Wrestling Reality: Issues with reality in wrestling

If you’re a wrestling fan with more than half a brain cell you’ll have realised how every show/angle/storyline and pretty much everything you see on TV is scripted in one way or another. Everything and I mean everything is planned, from lighting to the timing of impromptu run-ins or post match beat downs, to the winners/losers, even to the placement of commercials or advertisements on the show. This blog will go into detail about the concept of reality in professional wrestling and how it can shape the entire ideology of the business. I’ll be looking at how reality is used in wrestling for both good and bad measure, how reality can make the product better or worse, and my own viewpoint of how the industries perception of reality is blown out of proportion, creating a negative in the world of wrestling.

Wrestling promotions try to incorporate reality to their shows to simply improve their product. In short, wrestling like most other entity on television is trying to capitalise on the rise of reality television, which garners widespread attention, especially in western countries which ‘US’ style wrestling is the norm. How do promotions add reality to sports entertainment? Some federations, mostly independent and maybe even the big two I usually talk about try to make their product fan interactive, by that I mean the fans of that product get up close and personal to create a sense that you are part of this wrestling reality. For example, last year (2010) I attended a TNA live show in Wembley Arena, and after the event, Kurt Angle told the crowd that this was his home, and the fans in TNA are his family. Brother Ray (Now Bully Ray) then said “This is a million times better than any of that WWE crap”. TNA for example is a company which is trying to take over the wrestling universe, so the perception of reality comes from the wrestlers who ‘sell’ a perception of reality, and for many TNA fans, the need to be bigger than the WWE is a real issue which many people care about (Some people just don’t like WWE though).

Promotions are also involved with the wider community and a part of the culture for thousands, so people get suckered in, but these promotions, the WWE in particular gets its sense of reality from what it does for communities. WWE are heavily involved with the ‘Make a Wish Foundation’, which gives sick, injured or disabled children a chance to meet their favourite superstars, John Cena for example recently made his 200^th wish, a landmark for the WWE. Also recently in the 2010 Senate Race, Linda McMahon ran for congress (As a Republican). Linda quit her position in the WWE and moved completely away from wrestling to focus on the Senate run, but her running opponent Blumenthal (Democrat) started to accuse Linda of not being fit to run for Senate because of her work in the WWE. As real pressure started to mount for the WWE, Vince and his employees started the “Stand Up for WWE” campaign, which was launched in the companies defence, to show they are a positive, community based company, basically battling the claims of Blumenthal. In the WWE they highlighted the work they have done to providing millions with entertainment, charity work, guest appearances, and general ‘stuff’ the WWE have done to better people in the real world. Linda lost. Linda lost by a lot. But that’s just the problem, who really knows what is really in wrestling? When someone gets injured for real, do people think it is part of the show and do they really care because fans have seen it all before?

The biggest problem for me is the nostalgia effect the internet has on wrestling. Outside the ring many fans know everything about certain wrestlers, but everyone’s lives are broadcast on endless forum/spoiler/news sites. We as wrestling fans no longer just watch the show, but it’s only natural that if you are interested in a particular wrestler, then of course as many other people do, you’ll want to find out more. But this takes away from the smoke and mirrors, the whole nostalgia effect wrestling is supposed to have on its audience. A good example is Matt Morgan, everyone who follows TNA knows he is a well-rounded, kind and general good person, but when cast in a heel role (A bad guy for n00bs) it’s just not believable. John Cena is also a good example, despite many people desperate to see him turn heel, it just isn’t realistic. That’s one problem with reality then: You are limited with what you can do with your superstars unless everything about their social and personal lives are secret and unknown.

Another issue with reality are the champions of a promotion. Currently on WWE RAW, a show with The Big Show, John ‘Superman’ Cena, Randy Orton, Mark Henry, Vladimir Koslov, The Nexus and a host of believable champions, why is The Miz of all people champion? Three months prior to his WWE Championship victory (Over Randy Orton on RAW, when he cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase) the so called awesome one was jobbing relentlessly to Daniel Bryan, now the United States champion week in, week out. For a large chunk of his career The Miz has been made to look bad, so almost out of nowhere Miz is able to not only win a MITB match featuring the biggest stars of RAW, but able to beat Randy Orton, a man bigger in size, power, stature and star quality. What’s even worse is despite all this, Miz hasn’t been a bad champion, in fact he has been rather the opposite, also despite the fact he is not the most hated character on the show. He still doesn’t get as much heat as The Nexus, or big name heels such as Kane or Chris Jericho. It makes the champions appear unbelievable. It’s just not the WWE though, after Ring of Honour (ROH) lost its top star and ROH Champion Tyler Black, Roderick Strong stepped up and took the title off him at the next PPV, making Strong appear only as a makeshift, second rate champion due to Black leaving for the WWE. TNA aren’t no saints either, they had owner Jeff Jarrett win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship six times within five years, unrealistic because Jeff was one of the bookers and controlled his own fate, thus the reality of Jarrett as a proper world champion in TNA nothing more than make belief. With champions the numbers just don’t add up. Just put yourself in a real life situation, would Jeff Hardy or Ken Anderson really be able to beat and pin Matt Morgan? No chance, no chance in hell.

Talking about size, another In Ring Issue concerned with reality is the actual size of wrestlers. In a wrestling world where weight (Apart from cruiserweights and the TNA X-Division) doesn’t matter, fans know that the big, muscle jacked superstars should be on top. Stars such as Kane, Ezekiel Jackson, Matt Morgan, Hernandez, The Undertaker, Triple H, Wade Barrett, Abyss, Mark Henry and others should dominate, but rather we have the opposite where ‘normal’ sized superstars such as Edge, The Miz, Rey Mysterio, John Cena, CM Punk, Jeff Hardy, Mr. Anderson, Kurt Angle and AJ Styles among others are the constant champions, and focus of shows. It makes sense from a perspective of the wrestling fan. Who wants to see the same slow, oversized wrestlers face off again and again for the titles knowing all inevitable outcomes before the match has begun? Wrestling is past the days of having huge, oversized gimmicked characters such as Hulk Hogan do this, but it is still not realistic. Wrestling may have evolved, but in a world where wrestling fans now don’t know the difference between Kayfabe and real information. An incident like this took place on WWE.com, when Daniel Bryan was fired and released on the website because of the tie incident on RAW when he choked Justin Roberts with his own tie, something not worthy of TV PG apparently. The lines of reality and scripted television are crossed so much no one knew what the truth was.

We embrace it, we love it, we watch it, we adore it, we want to be part of it, we want to advance it, we believe in it, we buy into it, wrestling for most of us is the perfect get away from ‘real’ life expectations and reality, a chance to watch something completely different and unique, we don’t watch because of reality, we watch for everything larger than life, and yes despite their version of reality being blown out of proportion, I’d have it no other way.

Robert Austin

“In Ring Issues”

Was Suicide the last good X-Division Champion?

“The Dark Saviour” Suicide debuted at the 2009 TNA Pay-Per-View ‘Final Resolution’. The red and blue masked superstar primarily portrayed by Frankie Kazarian came gliding down from the darkness to take out both members of the Motor City Machineguns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin). For the next month Suicide made saves for baby-face wrestlers suffering beat-downs, and in turn became one of the most intriguing characters in wrestling. At the time speculation of Suicide’s identity was rife throughout the internet and fans watching at home, and this blog will tackle the question of why in my view Suicide was the last good TNA X-Division, a title that TNA once hugely valued.

For a title win to be classed as good, you must have the story behind the title win, and that’s exactly what Suicide had. Previous to his debut as Suicide, Frankie Kazarian left TNA in a storyline where his career had become too much, ‘Suicidal’ if you will, and with Frankie feeling despondent towards his position in TNA the character being portrayed by Kaz makes sense and you can understand the storyline behind it. The character itself was supposed to be the fastest, toughest most feared wrestler in the X-Division, and TNA done just that. On his Impact debut Suicide tried his finishing move the D.O.A on Chris Sabin, but completely botched the entire thing, injuring Kaz in the process. Suicide then went missing in action for the next two months and missed the two first PPV’s of 2009 (Genesis & Against All Odds), but like TNA, the PPV’s weren’t anything special. Upon his return to TNA Suicide had changed, literally.

Knowing TNA had to move the Suicide story along, they got Christopher Daniels (Recently released as Curry Man) to fill in for Kazarian as the mysterious superstar, many people questioned the decision to replace the injured Kazarian with Daniels, notably because you could tell the costume was too big for Daniels, making his features almost apparent to the crowd and audience alike. Daniels however done a fantastic job as Suicide, in fact he made the character even more popular, with the crowd in Orlando, Florida chanting “Fallen Angel” every time Suicide was in the house. Suicide eventually made his debut at the biggest built X-Division PPV in March, Destination X. It was the biggest draw for the PPV, but it goes without question, most TNA fans knew Suicide was going to win his debut match, which was in the Ultimate X, for the X-Division Championship held by Alex Shelley. In the build up to Destination X, TNA booked Suicide as the John Cena equivalent of the WWE; undefeatable. The two weeks prior to the PPV, Suicide annihilated everything in his way, and made it clear to the entire world where his priorities lay. For the first time in a long time, TNA had a long backlog story behind a superstar winning a championship belt.

The event, Destination X was nothing special up until the Ultimate X, and the question people had on their minds before the event was whether it would be Kaz or Daniels under the mask, and that added another dimension to the gimmick. You never quite knew who would be under the mask until they got into the ring. As the lookalike of Mario and Spiderman came diving into the ring from the skies, many knew it was Daniels under the ring, but it didn’t stop Daniels having one hell of a match as Suicide, being made to look strong the entire match by having all other four competitors go for Suicide from the off. Eventually one of the moments of the year took place, with Suicide angled up high up on the steel structure, before jumping across the ring in identical fashion to a leap Daniels had done in a previous Ultimate X match, but none the less it sent the fans into a frenzy as Suicide ended the hopes of Chris Sabin, Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed and unhooked the X-Division Championship from the X. It was one of them “OMG” moments, even though you could have predicted it. It was great to watch, needless to say, it’s just a shame that the Kurt Angle v. Sting main event which featured didn’t continue the buzz of Suicide winning the title.

The night made a lot of fans realise that TNA did care about the X-Division Championship. TNA had a healthy amount of X-Division wrestlers, and they had a character which personified what the X-Division is all about as their champion. Suicide continued to be the prime focus of TNA television, and squashed the likes of Sheik Abdul Bashir and Kiyoshi (A man who later took up the roll as Suicide). TNA managed to keep up the momentum of Suicide as X Champ by Lockdown where he once again defended his X-Division Championship against Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Bashir & Kiyoshi in an Xscape match, where Suicide made another big PPV as he dived off the top of the cage onto a security team and Kiyoshi, another “OMG” moment made. Being made to look strong each and every week, Suicide was on a roll, and watching at home Kaz must have been kicking himself. The whole purpose of Suicide coming to TNA was to have Kaz retain the X-Division Championship and once again be whole again, so to have Daniels win and defend the belt sort of defied purpose, but only for a while.

The following week on iMPACT Sabin, Shelley, Lethal and Creed came out and accused Daniels of being the Suicide character. Daniels (who recently returned as himself and done double duty at Lockdown as himself and Suicide) came out and stated he had no times for masks or repelling and that got people talking, was Kaz about to return? On May 14^th 2009 the four who accused Daniels of being Suicide came out and looked to remove the mask of the X-Division Champion, to finally unmask Suicide, but as they got Suicide cornered and even showed some skin to Suicide, Daniels ran down and made the save for Suicide. Daniels and Suicide shook hands, and Daniels said “you owe me one”, that meaning a shot at the X-Division title. That match took place at the next PPV Sacrifice; a match Suicide and Daniels drew due to a time limit draw, meaning Suicide retained.

What made Suicide the last great X Champ was TNA’s persistence to not have him lose matches. As Champion he just never lost, he was made to look stronger and stronger, and is happened once again at TNA Slammiversary 2009, where Suicide once again retained his title against Lethal, Creed, Shelley and Sabin, the only difference with this match was it was a King of the Mountain match, and Suicide truly had his back against the wall to defend the title, with all four of the men ONLY targeting Suicide. In the end, Suicide once again retained, and after four months as X-Division Champion the ‘Dark Saviour’ was still one of the biggest draws, well that was until they had him drop the belt on July 16^th to Homicide, but only after he had a match, took a post-match beating, and then had am X-Division title shot briefcase used against him. Overall they had the run with Suicide as one of the standout runs as X-Division Champion, and for me I think TNA ended his run prematurely, but TNA creative must have had other ideas.

Instead Homicide was made to look weak, and dropped the title to Samoa Joe after only a month as champion at the Hard Justice PPV. The following month at No Surrender, TNA tried to bring back life of the ‘old’ X-Division by having two X-Division heavyweights in Joe and Daniels try to recreate history, and despite the match being a standout, it was nothing compared to the bouts of Joe/Daniels/AJ. After Joe retained, he was made to look weak as he lost the title to Amazing Red in a shocking match on iMPACT. What made Samoa Joe a bad champion was the fact he had little care for the belt, and was rather focused on his rivalry with Daniels and others, and plus Joe was going through his stage as the ‘Nation of Violence’, something he valued more than the X-Division title. In addition, Joe winning the belt was only down to his involvement in the Main Event Mafia, who held all the TNA belts. When Amazing Red became champion, unlike Suicide was made to look weak. The following week after winning the belt they squashed Red against Scott Steiner of all people, making the entire X-Division, the belt and Red weak, and when I mean squashed, I mean SQUASHED!!

Red and the X-Division put on a great match for the X-Title at Bound for Glory; Red defeated Suicide, Shelley, Sabin, Homicide and Daniels to retain the belt. A little class was put back into the X belt, but you couldn’t help but feel the match was only a filler match, having no build up on TV what so ever. Red continued his run as X-Division champion by defeating Homicide at Turning Point 2009, but despite Red going over, it just wasn’t the same. It seemed they rushed Red into being champion, and then from having a long lasting storyline with Suicide, they had nothing for Red or anyone following with the X title. Red then lost the belt to Doug Williams on an episode of iMPACT, as Williams cashed in Rob Terry’s X-Division title ‘feast or fired’ briefcase, and then went on a crusade to diminish everything the X-Division was all about. Williams demised the entire division as champion, and beat pretty much all of the X wrestlers as champion with boring, monotone matches, and at one stage even made Generation Me (Max & Jeremy Buck) look like absolute fools. Williams made his stamp on the X-Division, but it was the wrong stamp. Suddenly from having an exciting, vibrant X champion, we now had boring matches, with a wrestler who in many eyes did not belong. However, Doug’s run as champion was entertaining, and at least they actually gave the X-Division some air time on television, and in particular to a returning Kazarian, who ditched the Suicide mask in order to return as Kazarian.

Doug’s tiresome, boring reign as champion ended at Lockdown 2010, when the champ was unable to attend the PPV due to the volcanic ash cloud in Iceland. With the Englishman out of the picture, Kaz defeated Homicide and Shannon Moore to win the belt, but the only thing was he never had the belt, he never once held it, as Doug refused to give Kaz the belt back until they had a rematch. In the rematch at Sacrifice, Kazarian lost the match and the title to Doug once more, without holding the belt. It was gripping, but it was hard even calling Kaz champ at the time, well simply because we all knew he was a filler until Doug could win the belt back. Then out of the blue Jay Lethal won the belt on iMPACT in one of the lowest key matches of the year. Lethal won  the belt without anything built up, on the back end of nothing, and what makes it worse was the majority of Lethal’s feud with Doug was aired on Xplosion, TNA’s international show which not many people watch). There was suddenly no substance to the champion, and then to confuse everybody further, at a house show in New York (Red’s home town) Amazing Red once again won the belt, but then the following night in New Jersey (Lethal’s home town) Lethal won the belt back again. It was ridiculous, and the only recognition TNA announce Mike Tenay gave was “Well the X-Division truly is unpredictable” shows how unpredictable and low TNA think of the belt, thus lowering the view of the champ.

Lethal then lost the belt to Robbie E. I’m not even going to talk about Robbie, not only is he not an X-Division wrestler, the whole thing he has going on is a joke. Anyway, skipping Robbie, he dropped the belt to Lethal on another episode of iMPACT, making the X-Division title little more than a hand me around to any given wrestler. At least Shark Boy returned, and hopefully makes a worthwhile return to TNA. At Genesis 2011 Kazarian retained the X-Division title against Lethal, in part of the ‘Immortal’ storyline, where the group want all the title belts. It’s another case of Joe with the belt, but my only hopes are TNA realises sooner rather than later that typically the best part about viewing TNA television is mainly due to the Women and X-Division wrestlers, they are the innovation that TNA needs to keep a hold and help flourish, and here’s hoping that a revival of the title can take place sooner rather than later before the likes of Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff get the chance to throw another title in the garbage can, live on national television and kill off the X-Division forever. Maybe there was a reason Kazarian returned as himself, maybe he is the true ‘Dark Saviour’ of the X-Division, and now as champion we all might be at the beginning of another great run with Frankie ‘Suicide’ as X-Division Champion, maybe for the only way to return to X-Division to its once high graces was to ditch the mask and start things fresh, here’s hoping for a better 2011 for the entire division, before it’s too late, before the X-Division is little more than ‘Suicide’.

Robert Austin

“In Ring Issues”

TNA in 2010: Where it all went wrong

TNA iMPACT airs each and every Thursday evening. TNA once said that they were going to innovate and change the wrestling industry; TNA once said they were going to challenge the WWE as the number one wrestling company in the world, period! Those of you who are avid TNA fans will feel the pain of watching the product now; comparing it to what it was in 2009, let alone 2005. 2010 for TNA in mine and many others opinions has been horrific, suicidal even, because for me TNA took away the principle they once stood by, and instead of becoming the number one, they have well and truly established themselves as the number two turd punchbowl in the US. What TNA once believed in, they have now thrown to the side, and what Hulk Hogan done literally, threw everything TNA was about right into the garbage can, and yes right on prime time television. TNA once believed that young, aspiring stars such as AJ Styles and Samoa Joe could lead the Thursday night brand into the number one wrestling show ever, but for some reason the fat cats up stairs must have got greedy, and that greed must have somehow blocked their original version of TNA, limited their writing ability and somehow mustered up a feeling that the only way the big bucks were ever going into the Carter-Salinas family was if TNA had the big names: Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy, Mr. Anderson and Rob Van Dam, but for me, they were wrong.

TNA once relied on young stars of the X-Division and the Women’s Division to draw viewers to the product, but unfortunately for TNA despite making leaps and bounds with their younger stars, each year a few more WWE castoffs join the federation and in most cases these stars who jumped ship have all taken away from what TNA was; Fast, furious and indulging adult entertainment, such entertainment that was based around deadly Women competitors and high octane, no limits X-Division wrestlers. The shows were cramped with good wrestling matches, even from older veterans such as Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and Sting, but as each big name joined, a little bit of that fire that TNA had is somehow lost in backstage politics and mediocre matches with once good/great wrestlers. For me this is down to the leverage new, so called bigger stars have on management and the writing teams in particular. For a start a new star has to be written into storyline and take somewhat of a centre stage on TV, thus taking away limelight from stars that have been at the TNA for a long time, stars TNA fans wanted to watch. Secondly, what new TNA signing has improved the TNA product, with the exceptions of Sting and Kurt Angle? Many stars such as Rob Van Dam have just tailgated and leached off the past success of TNA without fitting into the mould of the product, all in the name of a pay-check and a cheap title belt reign, one which devalues the efforts of past stars.

Ok, think of it this way. You and your team of workers (For the example the X-Division) have been busting your asses since 2002 to make a business successful. One board director who has more power than you knows and acknowledges that you have done a fantastic job at whatever you may be doing, then within the space of one year these directors come in and piss on your success by employing a bunch of workers who have been out of your profession for years, even decades in some cases, and you know these new workers who are undoing your hard work are being paid twice as much as you to do a worse job. What would you think, that after years of hard work and success you were being replaced by a bunch of old, failed men and told that your division is breaking up slowly so the new directors can employ even more expensive members of staff, all whom add absolutely nothing. The worst thing is, your original team knows they are ten times the worker than the new ones, but because now the company is over-un by these old castoffs, you now have no say so in the day to day running of your company and you just know the only way from here is down. Well this is the case TNA is a business in this sense, and for me, a loyal consumer of their product and merchandise I like many others have been dissatisfied by the quality of service TNA has to offer, but as a fan I’m being told the direction the brand is going in is the right one by management, and that what their now offering is much more appealing is more than a lie than telling me that at nineteen Santa is real, especially to those trusted stars who actually made TNA watchable.

The reason 2010 was so bad for TNA is because of what I’ve just said. Since Hogan and Bischoff have ransacked every aspect of TNA they have released more of the stars many TNA viewers liked, and brought in many wrestlers and superstars that couldn’t quite cut it in the big leagues of WWE or WCW. In this view TNA have hired stars that cannot and have not delivered at the top before, and these guys such as Anderson and Hardy are supposed to be the future of the product? Rubbish. Since arriving in TNA Jeff Hardy has not cut one good promo, been in one good angle, or had one good match, and despite being a mastermind on the microphone, Anderson has not fully delivered, the same goes for RVD who undeservingly won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, and now that he doesn’t have it, he is going around saying he deserves it back? It’s all rubbish, and as far as storyline goes, nothing in TNA has been standout or spectacular, it’s just recycled rubbish from the 1990’s, and in particular old WCW storylines (Which by the way god awful, a reason WCW isn’t standing still  today).

What has 2010 done for the TNA fans? Well for younger fans and families it doesn’t make much of a difference, families will still go to live events and children and young adults might not be as perceptive as an older fan, but for a slightly educated fan, regular viewer, Smarks, or mark it has been a year of rebellion against TNA. Fans who go beyond the TV shows are the ones who will define TNA’s product because they are the ones who will get online and question why on earth TNA would book a show the way it does. It is a way of venting our frustrations at the bad change in direction, and in the media they are more likely to pick up on the negative stories against wrestling promotions. Rebellious fans, unlike young, and sometimes naïve fans have the option of tuning out of the product and just watching something else, or doing something else more productive because we can see how stupid some things are. Older fans who like wrestling are also likely to go to a house show or know how to get a hold of merchandise, so it is also a potential money loss for TNA. Also fans online can also dent the credibility of TNA and expose even further the faults of the product by writing blogs, posting YouTube videos (Botchmania is a great example) and directly complaining to the promotion.

Rebellion has been evident with TNA, right from the beginning of 2010 with TNA fans chanting “We Want Six Sides” at TNA’s first PPV of the year; Genesis. After lots of speculation The Bischoff/Hogan regime got rid of the traditional TNA six sided ring, in favour of the typically traditional four sided ring, used in the WWE. As months went on the X-Division became nothing, and after promising an all X-Division PPV, we actually got “The Monster” Abyss headlining the PPV. After years of great work, TNA fired ODB and other women from the division and slowly started to dissolve the X-Division such as Daniels, paid less attention to AJ Styles and Samoa Joe, and just like WCW, TNA relied on one ‘huge’ story to focus the company on. Well here it is; “Immortal”. For me, Bound for Glory on 10/10/10 was the beginning of the end of TNA television for at least another year. It’s like in F1 (2009) with the race fixing allegations, it’s taken well over a year to get over such events and for me so will this. Just one year ago TNA had the Main Event Mafia, but now they have an even more boring, predictable group who promise failure and another year of backwards wrestling, much to the disgust of fans who loved the “Old TNA days”. That is just it. Fans are now starting to say “Old TNA”, even though the company is only nine years old, how does that make sense? Now more than ever people reference TNA as a financial security for stars who leave the WWE, and are making more and more comparison, but why not? TNA has followed the same route as WCW, and many attitude era fans know how that turned out. The only thing is, all you need to do to beat TNA is slightly nudge Hulk Hogan, and he’ll be back in hospital for back surgery, so there is no way they’d ever stand a chance of catapulting the WWE as the number one wrestling organisation. Then again, if you’re a WWE wrestler such as Matt Hardy and you know you have a safety net in TNA and you hate the WWE product and know there might be a world title for you in TNA, then why wouldn’t these mid-carders go for it?

For a long time TNA was a safe haven, and offered genuine change to an audience who were finally getting something new to watch, but my main fear now is that TNA is alienating the wrestling audience further, and keeping the industry back from having another revolution. What many fans like me don’t understand is that if TNA continued to adore the Women and X-Division they would have revolutionised the business like they promised, with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe stealing the show, but now they are forced to warm the seat for Hogan and his band of old, failed men. They never needed Hogan or anybody to secure a TV contract, they didn’t need older more established stars to get a videogame contract with Midway, they just needed to trust their younger stars, and the stars who were determine to get TNA to the top to begin with. Now what do TNA have? The same size audience, god awful Pay-Per-View outings, pissed off internet fans and a dwindling TV show that even hardcore fans don’t want to watch.

It’s not all doom and gloom though for TNA. Change is always taking place in TNA; many loyal Thursday night followers will be hoping that change will come back once and with a simple clear-out of stars we never really wanted. TNA might finally get it right, but if you’re like me, and you write or think too negatively about the business as a whole (despite loving it), especially when you know that with the current set up in TNA it is unlikely anything will change in the near or distant future, then we can only hope that when the likes of Hogan/Bischoff/Flair/RVD/Hardy and others who have ruined everything TNA is about leave, then there will still be a TNA, but hey if it happened once, it can happen again. Here’s hoping that when I scratch away at the infamous TNA logo, the purple letters of “WCW” aren’t hidden behind, waiting to bury another wrestling promotion.

Robert Austin

“In Ring Issues”