For this weeks look at the world of professional wrestling, I decided to open with a joke. What do bearded underdog wrestling champions have in common with buses?
The answer is fairly obvious, and to be honest not very funny. After the high of Daniel Bryan winning the title after 8 months of being put down, on Thursday night TNA treated us to a Wrestlemania repeat show, where Showtime Eric Young reprised the Daniel Bryan role, and took the title off a paper champion.
TNA fans are claiming that there are no similarities between the two stories, and just because both wrestlers have beards, that does not mean the storyline was copied. And anyway TNA was taped weeks ago, so it was WWE who copied TNA. Which goes against TNA marketing the show as a live edition of Impact.
As a self confessed fan of TNA, I can say with a fair degree of confidence however, that not only did they rip off the Bryan story, they ripped off pretty much the whole of Wrestlemania. If only they had Hemme doing the streak bit…
I want to share with you a story though, of how this would be viewed by a non wrestling fan. My girlfriend hates wrestling. Never watches, never shows an interest, apart from pretending to listen when I talk about it.
Now, last week, I missed watching Mania live, but started to watch it on Monday morning, as said girlfriend got ready for work. During the opening bout, she seemed to be moving away from the traditional spot in front of the mirror, and closer to the TV, and actually seemed interested in what was going on.
Some questions were asked, why was the small guy fighting the big guy? wont the big guy just kick his ass? Do you realise that bandage is doing nothing to help?…. the usual. Obviously, as an expert in the field, I explained some of the back story, and why Daniel would win, and that the bandage was there to remind everyone of an injury, and that was its only real purpose.
Unfortunately, we had to leave before the opening match finished, and that was pretty much it as far as her being a wrestling fan went. Or so I thought.
That night, I was aware the conversation was being turned to a more wrestling based theme, and not by me. This was obviously awesome, my girlfriend wanted to see what happened in the match, I would have someone to watch wrestling with now and again. By this time, I had obviously watched the whole show, but made no mention of this, just in case it put her off.
And so we watched the conclusion of the opening match. As predicted, Bryan won, and she went from the cynical non fan who earlier had commented on how bad this was, to the mark who was almost screaming as HHH hit the injured arm after the match with the steel chair.This was just getting better all the time.
She happily watched Cena v Bray, and hated Cena, another result. But the main event was the match she wanted to see, closure was required. Long story short, I watched her as she watched the match, I listened as she asked if Orton and Batista were boyfriends, or was that table spot real?
Now afterwards, there was a bit of a problem with how Bryan was able to lift his badly injured arm above his shoulder now, as he did the yes chant, but all in all, the response was very positive. So now all I need to do is keep her interested in wrestling, should be easy enough…
Then Impact happened. Now I am a modern guy, I get the whole equality thing, but that only extends so far. No way was I letting her watch Impact without me checking it out first. Obviously,it was pretty bad,so she didn’t get to watch, bar a quick introduction to the story of what happened earlier in the show, and the last 3 minutes of the main event.
I am back to watching Wrestling alone, her reaction to EY winning the belt was similar to the reaction I got when I grew a Hulk moustache for Movember. And she really didn’t like that. It was pointed out to me, as obviously I had not noticed, that TNA had just ripped off a WWE storyline.
Now I decided not to tell her about the battle royal or the multi knockouts match, indeed the fact that the whole show was just a wrestlemania rip off, but in truth, I did not have to, she had seen enough.
I get this was not done with rigorous scientific principles, but as a complete novice to this, it did not take long for her to see the similarities, and work out what had gone on.
At this point in the writing process, I listened to some of the MFX podcast, a fantastic podcast I may have mentioned in previous articles. The MFX podcast is available right here, on SLTD.com, and is an excellent podcast for all wrestling fans. They had mentioned they may drop impact from their shows, so this episode came as a bit of a surprise to me.
Anyone who has listened to this latest episode will see the relevance of the last paragraph…
So, back to Showtime, why is it so wrong he won the belt, apart from the story stealing? Well for one thing, Bryan had some build to his story. We all saw his struggle unfold on TV. We watched HHH screw him over and over and over again. We watched the momentum turn in his favour, and after 8 months, we watched the pay off to this story.
By comparison, EY won a battle royal, then the belt in the same night, on a free show. No build, no investment from the fans, no real investment from TNA, just a title change for the sake of it.
Now I have no problem with EY winning the belt, if it is done correctly. Eric Young has been for the best part of five years, what they call in Nigeria, a ‘Dundee United’. He has been consistently portrayed as the comedy character on the show, and that character should never be the champ.
Technically, he is still half of the knockouts tag champs, that is how bad the character is. Now if he was going to be the man, he needed completely rebuilt. Bring him back as a new grown up EY, have him win some meaningful matches, and maybe a year later, you have someone you can put the belt on.
Instead, TNA saw Bryan win gold, then apparently decided that it was not Bryan the fans wanted to see win, but the beard. Or maybe it was the underdog thing, so they crowbarred that in at the start of the show. Whether the show was taped or live is immaterial, everyone in the world knew Bryan would leave mania as champ. Everyone except TNA.
The truth is TNA used to have its own identity, but not any more. TNA was a show we could watch that was different to WWE, and I don’t just mean the six sided ring. TNA had fresh characters, with some ex WWE names thrown into the mix, and put on some really great matches.
Then Hogan arrived. Hogan did not want to be different, he wanted to compete with WWE, and that is a competition TNA could never win. Hogan has since departed, but the company seems destined to continue down this route. They are no longer an alternative to WWE, but more of a cheap and nasty knock off. They are the Lorex watch of wrestling.
Watching Raw last week, it was obvious that the company are resetting after mania, they are bringing in new guys, setting up new storylines, stuff like that. If ever there was something about WWE that TNA should copy, this is it.The company needs a complete overhaul, and not just cosmetic changes, like MVP in for Dixie.
Start booking matches that mean something, start having finishes that make sense, and most importantly, pick 2 or 3 guys, and build them properly. The company has too many wrestlers who are in a kind of upper mid order position. Anderson, Gunner, Storm, Joe, Abyss, Bully, Roode… it is pretty much the whole roster to be honest.
But none of those guys are getting a real push. Roode has gone from a feud with Angle into a feud with Bully. Same story, different opponent. Storm and Gunner, cant wait to see more of that. Anderson seems content with fighting Sam Shaw. None of these professional wrestlers seem too worried about being the champ.
That has to be a problem, the belt should be portrayed as the be all and end all. Everyone should want that belt, and if they get distracted from time to time, they will return to the chase for the title once that distraction is dealt with. When the BFG tournament is on, it is the only thing that matters to these guys, once its over, they forget the gold.
So build 2 or 3 guys the way they built Magnus, have some competition for the gold, and if you have to have EY as champ, you have to build him as a champ, and quickly. He has to dominate in that ring, and he has to stop the comedy stuff, and he cannot do that against any of the guys you are trying to push. TNA need to be a serious alternative to WWE in order to grow, and having a comedy champ does not help with that.
Sorry this week has been a bit rambling, but as a fan of TNA, they really pissed me off this week, and I just went with the flow. As usual, comments are welcome below, and you can follow me on twitter @GrantCookDFC. I should probably point out that DFC is a reference to my football team, Dundee FC, and the Dundee United(rivals to DFC) reference is to a slang term for idiot used in Nigeria. You can google it to find out more.
It is also normal for me to recommend taking the time to check out the other fantastic articles here on SLTD, the writers on here really know their stuff, and always provide great insight into the world of pro wrestling.Remember also that the all new predictions league starts soon, although I should also point out, I intend to win it this year. But check it out when it kicks off, and get involved. It is easy to join, easy to fill in your predictions, and has some great prizes on offer.
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