This week, Scotland sees much anticipation. After what seems like an eternity, the time is upon us when massive change will happen. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, a time has arrived that people will remember for the rest of their lives.
The Cook Report has moved to Wednesday!!
Adding to that excitement, my ticket for the ICW show in Dundee arrived, so that week I wont have to spend 72 hours trying to find something to write about. How great is that?
Anyhoo, enough of that, let us head into the murky world of all things Wrestling. This week, for a change, I want to look at TNA, and a basic trick they finally seem to have latched onto. Planning.
As we all know TNA is taped, sometimes 2 months in advance.Raw however is live, or reports to be. For anyone who remembers the Monday Night Wars, WCW took advantage of something similar, when they read out results from a taped Raw on Nitro. This eventually backfired when everyone turned over to see Foley win his first title, but for months, it was an effective tool in the battle to stop channel surfing fans.
In the current situation however, there is a massive difference in circumstances. Nitro was all about being unpredictable, while the current WWE product looks to be planned well in advance.
WWE seem to have basic plans around Mania, Summerslam and the Rumble well in advance. They plan the whole year around those events, making changes sometimes for injury, but the basics remain the same. Brock looks a certainty to headline Mania next year, and that would obviously have been planned from Mania last year when he broke the streak.
So, while WWE may not have decided on an opponent yet, they will have a good idea of what they want, and will work towards that. But barring catastrophe, Brock is in that main event. Last year, that should have been a Batista V Orton match, which, on the surface at least had Bryan becoming a late addition.
TNA reacted to Bryan winning the title by putting their own belt on the only guy they had who could compare to D-Bry, in that both had a beard. The storyline was similar, but that is well trodden ground. Essentially, TNA reacted to a last minute change at WWE by copying the storyline and were slaughtered for doing so.
As a sidenote, what they should have been slaughtered for was not seeing Bryan coming, and having to react.
This time however, the whole world knew well in advance that Brock would become champion, because we can all see the direction WWE is heading in for Mania. If Brock is to headline, he has to either be champ, or win the Rumble. The Rumble was too long after he broke the streak, so Summerslam it had to be.
And this is where the planning appeared to happen from TNA. They knew Brock would have the belt, they knew it would be soon. They also knew they had on the roster something similar in Lashley. And when I say similar, I mean in the same way EY and D-Bry are similar. Brock has been UFC champion, Lashley might be an MMA fighter….
So what TNA did was copy WWE before WWE could do it. WWE have a fairly strict business model. The main belt can only really change hands at probably 3 events in any year, the three previously mentioned. For the belt to change hands at MITB would be a shock, never mind on Raw. TNA do not have that problem, because they cannot sell a PPV, so it makes no difference to them when the title changes.
TNA also have the appearance at least of a show that is pretty much booked on a monthly basis, with the occasional longer storyline thrown in to make the job a bit easier. They have pretty much abandoned any pretence at building to a PPV, it wont sell anyway, so what is the point.
Now while that can be a disadvantage, in this instance it was an obvious advantage. Look at where WWE is heading, and get there first.
Imagine if TNA had pushed EY when Bryan was getting hot. Imagine if they had made him credible, then put the belt on him a month before Mania. Lets face it, we pretty much knew a month before that Bryan would win that belt, because everyone everywhere was booing Batista and Orton out the building. Everyone was talking about how to get Bryan into that main event, and everyone everywhere knew it would have to happen.
TNA obviously could not have gotten Eric Young enough credibility in a month, but the Daniel Bryan story had grown for probably a year or so. Why not just push EY every chance they got? Those chances may have been limited due to his other commitments, but those other commitments meant they had the chance to do a total reboot, bring him back as a serious competitor, with a serious entrance video.
Compare that to what happened this time. Lashley comes in, looks moody and wins a few matches, looking pretty dominant in the process. He wins the belt, and continues to hold it, while looking pretty dominant. Not so dominant that someone beating him would seem too unlikely, but dominant enough.
Now here is another advantage to the advanced tapings. Like Brock, Lashley will have to disappear a lot. So tape 6 shows in a week, and let him go do his MMA thing. Get him back for a few days, tape some more. TNA then have an MMA fighter as champ, just like WWE. But TNA have a champ who looks like a full time wrestler who fits his other commitments around wrestling. The champ actually appears on their shows.
Now if TNA can continue in this vein, or even better, write some of their OWN stories, we might actually see a marked improvement that is not based on an EEE CEE DUB chant, and some appearances by fondly remembered older wrestlers. Moving away from comparisons to WWE, at least in the storyline sense has to be done. Moving away from the appearance of just copying WWE had to be a priority.
In the short term, making educated guesses as to what WWE will do and getting in first might work, long term, at the risk of repeating myself, they need to find their own direction, be an alternative, not a copy.
Now, after writing all of the above, it may well be the case that Spike TV decided they needed Lashley as champ to promote Bellator, and Dixie was offered her TV extension as long as this happened. Rather than taking a disadvantage and turning it into an advantage, TNA just did what they were told. If that is the case, then forget everything above, and TNA totally sucks.
While the deadline for my article may have changed, some things never do. This is the point where I generally tell everyone to check out all the other great articles right here, on sltdwrestling.com This week is no exception.Davie’s Dungeon looks at the idea of having celebrities on Raw after the appearance of the other Jerry, AOB looks at NXT. Duckman lays the quackdown with some great news, some podcast reviews and some possibly empty promises. All are well worth checking out.
SLTD radio and the mfx podcast both seem to be on breaks at the moment, I would expect a return soon, so keep coming back, you never know when a new show will appear.
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