Ugh! After writing this column for longer than some of you kiddies have even been born, how could I have anything interesting to say any more? Seriously, it makes me sick sometimes.
I spent some time yesterday browsing through TNA’s current roster. What a group of talented and highly valuable individuals you have in this promotion! Obviously, as a recent XHeadlines.com Poll tells us (sorry, have to push the brand), Kurt Angle is this promotion’s biggest star. So, for a moment, imagine what TNA and WWE were like a year ago. Did anyone ever imagine that Kurt Angle would be making the trip down south? Unbelievable, really.
But Angle is only the latest in a number of former WWE stars who have found their way to the less grueling schedule of Total Nonstop Action. Before him such stars as Christian Cage and Team 3D found their way to the Orlando/Nashville-based promotion, just as Scott Steiner and Rhino did before them. WCW/NWA stalwart Sting is also a part of this growing promotion as is traditional extremist, Raven. Hell, even Jim Cornette and Earl Hebner found their way down to TNA Wrestling along with the James Gang (New Age Outlaws)! Truly, you have some great talent in this promotion that is just waiting for their chance at the big time, but could TNA really become the “big time” in place of a sold out WWE crowd in Madison Square Garden?
The short-term answer is absolutely not. The amount of money and pull that WWE has in the industry is unmatched (at least on this planet). However, with the trend of early-2000’s WWE icons heading south for a less time-intensive schedule, there does exist a hope that TNA will – someday – be an honest threat to WWE. The biggest attraction that TNA brings to the table is their schedule. This is a promotion where a television taping is held every other week and the most that the established wrestlers even attempt to wrestle is once or twice a week. ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK!
Compare this to WWE where a guy like Ric Flair had to go the limit at the Survivor Series and then was involved in two different segments on the following night’s RAW. Now granted, Flair is a different case because he bleeds this business, but many of today’s younger stars (think Jericho, Lita, Trish Stratus, Rey Mysterio Jr.) see a great appeal in that reduced schedule. Honestly, who wouldn’t? How many of you get up in the morning and go to your 9-to-5 job that you hate because it drains you of all of your energy – only to go back to sleep and do the same thing the very next day?
How many college students out there are reading this knowing that they have a million things to do tomorrow? How many high school students are reading this knowing that they had to wake up close to 7:00am to get to school on time or catch the bus?
Wouldn’t YOU jump at the prospect of working three of four days every 2 weeks? Hell, I’d run at it right now if I didn’t have bills to pay! This is part of the allure of TNA for the current WWE roster. What’s more – in TNA, backstage politics exist for a split second before they are spread all over the internet and actually dealt with by management. WWE cannot say that this has ever been the case with the Stamford-based promotion.
How many times did we have to suffer through a ridiculous gimmick that ruined a great wrestler? Or better yet – how many times did WWE plan on insulting us by constantly putting the strap on Triple H even though the entire wrestling population was giving his “X-Pac Heat” (which was reflected in his abysmal drawing power)? TNA seems to have mastered something that made WWE hot in the late 1990’s – give the fans what they want in the end and they’ll come back for more!
Sure, there are certain TNA storylines that are absurd or just asnine (LAX anyone?), but the wrestlers know that they have a greater chance to exceed in TNA due to the promotion’s reliance on fan opinion and wrestlers’ backstage moods. Hey – if you owned a company and your employees were bitching about the same guy week in and week out, wouldn’t you do something – anything – about it? I sure as hell would. And TNA definitely does.
Why will the TNA roster continue to grow with WWE’s former stars? They offer a real-world, 21st Century schedule in a setting where if they really try their hardest and give it their all, they will not be held underneath a glass ceiling.
TNA has some fight in it. And with their new time slot and the acquisition of former WWE’ers like Kurt Angle, Christian Cage, Tyson Tomko, and Christy Hemme, they are poised to make a dramatic run at not only being profitable, but shaking up the status quo in WWE.
I, for one, am looking forward to watching this unfold.
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