WARNING: The following contains spoilers of the TNA Genesis PPV. If you don't want to be spoiled yet, you may want to skip.
I didn’t think this day would come, but here I am…writing a column about TNA. As of about six months ago, I haven’t seen a single episode of TNA in my life. I’ve watched a match here or there but in the pay per view days I just wasn’t willing to pay to watch wrestling like that. And when they finally moved to Spike, well, I still wasn’t really interested. Can’t even really explain why, but TNA just wasn’t of huge interest to me. Plus all my spare time to watch wrestling was already going towards WWE and ROH. But a few months back I got a way to see cheap pay per views, so with the big TNA shows out there to watch I decided to give Impact a shot on a fairly regular basis.
And to be honest, it was nothing that blew me away. Heck, the main reason I was watching most weeks was to see if Kevin Nash was going to be on since he’s been freaking entertaining as hell in his current X-division storyline run. But I still watched most of the time anyways and occasionally found some things to like along with some that drove me nuts. But for me it was still just a third federation to get into from time to time with some free wrestling to watch and I didn’t really care that much about what they did. Until I watched last night’s Genesis pay per view show.
Before I get into it, let’s rewind a couple months back on the road to Bound For Glory. This was hyped up as the biggest show in TNA history. Their Wrestlemania. And the one thing I love about Wrestlemania is huge storylines and big matches coming together on one huge card. So really, my expectations were rather high before this show. After the previous pay per view, the feuds seemed obvious but very nice as well. Christian turned heel on the legendary Sting, and a big match between those two would really do wonders for Christians credibility as a main event heel. And the NWA title seemed bound for a big match with the ever present champ Jeff Jarrett on a collision course with the unbeaten Samoa Joe. Having those two as your marquee matches was just beautiful I thought and really felt like a “Wrestlemania” sort of show at last.
But something rather funny happened along the way. They didn’t happen! The title match, typically for ANY wrestling company going into their biggest show of the year, is reserved for a fresh fight that people are just dying to see. Instead we get a rematch of the previous main event. A rematch with the face not being on in the arena the entire month heading into the show. Oh, and a rematch being built with Samoa Joe carrying the title belt the whole time as he built towards he feud….with nobody even close to the title picture. And Christian instead of that big feud to make him look like a top face gets a feud with Rhyno who’s about as midcard as there is. Wasn’t this the same problem Christian had in WWE? He was a fantastic heel stuck in mid card feuds all the time rather than the main event. He comes into TNA, gets the instant title push many felt was long overdue, and now just falls right back to where he was once again. I’m not even saying the Rhyno feud was a bad idea. With their history, it’s a solid feud that could help both guys. But for the supposed biggest show in company history, it just felt like a big letdown.
But enter one big variable later on that nobody could have foreseen: Kurt Angle in TNA. Easily the biggest name to ever enter the company. So, ok then. Things change a bit. Suddenly the card that really felt lacking for such a big show isn’t so bad since you’ve got name power to make it more interesting. People might tune in for Bound For Glory and then have enough interest to tune in to Genesis the next month now that Angle is on board. And now with that long, overdue rant on the Bound for Glory booking, let’s get to the real reason this column is here right now. The terrible Genesis booking!
TNA really did book themselves into a corner with the main event. Perhaps their best homegrown storyline ever has been the rise of Samoa Joe. Every sign points to him being the future of the company and potentially their first full out superstar should the company grow in popularity. And through all their problems and dumb decisions, to this point they had handled it fairly smartly the whole way along by building him up slowly and keeping the fans dying for more. But doing Angle/Joe in Angles first ever TNA feud, that’s just backing yourself into a corner. Who can lose this feud? Angle is the single biggest star ever in the company. No doubt. Joe is the future of the company on a historic streak. This could be a dream encounter and really should have been…but not the moment Angle arrives. However with his failing health perhaps in question, TNA may be in a situation of trying to get what the can out of him while he’s presently able to go. Which sucks, but it’s understandable why they feel the need to do it. So like it or not, it’s Angle/Joe as the Genesis main event. With the company booking itself into a corner here, they needed to handle this one smart. You’ve got your two best things going right here and you don’t want to ruin either of them.
But apparently nobody told them this.
In case you missed it, Joe tapped out clean to the ankle lock. I still don’t believe they did it. The historic streak is over, and now Joe is just another TNA guy basically. This streak has been built so well, it was one of the biggest instant rubs waiting to happen. With Joe looking like a main event talent, whoever was that first man to beat him clean instantly becomes a top guy too. Instead of using this wonderful situation they’ve build up, they gave that rub to Kurt Angle. The one and only guy on the roster that didn’t need it one bit. Everyone in TNA knows Kurt Angle and how great he is. Having him end this does nothing to make him seem stronger or give him more heat. For Angle it’s just a win, for Joe it’s one of the biggest losses of his career (and I don’t mean it’s going to kill the character, I just mean it’s one of the most memorable he’ll ever have. There’s only one time in a career a streak like that can end, and it just did last night). Now, I’ve already seen a couple (although rare) arguments in support of this decision so I’ll address what I’ve seen here just to show how stupid this was.
“But Angle can’t lose in his first PPV match! Plus if he does go heel with the indications post match may indicate, this gives him huge heat!”
You’re right, Angle can’t lose that first match. That’s why booking this match was backing into a huge corner in the first place. As for the going heel possibility, I’ll address that later on with a list of better ways this could have gone down.
”The streak had to end sometime. Better a guy like Angle than just anyone that doesn’t deserve it.”
Again, yes. The streak did have to end sometime. But like I said earlier, this was a massive rub waiting to happen. If done right, you can build up someone new to make an instant main eventer with this win Angle took. Then the heat of this winning streak Joe was on isn’t simply lost, it’s transferred on to someone new. Angle isn’t going to get more crowd heat and attention than he already has, that’s the beauty of hiring him. He already comes with it.
”You’re just a blind Joe fan and hating Angle is the thing to do!”
Actually I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s quite the opposite. Anyone that has heard my thoughts on ROH knows I’ve disliked a lot of what Samoa Joe has done there. I don’t hate him and I do respect his talent, but I’m far from a Samoa Joe fanboy. As sad as I am for the way Angle is these days, I’ve always been a huge Angle fan and still am. So really, if I’m biased one way, I’m more of an Angle fan than a Joe fan.
”IT WAS AWESOME! TNA! TNA! TNA!”
Ok, that didn’t happen. Just made that one up.
So ok, if TNA dropped the ball so bad what should they have done Mr. Internet Writer? Well, I’d say anything else really. But here’s some ideas for starters, assuming Kurt Angle needed to win that match.
1. Here’s the easiest, some disqualification ending. Now, this is just the cheapest, most basic way to get away with it and set up for another match later on. But it works better that having Joe tap clean.
2. Pinfall. Yes, Joe loses clean and it still sucks bad. But really, it’s at least a SMALL step up from a clean tap out, which in my mind is the way that puts over your opponent more than any other way out there.
3. Non-clean pin or submission. Kinda like the DQ ending, but have Angle do something illegal to get the win. Again not great, not still an improvement.
4. Here’s the best one. If Joe is losing and losing clean, do the Austin/Hart ending. Do exactly what you did all match long, and have Joe eventually pass out from the pain. Angle looks like a beast, and so does Joe. He looks freaking fantastic still in the loss, and it doesn’t do near the damage that tapping out does. And hey, with this one if Angle is indeed turning heel, it makes that post match refusal to handshake even more effective I think.
See? It’s not that hard. I know they want to make Angle look huge, but they chose the wrong man to do that with. And while we’re talking about Genesis, they really dropped the ball on their other main event believe it or not! I’m not going into as much detail as the Joe/Angle problems, but the Sting/Abyss title change is just barely less stupid. Now, Sting wins the title at Bound For Glory in what is supposed to be a huge, huge moment for the company. And what do they do? Take the title away a month later…with a DQ finish. I’m not even going to get into how horrible DQ title changes are for ANY company, but Sting losing the title after just a month is just horrendous booking. To make it worse, Angle beat Abyss clean just a few days earlier before he wins the title. So in one night, Sting goes from the top man in the company to a man who’s now behind Abyss AND Kurt Angle on the ladder. Which brings up, you guessed it, another problem. While watching the show, I talked with my fellow Oratory writer Cash Melville about Abyss winning the title. And both of us seemed to agree the only thing it could really lead to is Angle now having a legit claim to the title and hot-shotting the belt from Abyss to Angle in the near future. And with Angle perhaps turning heel with his refusal to shake hands after the match, how does an Abyss/Angle feud work now? Or do they simply just ignore Angle’s win over Abyss now? Anyways, just more food for thought there.
As you can see by my long, jumbled ranting here, this whole situation sucks. And it’s especially frustrating considering TNA had all the potential to do so much better. People love to complain about WWE’s booking problems and I can see why they do most of the time. But TNA had the chance to be a good alternative to that, and they’re throwing it away. The way I see it, WWE is full of dull booking, TNA is full of stupid booking. Choosing between dull and stupid for your weekly wrestling programming isn’t a great choice to make.
Thanks for reading.
mikesawaryn@hotmail.com
