For the past few weeks, TNA has been pretty bland to me. I’ve been watching them in hopes of seeing good wrestling, but the wrestling just hasn’t been on par to what I know the TNA talent is capable of doing. Usually that’s due to the booking of the matches (a quick, dirty win here, an unfinished brawl there, blank periods of no wrestling at all…), but are there at least decent story lines to go along with these dirty wins or chaotic brawls?
No. At least I don’t think so…
Bully Ray vs. Devon has grown to be very redundant. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the general blueprint of this storyline is insult, run, cheap shot, brawl, lather, rinse, repeat. At first, I found Bully Ray to be hilarious. During his first promo with the insults to Devon that came with the video and the extra sound effects, I laughed at it and watched the video on youtube a number of times. Soon he came with a Devon replacement, and while he did fail with that, I still found it entertaining. And then the aforementioned pattern started, which brought the entire angle into a bore-fest.
Do you know what really made this angle fail in my eyes, though? Bully Ray spitting on Devon’s sons… now as much as I try to suspend my disbelief when it comes to watching TNA… come on. These guys have been together for years. Am I really supposed to believe that Bully Ray suddenly hates Devon for not putting the away the Motor City Machine Guns with the 3D so much that he would spit on Devon’s sons? Because I don’t. It’s not even “going too far” so much as it is “why did they book that?” Still, I do think that Bully Ray has more potential than Devon when the feud ends, if they decide to pursue singles careers within TNA.
I didn’t like Pope vs. Samoa Joe to begin with. Samoa Joe has never really had a character that I genuinely cared for in terms of being a character; I just want to see Samoa Joe get into the ring and kick someone’s ass. However, Samoa Joe’s lack of character is probably the reason why he gets buried and stays in mid-card status, because to main event in TNA, you have to either have an intriguing character or be a Hardy. Pope was good, borderline great once upon a time, but something happened between his fight with Immortal and now that just… I don’t know, made him boring. I totally thought that Pope would be one of the “heroes” going against Immortal in the long run, but I guess when he got buried, both figuratively and literally, he just kind of forgot that Immortal was running the company and decided to do his own thing.
So now we have this feud of… it seems like an anti hero versus a corrupt religious figure. I guess it still has yet to build up, but… I don’t care. I want to see Samoa Joe in a competitive type of storyline, hunting for some wins and a title. I want to see Pope be the Pope again. Maybe he needs some time off to relax, rejuvenate, and regain himself, because I’m not nearly as interested in him as I was a few months ago.
The Karen Jarrett Angle (get it?) is pointless. It was pointless from the start, and this might be an extra biased point because I was upset that it brought the MMA JJ gimmick to an end. I found MMA JJ to be unfairly entertaining (how can you not laugh at a grown man making little kids tap?) I really don’t like Karen Jarrett being actively involved in this because from Jarrett’s heel turn at Bound For Glory, I have truly found him to be an entertaining heel. Every so often, he’d toss in a joke or a statement that really made me hate him, but now, I think he’s going to be limited to ultra serious heel stuff since this is related to real life.
Then again, even the ultra serious heel stuff that JJ does is amazing.
It’s still pointless considering Angle’s supposed to be leading Fortune, who recently turned on Immortal.
As far as Fortune turning on Immortal, I only really have two things to say about it:
1) If you compare the active wrestlers in both stables, I have to give the advantage to Fortune. Only way Immortal can really do anything is if they start handing out pink slips for Fortune’s interference in matches. Otherwise, I see the death of Immortal coming soon. Which would be good for TNA.
2) I want my six sided ring back.
Welcome to TNAStars and I couldn’t agree with you more with this opinion column (which is very rare that I agree with every opinion).
With Ray/Devon, the angle was good, but the tag match before Geneis really ruined it for me. If they can’t make a match in a feud something you want to watch, then there’s something wrong. The spitting on Ray’s kids really sickened me as a fan that they’d have to stoop that low to get heat on Ray
I liked Joe when he was the Samoan Submission machine. Beating up everyone, even giving Kurt Angle a run for his money, but when he joined the Mafia in 09, he kind of fizzled out. And I agree with the Hardy statement. Matt’s going around and saying him and Jeff are the reason for high ratings and he’s on the show for what, a total of 5 minutes? And everyone turned in to see the MEM (who don’t get spoilers) and Fortune (for ones that did.)
I loved the Double J Double M A Challege, and I wasn’t a fan of bringing his kids in it, but at the same time, it’s getting a lot of hatred, so it might work. I would think Angle would have to Ok the decision for his kids to be involve in order to keep him in TNA.
1) Fortune has way better talent than Immortal. The only one’s I like out of Immortal is Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff (always been a fan of his promos and character)
2)And Biscoff said people will get used to the 4-sided ring, last week’s iMPACT begged to differ
On the topic of the six sided ring – I have to admit that when Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff suggested that in order to be in the big leagues, you had to act like it (i.e. get a four sided ring), I completely agreed.
However, I’ve been watching some old TNA Wrestling clips on YouTube (I’m seriously considering purchasing a membership on TNAonDEMAND.com) and that six sided ring was pretty sweet. The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe “I want six sides,” too…
In order to be in the big leagues, you gotta act like it.
But that WHC says otherwise. 😀
As far as four sides vs. six sides, I think that it has to do more TNA pre-Hogan vs. TNA during the Hogan era. If they kept the six sided ring but continued to wrestle like they do (which I think is not as entertaining as before Hogan came, save a few select matches), the number of sides to the ring is meaningless.