Last Thursday night on Impact Wrestling Sting recaptured the World Heavyweight belt from Mr. Anderson. The veteran’s win may have popped a big rating for TNA but it also underlined the failure of Mr Anderson to connect as a champion with the majority of fans. It was the Green Bay native’s second tenure as the TNA flag bearer yet it ended as abruptly as his first.
Fans don’t seem to care about Anderson enough to invest in his championship reigns and it feels like so far TNA have seen this fact and pulled the trigger to remove the belt from his waist as quickly as possible. Sure the “Joker” character has breathed new life into Sting’s persona and added an interesting twist to the storyline power struggle within the company between The Stinger and the Hogan/Bischoff regime, but had it not been for the lack of fan interest in Mr Anderson as champion I believe the belt would not have changed hands so swiftly.
Don’t get me wrong Ken Anderson has received tremendous support during his WWE run and in his time at TNA, but for me he still doesn’t represent all that a champion should. He is cocky for sure and has a good amount of charisma yet his in-ring skills leave a lot to be desired- with many moves looking sloppy (a concern during his time in WWE)- and his presence isn’t larger than life. Even being aligned with the heat drawing Immortal faction doesn’t seem to advance Anderson as a legitimate wrestling superstar. He just doesn’t have “it” for either myself nor a lot of TNA’s audience.
Right now TNA seems to be pushing the younger guys like Crimson and Gunner, with the grapevine saying that Bobby Roode is marked as a future main eventer too. These guys could be World Champions in my eyes, as each of them possesses a larger than life presence coupled with an intensity that Mr Anderson does not have. They may not own the mic skills of Anderson but this can be mended, with Roode especially showing excellent potential on the stick. TNA would be wise to maybe push Anderson down to the upper mid-card for a while at least and elevate someone else soon before fans really turn on the Green Bay resident in an “X-Pac heat” way.
He’s not perfect, but he is a valuable asset to TNA, as someone who can play any storyline role, and has shown that he can carry weak mic workers. His in-ring performance could be improved, I think, by adding a few good submission holds particularly while he’s a heel.
A great opportunity for TNA would be for him to feud with AJ, letting Ken do most of the promo work (not AJ’s best area), and letting AJ carry most of the in-match offense. If you want an example of how this could play out, look to the Anderson/Angle feud of early 2010, something that I’m disapointed about not being revisited this month.
I’m not 100% sure if I agree with this.
Anderson had memorable buildups leading into both of his title reigns. The first one had the whole concussion storyline and how he was putting everything on the line in order to get his championship, and the second one had him mocking Sting to the point where he actually looked like old school Sting.
The problem begins in that he never won his title shots on his own merit. There was a huge overbooked chaos of run-ins during the match that lead to his first title reign, and the second title reign started because of the count confusion that EB caused.
Furthermore, when he actually had the title, the focus completely shifts from him each time. During the first reign, it was all about how 1) Matt Morgan saved Anderson, thank me, and 2) oooo, look at me, I’m Jeff Hardy and my rematch is gonna be a ladder match, which I just so happen to be the resident god in. During the second reign, hardly any focus on Anderson as well. It was all about Joker-mode Sting vs. Immortal, and how Anderson was pretty much just a pawn.
So whatever lack on interest you have in Anderson, I’m going to blame it on the writing. I do agree that there is a certain intensity that he doesn’t have compared to Crimson, Gunner, and even Roode, but I totally believe that Anderson is a very credible champion. TNA just needs to book him such that he can become a credible champion.
If he had kept his momentum going coming off the Kurt Angle rivalry last year and made it a good one with The Pope also, I believe he would have more of the “it” factor.
Anderson became one of my favourites when he was throwing Angle around, and their Lockdown match was EPIC. Then TNA tried Anderson vs. The Pope. This rivalry came off to me as a current age Austin vs. Rock. And I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately it was cut short and ever since Anderson turned face, that was when I, or even most of us, turned on him.