The reason I watch sports is because it is true human drama. The entire point of art is to invoke a reaction emotionally. The shared, visceral reality of man striving to be best is the pinnacle of what existence seems to be about, endurance of the spirit. In case you’re wondering, I haven’t lost my mind, not totally; this does have to do with pro-wrestling. In the middle of the squared circle we get a whole new art form, where the paint and paper creative meet the jolting truth of athletics. It’s a violent ballet for supremacy over the human form. Over vignettes, in-ring psychology, and trash talking, all actions are heightened to feature a hero and villain, baby-face and heel. Of course that’s not all there is, wrestling features tradition, acceptance of self identity, and a midget who lives under the ring with the scraggliest beard in history.
TNA, or Impact! Wrestling as it is now apparently called takes what I love, poops a turd on it, then when it’s covered in crap it’s put in a paper-bag and thrown at a hobo. Not to say there wasn’t a point where I believed I was viewing the answer to WWE’s tedium, I was almost positive for more than two years. In fact I have watched TNA since it was on the FOX sports channel, once a week, in the Asylum.
I gave up on Entertainment because of pushes for John Cena and Batista, both still baffle me to this day, the only wrestling on my radar was Jeff Jarrett’s baby, TNA. They made several great moves, bringing in Samoa Joe was the first great one, let me assure you his feud with Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles blew my mind and made this boy a man. This was before ROH was easily accessible to me, so stylistically it was beyond description. Next they brought in Kurt Angle, and soon had him feud with Samoa Joe. Three great matches followed. After this things get blurry, a hangover you can’t shake off. Following in the footsteps of WCW circa 1999, TNA knowing they now had a chance to really compete with WWE because of the push from Spike TV, decided instead of assembling over time a great story with twists and turns along the way, handed the reins to Vince Russo and Brother Love saying, “Give us something bigger than the Attitude Era, built around Curryman.”
That brings me to last night, I won’t pretend I watched the entire build up to the pay-per view, I’m not sure that’s humanly possible. The last two Impacts’ were viewed so I understood the basic storylines laid out in front of me, Bobby Roode is champion, he is the bad guy, AJ perennial TNA main-eventer is challenging him for the title in a 30 minute Iron Man match. Other stuff happened, lots of breast implants are displayed, Bubba Ray Dudley has a silly tough guy accent, and that takes us to last night’s PPV.
Here are the ten things I learned from December's Impact! and Final Resolution 2011, (in no particular order.)
1. I learned that Sting has no idea what he’s doing anymore. What happened to the insane icon? While ripping off characters from other mediums almost always turns out badly, it was mildly entertaining not because he did a particularly good impression, or was thrilling and unpredictable, but it’s funny to watch a grown man in smeared face paint grinning moronically trying to get over. Maybe I missed it but was there any explanation about why he dropped it? Does he know a guy who can get him Mexican anti-depressants? Did he go to a therapist and try to come to terms with his feud against Vampiro? Did he take up knitting as a form of stress relief?
2. I learned Jeff Hardy is innocent until proven guilty and innocent several times after proven guilty. The man must be a Highlander because apparently he can’t be killed off. If you take a moment to visit www.ImpactWrestling.com you’ll notice a large chunk of the merchandise geared towards Hardy fans, as long as it continues to sell he’s golden. Each time he comes back he seems to make some weird change to his body, this time a huge green splotch tattoo down his one side. I get he’s an enigma, but I’m not sure he’s aware how he looks anymore. His win in the cage over Jeff Jarrett wasn’t surprising, Karen interfered, Jeff recovered blah blah now he’s got a title shot.
3. I learned Austin Aries makes the most of it. The greats make the best of what they’re given, like when Shawn Michaels was handed a story about being JBL’s slave for instance *shudder*. It’s a tough business, not everyone can be champ at once, so you put your all into the limited amount of screen time you have hoping to stand-out. Since returning Aries has done just that, he is great at playing a charismatic douche, and great at working the crowd, years of tough indie shows surely helped with that. Last night he had a great match with Kid Kash, which once again made us wonder why the X-Division isn’t the only division in the company.
4. I learned the Knockouts have become truck-stop Diva’s. I don’t mean this because many of them have a more “alternative” look i.e. tattoos or piercings; in fact it works for them. I say it because they’ve given up on seeking credibility in women’s wrestling on television, or Sara Del Rey would be there, and she’d be champ. Instead it’s regressed into a Sable like tit-o
ff where the winner wins the adoration of teenage boys discovering their bodies but loses any respect as legitimate athletic display. Remember it was only two years ago the Knockout segments where the highest rated parts of the show, that couldn’t have all been for the other meaning of T.N.A. Mickie James putting on a country twang is no comparison to Awesome Kong’s dominating run as champion. The women’s match Gail Kim and “hardcore country” Mickie James isn’t terrible, it isn’t much of anything actually, that’s the problem, it’s all very forgettable.
5. I learned Cowboy James Storm is a very handsome man. He’s supposed to be a rugged alcoholic rebel like Charles Bukowski, yet he’s insanely well groomed. You don’t get hair that luxuriously bouncy with dollar store shampoo, he’s investing in that brown waterfall of follicles. He along with almost the entire Impact roster seem to style themselves after the Jersey Shore cast on a massive amount of class A narcotics. It’s all Ed Hardy like t-shirts, fake tans, and bedazzled sunglasses. I assume that someone in management wrongly believed that this is how the twenty-something’s of America are dressing. What’s an even more terrifying thought is that maybe this IS how people dress now; I just don’t realize it because I refuse to go outside of my basement lair.
6. I learned Garett Bischoff is going to be a champ before long. It’s a long tradition in pro-wrestling, getting your friends pushed if you’re a top guy. No one in the industry is better known for giving his friends the big pushes then Bischoff, he basically allowed Hall, Nash, and Hogan to run WCW into the ground; because they included him in their no pants camping trips… I’m pretty certain that’s how they bonded. The fact that it’s his son is a written guarantee he’ll be around the top of the company soon enough.
7. I learned the TNA Originals still seem to be having fun. Maybe the biggest reason I continue to watch, is because some guys still seem to love being there. Could be the high production values or ridiculous storylines, but I think some of it is just having seen the company grow. Eric Young has been in maybe the weirdest storylines in the history of the show, but always just throws himself into it, it’s the Zack Ryder Equation, “over the top will work if you don’t let the audience know how over the top you’re being.” The members of the Fortune stable, the now singles competing Dudley Boyz, even many of those afore mentioned Knockouts, just seem to be having a good time, or at least not stressing over it all. They’re making money on TV what else could you hope for? On the other hand some people who have been there for awhile, like Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle, don’t, not an insult, they’re great talents underutilized but I can’t imagine them leaving the Impact Zone at night doing anything but shaking their heads in disappointment.
8. I learned Robert Roode can carry a PPV, he’s been a TNA mainstay for years, since his days in team Canada, but these last two months are a breakthrough in his singles career. He’ll be attempting to reach the level of Beer Money for sometime, but I have no doubt he’ll be able to given his performance in the iron man match, most importantly they had an interesting match for thirty minutes and didn’t just hold each other in headlocks and arm-bars which is why I’m usually dreading seeing them.
9. I learned Scott Steiner is more steroids then human. As I’ve written before, I love early WCW, and there were no greater tag teams during that time then the Steiner Brothers. When the complete history of wrestling is written they will surely be used as a prime example of tag team psychology. Yet over the years and after separating from his brother Rick, Scott turned from a human man into just a walking muscle mass. He serves as little more than an antique reminder of the wrestlers who just can’t say goodbye to the attention wrestling provides them. Also I wish he’d stop threatening in his god awful promos to take wrestlers wives or girlfriends and show them what being with a real man is like; it’s disturbing to think of his musky shriveled testicles.
10. I learned Impact! Wrestling is doomed…just kidding. During the time I’ve been watching TNA, far too long of a time, it seems like each year has less and less to get excited about. The championship is continually devalued by putting it on nostalgic favorites who can’t go for more than ten minutes or unlikable wrestlers who are there because it was assumed they’d bring fans from the competition (Mr. Aaannndddeerrrrsssooonn I’m looking at you.) This is what kills companies. PPV’s are sold for the most part on the strength of the main event, and for ages nothing has been worth looking into, no Kurt Angle, or Samoa Joe, not even Rob Van Dam at the top. Not to mention the slapdash feuds assembled and ended all in the space of a few weeks, they don’t build towards anything and when they do, like in the Sting/Hogan story, it’s all based on flimsy logic and a screw job ending is surely going to happen. This all said, it’s not as bad as you are led to believe, there are some bright spots, some great promos, and decent matches on the undercard. You can’t compare it to the WWE, it’s never going to be as big, it can be enjoyed as just an odd wrestling company continually attempting to find its voice and continually realizing it has laryngitis and should just shut up and wrestle.