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February 20, 2006
How John Learned to Stop Worrying and Love TNA These days, WWE is pretty depressing. With six weeks to go until WrestleMania 22, the booking towards the planned card has been akin to watching a leper slowly being eaten away by the disease. Meanwhile, on Saturday nights, there’s a “60 minute adrenaline rush” on Spike TV that has been in its own way more entertaining and satisfying than the usual four hours a week of RAW and Smackdown. I used to watch TNA with mocking disinterest but little by little the new “little promotion that could” wore me down, won me over, and turned me into a fan. There are twelve reasons how it happened. Here's what I like best about TNA and why: NWA World Champion Christian Cage
When Edge won the WWE Title, I was on wrestling cloud nine. His three week title reign was the happiest I’d been with the WWE in many months, maybe years. Then right in front of my very eyes in Miami, the company ripped the spinner belt from Edge’s waist and gave it back to Cena, symbolically kicking Edge to the curb. Meanwhile in TNA, the improbable inverse occured. Jeff Jarrett not only did the job to Christian, finally giving him the World Championship WWE never, ever thought enough of him to have, he happily moved out of the way from contention. Jarrett is occupying himself with other angles so that the sinking feeling of Christian being merely a transitional champion for TNA’s version of Triple H doesn’t exist. Christian’s World Title reign immediately seems to have some legs, with his first contender being the entertaining Monty Brown. Will their collision be a good match? Probably not so much, but the odds are favorable Christian will retain. Christian will definitely be the NWA World Heavyweight Champion longer than Edge was WWE Champion. He might even survive Jarrett when he comes calling. Now, if Christian would just get ahold of one of the three girls in the company and have some live sex in the ring, I'd buy his T-shirt. Samoa Joe
In a few short weeks, X Division Champion Samoa Joe became my favorite wrestler. It’s funny how Jeff, Lance and I saw him a few years ago at an ROH show and I didn’t think much of him then, but now, I can’t get enough of the guy. Samoa Joe has the simpliest, most believable character in TNA, and maybe in wrestling. He’s a big, angry Samoan who will kick you in the face for real and beat the living shit out of you. The rear naked choke, the muscle buster, the bloody towel, how he nearly kills Christopher Daniels every week, it’s all adds to Joe’s persona as the most fearsome ass kicker in TNA. Joe hates everyone, heel or face, especially heel Christopher Daniels and face AJ Styles. Everyone else is scared to death of him. There’s always an innate appeal in wrestling to a guy who’s a killer, someone who can beat the living shit out of someone and make you believe it. In TNA, Samoa Joe is that killer. I love watching Joe more than almost anyone in wrestling today. HomoseXual Division
The initial problem with the X Division wrestlers was that they were all interchangeable with no characters or personalities. TNA heard the complaints and took the necessary steps to correct this problem: They made most of their X Division guys look and act like homos. Austin Aries got earrings and ridiculous facial hair. Chris Sabin had his blond locks restyled into a gay hairdo. Shannon Moore looks like a mohawked fairy. Alex Shelley, my favorite of the X Division homos, got the brilliant gimmick of carrying a camcorder everywhere, which got him promoted to working with Jeff Jarrett and his crew. Now, it’s easy to tell the X Division guys apart because they all look ridiculous. Their matches are now about thrilling to their moves and laughing at how asinine they look. Sometimes, the reverse. Tag Team TurmoilBig Show and Kane have no one to wrestle on RAW. MNM are a little bit better off on Smackdown but not by much. Where the hell did all the tag teams go? Apparently, they’re all in TNA. For a much smaller promotion, TNA is bursting at the seams with tag teams. America’s Most Wanted are pretty good champions and there’s no lack of people to book them against. The New Age Outlaws reunited as BJ and Kip James, the James Gang. Konnan has his Hispanic thug team, LAX. There are the interchangeable combinations of Team Canada. The Dud—we can’t call them that – Team 3D have brought their stale table breaking act to TNA. There are other teams too we hardly ever see, like The Naturals. And with the X-Division and the midcard guys like Rhino and The Truth, they can mix and match any two guys together. Gail Kim
WWE never quite knew what they had or what to do with Gail Kim. They gave her the Women’s Title in a battle royal in her first match, took it right off her, then made her Molly Holly’s lackey, then fired her. Gail was always better than that and in TNA, she gets to show what she can do: have sex with Jeff Jarrett. As Jeff Jarrett’s manager/fuck buddy, she gets to hang out with him, show off her breasts, and whine and complain when Jarrett doesn’t pay her any attention. Meanwhile, she manages AMW and does what Lita used to do for the Hardys: fly off the top rope against AMW’s opponents as a high spot in every match. Gail hasn’t wrestled yet because there’s no one for her to wrestle (except for the eventual match with Jackie Gayda everyone is dreading), but she’s clearly positioned as the top and hottest woman in the company. And if Christy Hemme shows up in TNA as the hopeful rumors say, then we’d finally have a TNA women’s match worth waiting for. Blame Canada
There’s never been a bad Canadian faction in wrestling and Team Canada continues that legacy. I still find it annoying when manager Scott D’Amore barks at the camera on his way to the ring but he’s been a funny ally and problem solver for Jeff Jarrett. I don’t get Bobby Roode yet. A-1 makes me want a steak. But Team Canada has two shining stars: Petey Williams, who’d be banished to Velocity if he worked for WWE but is one of the most gifted workers in the X Division and has a bad ass finisher I still can’t understand how he does. Even more entertaining is Eric Young, the jittery, paranoid Tweak of the group everyone slaps around. No one ever listens to Eric Young, but they’ll all have egg on their face when Sting finally does come back and Young gets to say, “I told you so” before he runs like a coward. Don West
Just about every week, Mike Tenay says something that makes me want to put my fist through my TV aimed right at his smug face. But sitting right next to Tenay is a man in a hypnotically shiny shirt who can sell snake oil to a nest of vipers. Don West won me over the week after Sting returned when he described how he had tears in his eyes when Sting finally appeared in TNA after five years in retirement. After West hysterically oversold that moment, he could never again say or do wrong in my eyes. What I like in my color commentators is over-the-top hyperbole and the ability to be incredibly impressed by the mundane and inane. Don West brings all that to the table and much, much more. Dogs Playing PokerLarry Zbyszko has turned out to be a pretty good general manager or whatever the hell his job title is in TNA. I suppose he represents TNA Management, which involves him getting yelled at by everyone who wants a title shot and spending the rest of his time successfully getting rid of Raven. The best thing about Larry Legend however is his predilection for that classic American image of dogs playing poker. Smackdown GM Teddy Long has pictures of Martin Luther King and Vince McMahon in his office but Zbyszko outdoes him with his framed pictures of dogs playing poker. And if you don’t happen to glance at his walls, you can’t miss the dogs playing poker emblazoned on Zbyszko’s button down shirts. Now that’s class. The Pounce… Period!
“The Alpha Male” Monty Brown is another guy who I warmed up to after initial weeks of dislike. Monty is a black former pro football player and he sure dresses like it. But it was week after week of Monty Brown hitting people with his running side tackle “the Poooooounce… period!” and then doing his goofy dance that made me a fan. I can’t get enough of the Pounce and his stupid dancing. And for some reason, Christian just hasn’t been able to get one over on him. Now, I look forward to a trip to the Serengeti every week. Ain’t He Great?
Now that he isn’t World Champion, Jeff Jarrett is a lot less stressed out. He was always on edge when he had the belt as TNA Management (so to speak) sent wave after wave of former WWE guys after him. Plus the fans never, ever let him cut his 20 minute promos without drowning him out with “boring!” chants. Even without the World Title, Jarrett has more going for him than anyone else in TNA. He has sex with Gail Kim, most of the heels in the company work for him, and he has a closet full of white and orange pants to parade around in. He still has an unlimited supply of powder-filled guitars and now Jackie Gayda no longer harasses him and is finally playing ball. Jeff Jarrett’s life is great these days, and so’s Mike Tenay’s since Jarrett no longer yells at him every week. When Jarrett’s happy, everyone’s happy. He’s Still Got It
For weeks Mike Tenay and Don West managed to talk about Sting every five minutes. Then they found ways to turn unrelated topics into discussions about Sting. Then the TNA guys all took turns telling us what Sting meant to them. I didn’t quite have tears in my eyes when Sting made his first (and to date, last) appearance on Spike TV but it actually was good to see the Stinger again. The couple of hundred regulars in the arena seemed to love Sting too. He’s still got it, according to the fans’ chants. Then Sting quit. Now, I want him back. Oh God, why won’t Sting come back?! The Face of the Franchise
There’s only one Best Backstage Announcer in wrestling today, and that’s Maria. But the best backstage announcer in TNA is without a doubt Shane Douglas. The Franchise’s facial expressions and ability to be flabbergasted by anything anyone says makes every backstage promo a can’t-miss. Sadly, Shane’s been missing from TNA lately. The lame ass parade of not-Shane Douglases, Terry Taylor and Jeremy Borash, have only served to highlight how indispensable the Franchise really is. Whatever he’s in rehab for, we’ll double the dose if only the Franchise would return to his backstage role, microphone in hand, ready to be dumbstruck again.
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