Hell Freezes Over As Glass Shatters
Hell froze over Monday Night.
That’s right. For the first time in a very long time…I enjoyed Monday Night Raw.
Admittedly, I enjoyed it mainly for Stone Cold’s involvement and a fantastic Hart/McMahon contract signing (which closed the show). But what was proven Monday night is that a show stacked with good wrestling matches (Michaels/Jericho?) good promos and no horrific comedy midget segments was actually worth watching.
The show proved that wrestling programming can work with a PG rating without the need to tone the whole damn show down to infantile levels. The show ended on a high note. No typical heel beatdown here. An old school ‘face gets one over on the heel’ moment.
The irony was that, after my praising its ‘Attitude Era’ style content, TNA Impact was rather bland by comparison. I’m getting really tired of Eric Bischoff manipulating Jarrett and Foley. I’m fed up of their number one contender (Pope D’Angelo Dinero) selling an ankle injury. I grow weary of Hall and Nash beat each other up incredibly slowly…
Only last week, I praised TNA for its exciting content. This week just really fell flat. Obviously, every week can’t be a ‘Once in a lifetime, Not to be missed, Start of an era, Change the face of wrestling’ show, but TNA really needs to look at striking a balance. Here’s a few suggestions that I would like to see;
1. First and foremost, TNA needs to put a cap on their roster. Sure, the weekly surprise entrants have been fun, but now the roster is fit to burst. Now it’s time to build the show around who’s there, not who’s coming. I guess I’ve lost track of all the debuts since January. Why bring RVD in and throw him straight in to a feud with a TNA returnee like Sting? Let them build some heat. Why didn’t he debut in the X Division and liven that part of the roster up? More on that later.
2. Reduce the number of PPVs. This would apply to WWE also. Since January’s ‘new era’ of TNA, we’ve had 3 PPVs (including this Sunday’s Destination X). If they want to sell these damn things, make less and build more feuds. Make each match on the card mean something. Look at this year’s Wrestlemania. I think it’s a pretty solid card, stacked with matches that have each had sufficient screen time. TNA just seems to throw matches on to the sheet to fill some space.
3. Since there is now no 6-sided ring, you need to differentiate TNA’s product with WWE’s product. There’s been plenty of blood in recent weeks, obviously targeting the 18-34 demographic that WWE appears to have abandoned. But what they should really be pushing is the X Division. When the X Division is hot, it’s really hot. I’m sure there are plenty of RVD fans who would love to see him let loose in the X Division. How about Samoa Joe? Homicide? No. Instead, TNA currently uses the X Division as a Mid Card Hell. The promo last week on Impact to promote the X Division Title Three Way was hardly full of charisma, was it? It makes the X Division look (to the casual WWE viewer) like the TNA version of NXT. Which is a real shame.
4. Less reliance on the veterans to promote the matches. I understand Hogan and Flair make good promos, but lets see AJ Styles and Abyss promote their match. They just look like kids who are letting their parents argue it out amongst themselves. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Hogan and Flair as on-air personalities. Hell, I even enjoyed their involvement in last weeks tag match. But at least let the Champion and his Contender speak for themselves. Standing next to them holding their hands just makes it look as though the company has no faith in their drawing power.
I hope TNA can ride out this initial lull in Monday viewing figures. I hope they have the strength to pull a great show out of the bag and become serious competition to the WWE. Not because I have any allegiance either way, but because the competition is good for business. I’d love to think the lack of Hornswaggle and other assorted Raw silliness was an attempt to keep fans from switching to Impact…but the truth is, WWE doesn’t seem to care about TNA just yet.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope this weeks Raw was the first in a series of awesome episodes designed to make Impact look like crap.
Because if that’s the case, we win.
Just like we did during the Monday Night War.
Coming up this weekend, thoughts on the upcoming Wrestlemania weekend, including a look at the latest announced Hall of Fame inductees. Stick around.
