The Newest and Improved TNA

TNA is in a state of change. Again. For more times than we have been able to count, TNA has been in a state of change. I've never quite been sure what they have been trying to change into, like what is their ultimate goal, but TNA has always had the potential to just be a great alternative wrestling show. I have always felt that 2011 was the best year for TNA. Their roster was the best at the time, their wrestling was incredible (and to be fair still can be), and they had a decent story going on with Sting versus Immortal. Even 2012 wasn't bad with Jeff Hardy, Austin Aries, and Bobby Roode really holding things down. 2013 was a complete disaster! I've never seen a company take such a huge dip in quality and lose a good chunk of their roster. It seems like anyone who had a good idea was fired and we were left with not even the B team, but the F team making all of the decisions. They ruined AJ Styles but managed to turn Bully Ray into one of the greatest singles stars in their company but totally ruined what could have been an amazing stable in the Aces & Eights. If at all possible, we just need to forget 2013 as quickly as possible!

Well now 2014 didn't have the best start with AJ Styles gone and Sting's contract up, but in the last month TNA has been quickly picking up. So lets get the negative out of the way. TNA is losing money and we all know it. Their Pay Per View model, in my opinion, is a complete mess. I can't imagine they are gaining any money with their taped specialty Pay Per View episodes that don't tie into the story lines at all, even though it gives us interesting show options. So I watched the #OldSchool PPV and that was a show with some great matches, but the production was terrible! TNA really needs to invest in a production manager because a better looking show could go a long way, and this is one of their biggest flaws right now. When they had the Impact Zone everything had a nice look to it. I look back at those episodes and like what I see, but episodes recently just look like the were barfed out by a sick camera. Fix the look of your show!

So contracts are going to expire. It's bound to happen. Sting, AJ, and Kurt Angle are probably the three biggest names in the company and two are gone, and with Angle's contract ending this year the chances are they aren't going to be able to afford to renew. So Angle will be gone later this year but TNA doesn't need to rely on these talents to survive. Their recent strategy of signing younger and cheaper talent is actually working out pretty well. The roster is full of young wrestlers that are amazing like Zema Ion, and Kenny King (who has been absent for a while and hopefully not let go) but Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards were great gets for  the company. Ring of Honor is a company full of eager talent and if TNA winds up with any of them on their own roster it can only be a good thing. My only fear is that we may lose Christopher Daniels and Kazarian when their contracts are up. Hopefully TNA can bring in more money before then. Tommy Dreamer is also back in the company to an unknown extent which seems to mostly be in the back stage but having Dreamer involved in any way is always a good thing. The cross promotion with his House of Hardcore was genius and TNA is actually doing really good promotional crossover work this year and that can only be good for business. If promotions could work together more often then the wrestling business could become something special.

Now let me just say that I believe in MVP. This Dixieland story angle was killing TNA and fast. I was happy to see Magnus improve as much as he has and become a world champion, but Dixie being an onscreen villain was a horrible idea. That is until MVP and The Wolves stepped in. The Wolves are amazing wrestlers and MVP was always under appreciated in WWE and having these three work together has been a highly entertaining angle and they couldn't have chosen a better time to introduce it. With TNA over in Manchester, where TNA is loved pretty highly, they are getting great tapings with high energy crowds that love wrestling and it makes their show look that much better. I wouldn't mind if they taped over in the UK for an entire year just to make their show look that much better by performing for crowds that love them. Bored US crowds can do a lot to ruin a show and that's why they need to find the perfect Impact Zone and just stick there for a while to save some money and make their show look good.

So word is that there has been a lot of bonding between the TNA roster on their UK tour due to Samoa Joe giving a pretty heartfelt speech. Good! This is a roster that is extremely talented but for a long time it has felt like everyone has their own agenda. Now that they are on the same page it has really shown through on the show and everyone has kicked it into high gear. I can only hope that they can keep this momentum going. Samoa Joe is now one of the top tier veterans of the company next to guys like Christopher Daniels and word is that Joe and MVP are kind of leading a charge in the locker room and it certainly seems to be working. The last couple episodes of Impact have been legitimately great and if TNA can keep their act on track then they could get back to the success that they once had.

So what do you think about TNA's current status? I really don't care to hear the "TNA is terrible" angle because it's not the WWE. TNA is an alternative not a replacement. Either you love all wrestling or you love WWE. We all know that. As always you can find me on Twitter @advent_crash.

Let's Talk TNA

Total Nonstop Action. Impact Wrestling. TNA. It goes by many names, that are all mostly the same, and is Spike TV's own wrasslin show. Now TNA is a company that has had its ups and downs throughout the years and brings in a variety of opinions, most of which tend to be negative. Now here's a little more history with me and wrestling. I watched as a kid growing up in the 90s. I saw WWF when I was younger but wasn't as into wrestling back then. It wasn't until WCW hooked me that I became a wrestling fan. The NWO and their feud with WCW was the best thing happening on television for me at the time and superstars like Sting, DDP, Macho Man, and Kevin Nash stood out to me. Sorry I was never the biggest Hogan fan. While I was hooked into WCW and playing wrestling games with my friends and wrestling in backyards and on trampolines I did eventually fall out. I watched the attitude era but remained faithful to WCW but after the bankruptcy and buy out of WCW it wast long before I just left wrestling behind all together.

Cut to eleven years later. All of my current knowledge of wrestling comes from the video games, that I still played from time to time, and then I hear about this TNA company. I don't hear much but I hear Sting and Kurt Angle are there as well as some of my other favorites (and some WCW alum) and I say what the hell, let's see what all of this is about. So like most great wrestling stories it was the right place and right time for me. I jumped in the same night in 2011 when Sting came back and beat Jeff Hardy for the title. It was serendipitous. Two of my favorite wrestlers with my old school favorite winning the title on my first time watching in eleven years?! I was immediately hooked back in. So yeah, I have a love for TNA. I've caught up on their history I own an extensive TNA DVD collection and I watch almost every week, as often as I watch the WWE. Its wrestling and I love wrestling. I see that TNA gets a lot of hate, and I can see where some people are coming from but I just don't understand.

TNA is by no means a perfect product, though. Especially not at the moment as their financial word is well known to the Internet wrestling community. But for as imperfect as TNA is, Ring of Honor and WWE have some of the same problems. The WWE feels almost creatively dead at this point. They feel a little to nose in the air, and I understand that they became a billion dollar company this way, but sometimes listening to the fans isn't  the worst idea.TNA and WWE are both sitting on some amazing talent and waisting amazing story opportunities that are just flying by right under their noses. And this brings me back to TNA; the talent. TNA, or Impact Wrestling (TNAIW?) has one of the most talented rosters that is seriously misused. They have some of the most skilled wrestlers on their roster and honestly in my opinion a lot if the times the wrestling is muh better than most of the other companies. The roster has been thinned down quite a but in the last year and somehow they still can't fit everyone onto television every week. They introduced the Gut Check, which I actually felt like as a decent way to expand the roster, but then they never used these guys! Christian York was the most promising prospect to come out of Gut Check, he put on some great matches, and then he was one of the first to leave when the cuts started! Yet they keep Jay Bradley who turns in a horrible match even when he's not wrestling in it! Sorry, I have a lot of hate Jay Bradley.

When I started watching TNA I had no reference to what the modern WWE product and only started back in when RAW went to three hours. Now I have my favorite performers on both shows but at this point I have no preferred brand of show to watch. For me its all about the superstars that I want to watch. So I know a lot of people don't like TNA but I don't understand the true wrestling fans that want to bash TNA for not being as successful as the WWE. If the matches are good who cares what the show's production is like? If you are a true wrestling fan then just watch everything! I watch WWE, Ring of Honor, and TNA. I love wrestling and I have my favorite stars to watch, I don't care where they wrestle. FCW, PWG, HOH, CZW, and any other abbreviated company you can name. While TNA isn't the best in its current state (though I would argue 2011 was an amazing year for them) I would never want to see them go away. One problem is people's perception. TNA is not here to try and take down the WWE. These are two companies that need to live in unison. We don't need competition, we just need an alternative. Even from just a wrestling standpoint TNA is a very different type of beast. WWE obviously has a bigger focus on large body superstars and the smaller guys have to do a lot to stand out. TNA offers a variety of performers with different abilities, which for me is an amazing draw. There are so many great wrestlers in TNA that would have no trouble getting overin the   WWE, like Christipher Daniels for instance, and I know plenty of WWE watchers that have never even heard of them and that's just a shame for me.

TNA has some spotty writing but they have also had some of my favorite stories. Wrestling is repetitive in its story telling, and always has been with every company. While I'm currently watching more WWE lately, I'm really hoping TNA can build up some money and ratings (which have been steadily increasing recently) and really improve enough to stick around. Recently some of their biggest stars have been forced out or left due to contract and money issues and its a real bummer. Especially to see one of the most prestigious, AJ Styles, to have to leave but I can only hope they can calm things down enough to continue and maybe bring in some new and younger talent that we haven't seen before. I compare TNA to a modern day WCW but they have already lasted longer than WCW proper ever did. As much as I love WWE I want TNA to stick around and really give me the options when I need them. I would agree its time to get Dixie Carter out of there and bring someone in who knows the business a little better. I keep my fingers crossed for TNA and everyone who works there that they will be able to find their footing and keep providing us with some quality wrestling!

So just for fun, what would I do to change things? First of all, bring back the pay-per-views! I love the One Night Only stuff because it gives us some interesting story free wrestling, but if you want to sell the PPV then you need the story. We need a reason to buy!! The PPVs' also need more draw to them. What the WWE does with Money in the Bank and Hell in a Cell and other gimmick PPVs' works really well and TNA should try something similar. Next, get rid if Dixie Carter. Sorry Dixie, I hear you're very nice but I think that's the problem. You're too nice. We just need someone in place who knows as cares more about wrestling. And how about this? Use your roster! There are some younger guys and amazing talent that have been there forever that aren't getting the treatment they deserve. Sam Shaw would get a lot more pops in your arenas if you used him and built him up. Get him in matches that will put him over because Shaw was actually one of my favorites from the Gut Check aside from York but he never gets on TV and instead gets shoved into developmental. The same thing happened with Crimson. Bring these guys on TV and use them! I can probably count on one hand how many times Sam Shaw appeared on Impact. Disappointing. And the last thing I have to bring up, too many factions! The Aces and Eights could have been great. For a time they were great. When Devon was unmasked I felt a surprise like I hadn't felt in forever. Instead they let guys go and widdled the team into a joke. And at the same time we had Bad Influence becoming Ego, and then the Main Event Mafia who were supposed to be the Aces and Eights enemies and that was ruined too. Keep it simple and keep it smart. They blew a great angle there and I only hope they find a crazy way to maybe bring it back in the future.

So TNA, (sorry I ramble) whether you love them or hate them, I just hope they are here to stay. Its a company that offers more wrestling, which is always good, and just a different type if program. It doesn't have to be a competition. Let's just have alternatives! So how do you feel about TNA. Share my thoughts or not?