Well it’s been a while but The Piledriver Point is back on wrestling-edge.com If there’s a point I want to make I won’t be afraid to make it and this week I’m takin a look at TNA.
When I was a kid growing up in the UK at a time when professional wrestling was far more successful than it is in the current day, my main fix of wrestling was three bouts shown just after 4pm. I used to see more action in the first two rounds of match one than I saw in the first hour of TNA Impact last night and that’s where TNA need to be making changes.
It’s obviously an important time for the company with the arrival of Hulk Hogan and more changes planned for the future. However in the UK Impact is being shown for the first time on the Virgin 1 channel. This means a lot more people are able to see the show than before over the next month with Virgin hoping that’ll cause fans to get hooked and sign up for Bravo which is the channel it’s usually shown on. The first two weeks of the show can’t really have impressed new viewers.
In all this weeks show has about 24 minutes of wrestling in a two hour show. That’s totally crazy when you consider the roster that they have. Get the wrestlers in the ring to forward storylines and start persuading fans to buy the next PPV not an endless series of backstage sketches.
TNA need to make the most of the assets they already have if they are going to be able to move up to the next level. That level isn’t one in which they can seriously challenge WWE but one where PPV buy rates become reasonable and the weekly shows start pushing 2.0 With the current booking team and writers I just can’t see that happening on a consistent basis.
Let’s take a look at the champions that will have been introduced to new British viewers in the past two weeks the show has been on Virgin 1. AJ Styles has spent more time being attacked backstage or talking about being attacked backstage. He did in the end manage to get in the ring for a match with Daniels this week but why the hell wasn’t it the main event? Why did TNA feel that giving Styles a clean win over Daniels would forward the storyline when all they’ve done is prove that Styles has got his number. The presence of Samoa Joe now seems more important in the three-way for the title at ‘Turning Point’ because Daniels has been shown to be totally beatable.
For some reason TNA want to have two tag champions in the company at the moment with The British Invasion holding the TNA World Tag Team Titles and Team 3D having the Japanese IWGP belts. So what do they do with The British Invasion? They suspend them so all we see of Brutus Magnus (such a typical English name) and Doug Williams is run-ins to help the rest of the World Elite. Great isn’t it? More UK fans get to see the product and the British champs haven’t even been seen having a match.
Team 3D meanwhile is virtually Brother Ray on his own while Brother Dvon wrestles with an injured knee. Their storyline with Rhino is just baffling and why the heck was their match against Morgan and Homicide the main event anyway? Will this storyline which hasn’t even resulted in a match being determined for the PPV that’s a week away be the one that gets people signing up for the show, course not.
X-Division Champion, Amazing Red hasn’t exactly been wearing himself out in the ring these past couple of weeks either aside from a run-in after Hernandez had his match this week. Utilise your assets TNA.
The Knockouts division almost proves the exception to the rule. Champion ODB hasn’t had a singles match these past couple of weeks though and we haven’t seen Sarita and Taylor Wilde together in a match either. The Knockout matches we have seen recently have been significant though. After a bit of a dodgy period the division is providing the show with some good matches from the likes of Tara, Hamada and Alyssa Flash but again Kong is just being used as the monster who comes to the ring after a match rather than getting in there for an actual bout and really doing some damage.
Would WWE allow their champions to just be used for run-ins and interviews rather than appearing in main event matches that draw in the fans week after week? Of course they don’t and that’s another reason why their PPV figures are miles higher than TNA achieve.
Why did TNA feel they had to show that report about the Knockouts modelling shoot and the Bound For Glory recap in successive weeks? That took up about eight minutes which in TNA terms is around two matches, nearly three to be honest.
If TNA want to be like this, then why not sit down and think to themselves, why don’t we take the two hour show and split it into an hour long show with Total Nonstop Action and have the rest of the show used up as a chance to plug videos and have interviews. We need to see wrestlers wrestling that’s the name of the game after all.
Another problem of course is Hogan himself.. It’s no point making the big announcement one week and then there’s barely any sign of him the next. Surely there could have been some interview with him regardless of how little actual information of what he’s going to do in the company is revealed. Again TNA, use the most important assets.
TNA does have the chance to move onwards and upwards but not the way their product is at present. If they were to suddenly get RVD, Kennedy and Umaga in then let’s see them wrestle not chat about what they can do.
Well that’s all for this week, I’ll be back next weekend to tell you just why titles in WWE are worthless. If you’ve got any views on what I’ve written this week just email me at [email protected]
