Titles and Time

[TK The Friendly Robot]

This thread is inspired by a post in the thread asking about some of the indy talents picked up by WWE and how well they would fair in TNA if they had gone their instead. I will start by quoting that post.

Feb 1, 2013 13:46:17 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

I could see Mistico and El Generico getting the X-Division push. You know, the push where they win the X-Division Title, spend the next three or four months working excellent matches, doing everything they can to get their characters over and being generally successful, then lose the X-Division Title and get completely forgotten about.

So what happened to Xema Ion anyways?

I personally feel like the way that TNA treat the titles at the moment is very smart, while using them as props they also use them to get over and showcase talent and advance storylines. While I admit the X and KO divisions right now are not all that strong, the direct circle around the titles are always very good. Take for example the X Division, currently the two guys gunning against the veteran champion are up and comers getting over, Kenny King and Christian York are treating the title as if it means something and at the same time RVD is defending the title well and keeping the belt strong for whoever does eventually go over him to win the title. The combination of strong challengers and a strong champion is essential for the title and all the guys involved.

Zema Ion's run was mentioned and I also believe it was very smart to end it. The obvious plan was(is?) to have Jesse Sorenson return and dethrone Zema, however with Jesse's recovery taking longer it was smart to take the title off Zema and allow other people to move up from appearing every now and then to going after the title and of course the rub of beating RVD for the belt is better than the rub from beating Ion when the time comes for Rob to drop the title.
The problem is that TNA just don't have the time for so many feuds going on, they need to choose the best way to use the 2 hours they have. They couldn't push King/York, have Zema as X - Champ feuding with RVD and then add on all the other things going on with the other divisions.

You never know if they decide to go with Ion/Sorenson, Zema might be the one to go over RVD to make him and the upcoming storyline a bigger deal. Not to mention his recent win over Christian York in a tag match, stealing the victory from King, there could be big things on the horizon for all men.

Just because things move on and focus isn't on one guy as much as some others at a certain point doesn't mean that they can never bounce back.

Maybe I've just rambled on, maybe I've made no sense but I'd love to hear what you think on it and do you think that no matter how strong/weak certain divisions are that TNA are smart with their title scenes?

[HMARK Center]

I've said this before, but what's tough for TNA is that they have bunch of titles/divisions, but only around 85 minutes of show a week (if we remove commercials), and now they only have four major PPV's to go along with that.

If that's your limitation, you MUST choose to emphasize what you think will be most important in getting your company and your wrestlers over. Since late 2011 or so, TNA seemed to consciously decide that they were going to heavily emphasize the World Title, which meant that in the process there'd be less time for and featuring of the other belts.

There've been positives and negatives to this: positives include the TNA World Title actually feeling important, and the decision coincided with TNA's move towards really filling the main event scene up mostly with homegrown guys or wrestlers you now almost totally associate with TNA, not WWE. Negatives mainly include the KO, X, and Tag divisions suffering, with there seeming to be only one feud per division, and they're always over the title itself.

To me, TNA needs to make a tough choice here, and consider retiring a couple of belts until such a time as they get another TV show. Back in ye olden dayes (like, territory era old) you could get away with one hour of TV a week, because most fans were expected to show up to live shows to see champions. Sadly, that doesn't work so well anymore, so you either need to feature these things more, or put some of them aside until you can.

[TK The Friendly Robot]

Yeah I see where you're coming from and to a certain extent I agree. I was also thinking that maybe to help out with it, now that they've cut down the number of PPVs, they could rotate what was showcased on a weekly basis? One week KO and X Division, the next week World and Tag Team or something along those lines? I think the TV title is redundant at this point and it could be unified with another belt.

[HMARK Center]

Were I in charge, I'd definitely strive for that, but I'm not sure how doable it is given how ratings-conscious all wrestling companies are. They'd figure they'd have to have their main eventers on each week in some form for that reason, I suppose.

I also get that TNA's roster space might be a bit limited especially compared to WWE, but it'd be cool even if they rotated some divisions' talents, too, like having some guys show up for the X-Division for a certain amount of time, then cycling out for others.

[BlackoutCreature]

Wow, one of my half thought out, smark aleck posts actually inspired something. I'm touched.

All I can say in my defense is that TNA has developed a reputation of trying to push the angle, not the talent. They come up with what they believe is a good angle and assign a role in it to a talent. The talent runs with the angle, gets over, makes it work, becomes a success, then when the angle runs its course, TNA has no idea what to do with this new talent they've established. That talent is usually then just forgotten about, barely used until any credibility that they've established quickly disappears.

As for Xema Ion, all I can say is I haven't been watching TNA too closely lately. As near as I could remember he lost the title to RVD and then never appeared on TV again. It seemed like another case of TNA doing this. I guess I remembered incorrectly and he was a bad example to use.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Feb 2, 2013 22:10:29 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

Wow, one of my half thought out, smark aleck posts actually inspired something. I'm touched.

All I can say in my defense is that TNA has developed a reputation of trying to push the angle, not the talent. They come up with what they believe is a good angle and assign a role in it to a talent. The talent runs with the angle, gets over, makes it work, becomes a success, then when the angle runs its course, TNA has no idea what to do with this new talent they've established. That talent is usually then just forgotten about, barely used until any credibility that they've established quickly disappears.

As for Xema Ion, all I can say is I haven't been watching TNA too closely lately. As near as I could remember he lost the title to RVD and then never appeared on TV again. It seemed like another case of TNA doing this. I guess I remembered incorrectly and he was a bad example to use.

Zema pretty much did disappear after Bound for Glory, and is now only being used again after a couple months of not doing anything of note.