How TNA Should and Shouldn't Combat WWE

THE FOLLOWING IS A GUEST ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY O-STER: THE HITMAN

Anyone who has been watching TNA since its debut on Spike TV knows that they love to take shots at Vince McMahon and his WWE empire. And they're not even subtle shots!

The knocks on WWE are both frequent and obvious. While this would seem like it could be a good idea, McMahon always seems to be one step ahead. Need proof?

Last July, Rhino came out and publicly attacked McMahon's plan for a new ECW. He claimed that ECW would be nothing without its last champion...himself. McMahon then decided to piss all over the legacy of ECW by putting his own 'spin' on it. So much for Rhino being proud of the old ECW days.

DX has also been a favourite target of TNA. The X-Division t-shirt was their first shot at them. More recently, and more notably, the Voodoo Kin Mafia have spent all of their TV time trying to defame the sophomoric antics of DX rather than wrestle.

Did it work? Just watch last week's edition of "Raw" again for the answer to that. No jokes, no hijinks, no typical DX. Instead, they ran a worked shoot, trying to show a more serious side of the duo. So much for Brian and Monty doing anything to scare WWE.

TNA has always loved to pride itself on having original matches. They love to tout their Ultimate X and Six Sides of Steel bouts as innovative and edgy gimmick matches...which they are. But has anybody noticed the sharp rise in gimmick matches in WWE as of late? Albeit, they like to use them quite frequently anyway, but Armageddon will mark the second time in the last four months that a pay-per-view has featured multiple gimmick matches. And, just like TNA's specialties, they are matches that only WWE uses.

Lastly, I don't care what any dissenters say, I don't even care that Joe himself disagreed with it - Umaga is an obvious swipe at the Samoan Submission Machine. Samoans, as a whole, tend to get more pushes than pretty much any other ethnic group (excluding whites, but that's only because the wrestling scene is predominantly Caucasian), but the timing and the way Umaga's character has played out is just too similar to Joe's to simply blow it off as coincidence.

Don't kid yourself, WWE is very aware that TNA poses a potential threat. They're just trying to be as subtle as they can about showing it. Any attention drawn to the competition is a very bad thing at this point, especially with Cena being constantly shoved down the throats of fans.

So the question for TNA now is, if WWE has been able to counter all of TNA's attempts to bring them down, where do they go from here? Quite simply, they must use a different battle plan. Instead of taking blatant shots at what WWE is doing right, they should capitalize on the E's mistakes from the past. They've already done this somewhat, by signing Rhino, Christian Cage and Kurt Angle (it would seem that they are using him sparingly enough for him to be able to maintain his health) and putting them to immediate use.

But there's still more they can do. With many disgruntled superstars in ECW, the writing seems to be on the wall. There may be superstars walking very soon, and TNA would love to snatch up guys like RVD (although probably not very likely) or Sandman (more likely) in a heartbeat. Lance Storm isn't doing anything these days; he could be a huge pickup.

Same with Jericho, provided they don't offer him an insulting salary like they once did previously. Even bigger would be picking up a guy like Brock Lesnar or even Goldberg (if used right, a lot of marks may start to tune in on Thursday nights). Plain and simple, WWE has made the most of angry superstars that TNA has screwed over, so why shouldn't TNA do the same?

WWE has dropped the ball on a lot of talent over the years, and there's consequently a gold mine sitting around in indie limbo. TNA just needs to bring in some fresh star power and learn from the mistakes that WCW made, both backstage and storyline-wise, and they could become the legitimate threat that they currently believe they are.

Share |