had enough stock in him to give him such an honor. Shamrock did what he had to do then left. As for Piper, correct me if I’m wrong here for I haven’t seen all of TNA’s early days but I don’t recall him wrestling a match in TNA. Kind of hard to put over talent when you don’t wrestle. Yet his Pit with Superfly allowed Kid Kash to gain some exposure. I consider that putting some one over and I think Cactus Jack and his promo where he spit on the WCW Tag belt would agree as he was putting over Sabu via a promo. As for the little guys getting their shot I’m surprised that A.J.’s name comes up in your list as I have him on my score card as being a two time World Champion among many other accolades. I’m also surprised that you mentioned Monty Brown and Abyss only because they haven’t done much to show me that they deserve a title shot yet. Yes they have worked their butts of but the title picture is hardly their spot yet. I need to see more out of them before I put them among the ranks of Jeff Jarrett. Bobby Rude has worked his butt off as well and while he is even lower then Abyss and Brown in the rankings he is certainly not a mid-card nobody. And speaking of Jarrett, he doesn’t run TNA, his father does. He may or may not have stock in the company and if he does who’s to say that he isn’t abusing his power? Perhaps the man in charge (his father) doesn’t even deal with his son’s storylines. Perhaps a team of professional writers determine everything and rule in favor of Jeff Jarrett because they believe its best for the company. The same could be said for HHH. Just because they have family ties with the owners doesn’t necessarily mean that they become drunk with power. Most people just use that excuse as a scapegoat because they’re tired of watching them win all the time. Let me put this out their: How long has JBL held the title? Not as many times as Jeff Jarrett and certainly not as many times as Triple H but almost about as long as Jarrett’s current reign. Is he sleeping with the boss’ daughter? No! Is his father the owner of WWE? Certainly not. So how can JBL win all time if he doesn’t have control of his own storylines…Oh I know this one…It’s because he cheats isn’t it? Hardly! Almost every match JBL has had has been a gimmick match; from a Bull Rope Match to a Cage match, Last Ride and Hardcore Rules, to a Last Man Standing and finally a Barbed Wire Steel Cage Match. The rules to all of these matches clearly state that there is no disqualification. Through smoke and fire JBL has continued to reign as the champ without any relation to the WWE owner, Vince McMahon. Think twice before you assume that Trips and The King of the Mountain have total control next time.

Also think twice before you assume a man of very little experience is so deserving of a title shot. He has gotten a title shot before and has come up short against Ron Killings in mid 2002. Just because he won the Monsters Ball doesn’t make him worthy enough for a title shot. Also winning the Triple Threat Match with DDP and Nash doesn’t make him deserving either. Abyss is still a rookie in TNA much like Brown. Raven is the only Monsters Ball participant who is worthy of a title shot. And DDP is getting his chance even though I feel he doesn’t need it. It’s the same with Nash. No matter how much you like Monty Brown it doesn’t make him a better wrestler nor does it give him the proper experience edge in going up for the World Title. Monty Brown may be the future of TNA, but not right now.

So what if Monty Brown beat DDP and Nash in a Triple Threat Match. It doesn’t make him better then they are. Yes Final Resolution was Jarrett’s night but Destination X could be DDP’s. It’s not about who is better than who. Perhaps DDP wasn’t bringing his A Game to Final Resolution. Someone can lose to someone and then go on to beat someone else without having a huge fuss made about who is better. DDP lost at Final Resolution but he is more determined now to beat Jeff at Destination X.

Taking a look at the names above one comes to the conclusion that TNA does have some old decrepit WWE talent, mainly Nash and Jeff Hardy (not listed above), and they have brought in outside talent such as Jeff Hammond and Dennis Rodman, but doing a few WCW’esque things hardly makes them the WCW for the new millennium.

Its true TNA needs some work and it’s true that TNA needs to stop hiring released WWE superstars just for the name recognition. TNA is still relatively new and has the chance to grow and I personally can’t be happier with what they are currently producing. The storylines are fresh and the feuds are new and are always changing. If you look at the product in July of last year and look at it now you will see that not everything is the same as it used to be. TNA is always finding new ways to be innovative and it’s not their fault if you can’t see that. If it’s true that you haven’t watched an episode of TNA since Final Resolution then the only thing that has died around here is your love of pure wrestling and quite possibly your soul. So let’s all take a moment and bow our heads in memory of Jason’s soul, may it Rest In Peace.

Source: Obsessed with wrestling.com
TNA: RIP
February 21, 2005 by Jason Seals