Post by HMARK Center on Jan 11, 2009 18:22:05 GMT -5
I was just thinking about this in the wake of a spoiler that said Samoa Joe might show up on Impact this past Thursday (I think it turned out to be a dark segment once the show was done taping) to clean house on the MEM.
I'm of the opinion that, as a general product, TNA has been pretty good of late. Obviously, there's a lot of disagreement on this part of the board concerning that issue, but, again, just my opinion, I think they've at least had a bit more of a coherent creative direction of late, and the main event storylines over the past handful of months have felt more interesting.
However, almost everyone on this part of the board agrees that TNA has some things, be they big or small, that need improving. I'm no different; while I think TNA, as a whole, has been fun enough to watch, I'm starting to think that their problem is more a "Devils' in the details"/"sweat the small stuff" set of issues.
Case in point, the arm injury angle with Samoa Joe.
To give TNA some credit: they've tried to book AJ and Joe as the future, the clear leaders of the Front Line. The problem is, they don't distinguish them from the other members of the faction; they'll get beat down the same way Creed or Eric Young does, or they'll succeed against the MEM in the same ways the midcarders will.
I'll focus on Joe here for a minute, since his precipitous dropoff in quality booking has been more stark:
There's constantly been a big disparity between the way Joe's been booked in big matches compared to angles on Impact. While he's still a brutal ass kicker during most of his big matches (i.e. dominating the title match vs. Sting, pulverizing Booker T, kicking out of Nash's multiple powerbombs, etc.), he gets portrayed on Impact as too laid back at times, and too annoyingly angry at others, rather than just consistently as a tough-guy bad ass, which, for the moment, is where the money is in booking Joe.
For me, this problem culminated in the steel cage match that saw Joe get taken out. Initially, TNA does a smart thing here: Joe gets taken out, but it takes the whole MEM to do it, and he fights them off for awhile before finally being overwhelmed.
But why should it take so many people to take him out? Like I said, while his PPV matches usually entail Joe being nearly impossible to beat cleanly, on Impact, he's just as susceptible to beat downs as anyone else in the Front Line, midcarder or not.
See, Joe being taken out should've been a HUGE deal, for two reasons. For one, he's a co-leader of the FL. That should come across as a crippling blow to their faction. Secondly, he's supposed to be the group's ass-kicker, or at least it's enforcer. However, Joe's worked injury felt no different from Brother Ray's or Petey Williams'.
And it's because Joe hasn't been booked like a leader, and, again, while his PPV booking tends to be strong, his Impact booking has made him often look weak. It's inconsistent.
If they really wanted it to be a big deal, and wanted it to make sense why the MEM would need all hands on deck to finally take Joe down, then they should've built to the moment by having Joe at first be the FL's "not so secret weapon", the guy who, when MEM starts a beat down, is the one who can fight them off, even when some of his stablemates fall. Maybe him AND AJ. Then, you get to the cage match, where the MEM finally gets their chance to corner Joe and eliminate him, only after him fighting them off for awhile, making him truly look like a beast.
Then, the booking becomes more logical, and the importance of Joe's injury becomes more significant, since he was a figurehead and, again, "not so secret weapon" for the Front Line, who's now gone.
Now, the way TNA booked it wasn't horrible, and it wasn't like the moment had no significance whatsoever.
However, like the title of the thread implies, this is more of a subtle thing that prevents TNA from really taking that one big step up as a promotion to another level, and while it's big things that can kill a company (like WCW), it's so often little things that prevent an ok company from being good or great.
So, yeah, thoughts? Or any ideas of your own of little/subtle/whatever things that TNA can change? *Note: No, changing the commentary wouldn't be "subtle". That's a major change, albeit a needed one.
I'm of the opinion that, as a general product, TNA has been pretty good of late. Obviously, there's a lot of disagreement on this part of the board concerning that issue, but, again, just my opinion, I think they've at least had a bit more of a coherent creative direction of late, and the main event storylines over the past handful of months have felt more interesting.
However, almost everyone on this part of the board agrees that TNA has some things, be they big or small, that need improving. I'm no different; while I think TNA, as a whole, has been fun enough to watch, I'm starting to think that their problem is more a "Devils' in the details"/"sweat the small stuff" set of issues.
Case in point, the arm injury angle with Samoa Joe.
To give TNA some credit: they've tried to book AJ and Joe as the future, the clear leaders of the Front Line. The problem is, they don't distinguish them from the other members of the faction; they'll get beat down the same way Creed or Eric Young does, or they'll succeed against the MEM in the same ways the midcarders will.
I'll focus on Joe here for a minute, since his precipitous dropoff in quality booking has been more stark:
There's constantly been a big disparity between the way Joe's been booked in big matches compared to angles on Impact. While he's still a brutal ass kicker during most of his big matches (i.e. dominating the title match vs. Sting, pulverizing Booker T, kicking out of Nash's multiple powerbombs, etc.), he gets portrayed on Impact as too laid back at times, and too annoyingly angry at others, rather than just consistently as a tough-guy bad ass, which, for the moment, is where the money is in booking Joe.
For me, this problem culminated in the steel cage match that saw Joe get taken out. Initially, TNA does a smart thing here: Joe gets taken out, but it takes the whole MEM to do it, and he fights them off for awhile before finally being overwhelmed.
But why should it take so many people to take him out? Like I said, while his PPV matches usually entail Joe being nearly impossible to beat cleanly, on Impact, he's just as susceptible to beat downs as anyone else in the Front Line, midcarder or not.
See, Joe being taken out should've been a HUGE deal, for two reasons. For one, he's a co-leader of the FL. That should come across as a crippling blow to their faction. Secondly, he's supposed to be the group's ass-kicker, or at least it's enforcer. However, Joe's worked injury felt no different from Brother Ray's or Petey Williams'.
And it's because Joe hasn't been booked like a leader, and, again, while his PPV booking tends to be strong, his Impact booking has made him often look weak. It's inconsistent.
If they really wanted it to be a big deal, and wanted it to make sense why the MEM would need all hands on deck to finally take Joe down, then they should've built to the moment by having Joe at first be the FL's "not so secret weapon", the guy who, when MEM starts a beat down, is the one who can fight them off, even when some of his stablemates fall. Maybe him AND AJ. Then, you get to the cage match, where the MEM finally gets their chance to corner Joe and eliminate him, only after him fighting them off for awhile, making him truly look like a beast.
Then, the booking becomes more logical, and the importance of Joe's injury becomes more significant, since he was a figurehead and, again, "not so secret weapon" for the Front Line, who's now gone.
Now, the way TNA booked it wasn't horrible, and it wasn't like the moment had no significance whatsoever.
However, like the title of the thread implies, this is more of a subtle thing that prevents TNA from really taking that one big step up as a promotion to another level, and while it's big things that can kill a company (like WCW), it's so often little things that prevent an ok company from being good or great.
So, yeah, thoughts? Or any ideas of your own of little/subtle/whatever things that TNA can change? *Note: No, changing the commentary wouldn't be "subtle". That's a major change, albeit a needed one.
