How To Improve TNA (Part 1)

In my first column for Tha O Show I proposed a solution for what I perceive to be the WWE's biggest weakness at the present time: acquiring and developing talent. So it only seems fitting that I address some of TNA's problems and suggest some possible solutions as well. During the course of writing this article, I noticed it was getting a little lengthy; I guess TNA has too many problems to address in one column.

So this week, I’m only making 2 suggestions and merging them together. In Part 2, I’ll have four more (although I’ll spoil what one of them will be shortly) - so remember to consider all of the suggestions together. Many of my suggestions come from Eric Bischoff’s autobiography, Controversy Creates Cash, and are based on WCW’s launching of Nitro in 1995.

I don’t think Bischoff gets enough credit for being the only promoter to best Vince McMahon (albeit only for a few years), and its even more silly that a rival company, like TNA, hasn’t followed Nitro’s blueprint for competing with, and ultimately beating WWE.

Now prepare yourselves O-sters, because I’m about to suggest something that most won’t agree with when they first read it; but hopefully you’ll understand my point of view by the end of Part 2 (although I’m not holding my breath) . . . TNA Impact needs to go head-to-head with "Monday Night Raw". But before we get ahead of ourselves, I should add that I don’t believe the Tennessee-based company should do so for quite some time, or at least until their product improves dramatically.

Let me repeat that in CAPS: I don’t believe the TNA should go head-to-head with Raw for quite some time, or at least until their product improves dramatically. So here are some suggestions on how TNA can improve their product:

Suggestion #1: Be more unpredictable and realistic

First off, Impact should be live, or at least do the every-other week thing that Raw was doing back in the day. Here’s what Bischoff writes (says into his tape recorder) in his book about broadcasting Nitro live: “I’ve always thought that something on live TV is more interesting than the same thing taped. It’s hard for performers to be spontaneous when they’re being taped. We’d also have trouble achieving the unpredictability and spontaneity that kept jumping out at me from the research on a taped show, since by the time we aired, word about what happened would have gotten out.”

It’s not like TNA doesn’t know how to produce live shows - they do so for three hours every month for their PPVs, which are on par with, or better than the WWE’s PPV offerings. And their taping schedule right now consists of taping one 2-hr episode of Impact on Monday and Tuesday back-to-back at Universal Studios, and then returning two weeks later to Orlando to do the same thing again - so going live on Monday and then taping the next week’s show on the Tuesday already fits into their schedule.

Admittedly, I don’t know how much of an increase in cost the move to a live show would be for TNA, but it can’t be too much since they’re already using the facility on the same day, and unlike the WWE, TNA wouldn’t have the travel expenses that Raw has by traveling to a different city every week - plus, the benefit of making Impact more unpredictable would be worth the cost.

As it is now, for example, by late Tuesday night after a PPV, by logging onto one of dozens of wrestling gossip sites, a fan can find out where the next two week’s worth of storylines are headed (and thus, most of the next PPV’s matches) before the first show airs on Thursday. Hell, the script for the January 3rd Impact was floating around the web weeks before it aired. Impact is hardly an unpredictable show at this point.


Now, by being more unpredictable, I don’t mean, “Who’s A.J. Styles going to side with? Tune in this Sunday to find out!” It doesn’t matter if it’s unpredictable if no one cares. And by being more unpredictable I don’t mean having Traci Brooks pretend to faint like she did at Genesis in the match between Robert Roode and Samoa Joe - it only served to distract the audience and the workers. However, it could have worked if the announcers had acknowledged the fainting AND noted that Roode cared more about his match than the well-being of his girlfriend/manager.

Instead, it wasn’t mentioned again - it was a stunt for the sake of having a stunt, typical Vince Russo writing. Samoa Joe’s shoot promo from Turning Point could have served as one of those memorable and unpredictable moments that forces fans to wonder (as Bischoff writes in his book): “Wow. I know all that other stuff isn’t real, but this, this must be real.” I certainly didn’t know at the time whether his promo was a work or a shoot.

But instead of having Joe come out over the next few weeks and mention that TNA is giving top spots to guys who are no longer deserving of those spots (i.e., Nash, Hall, Steiner Brothers), and running through those guys to prove that he deserves to be in the main event, TNA’s brilliant booking committee had Joe and Nash being buddy-buddy the very next night. And now he’s whining about his contract like Terrell Owens. He’s supposed to be a babyface? Wow. It appears as if they’re trying to correct themselves with the angle now, but it’s too little too late.

We’re in a period where MMA is at its peak of popularity and by comparison, some fans may perceive pro wrestling as “faker” than ever. In his book, Bischoff writes, “If we could do one thing in the course of a two-hour broadcast that people thought was real, even if it was only for a moment, that made them suspend their disbelief, consciously or unconsciously, we would be more successful.

”Nitro"’s main example of this was the forming of the NWO, where two guys, Nash and Hall, who had just been seen on WWE television, were now sneaking onto WCW television. It looked like McMahon was orchestrating an invasion. TNA doesn’t have anything like the NWO, but here are some subtle things that can give Impact a more realistic and unpredictable feel:

1. When doing an injury angle, have the ref make the “X” sign with his arms, which has almost become common knowledge to fans as signifying a real injury. For me, whenever I see a wrestler on the mat for an extended period of time, I always look at the ref to see whether the injury is serious.

2. Another point about making injuries seem more realistic: have the announcers take off their headset (and get a shot of them as concerned onlookers for added effect) and go to “dead air” - this would obviously increase the severity of the injury in the mind of the fans and make it seem like it wasn’t planned. This worked perfectly (at least on me) during the Owen Hart-Shawn Michaels match in 1995 after Shawn had been jumped outside a bar in Syracuse.

It also worked well on Raw recently after Jeff Hardy’s dive on Randy Orton - all we heard was the concerned voices of the medical staff and agents. However, some of the realism was lost when the medical staff conveniently waited for Jeff Hardy’s dive to attend to Orton (about a minute or two elapsed from the time Hardy got down from the entrance ramp and then climbed that structure), and when the two men were perfectly fine the next week on Raw. If a stunt like this was pulled in TNA, you know Don West and Mike Tenay would have been screaming a bunch of annoying nonsense. Especially in the cases of West and Tenay, silence is better than anything else (I’ll get to the announcers next week).

3. When a wrestler gets called out to the ring “unexpectedly,” don’t have that wrestler respond in ten seconds with his theme music cued up. Instead, have the wrestler come out in street clothes with no music - it seems far less planned.

4. When two wrestlers are talking “secretly” backstage, have the camera placed in a hidden location (not necessarily a surveillance video) so it seems like the meeting is actually secret. And the conversation can be either audible or not, depending on whether the writers want the conversations known or not. This sort of thing is done brilliantly on The Office (damn you, writer’s strike!). Anytime a wrestler tells the other one to keep the conversation “between you and me,” with the camera right there, everyone looks stupid, and the fan feels stupid for watching.

Now, I realize that Donnie and others have continually stressed that wrestling fans need to accept that it’s entertainment and that kayfabe is dead, and I accept that - but still, changes can be made to the product to make it more realistic, especially considering they’re SO easy to make.

There are certainly other subtle things that TNA could do in order to appear more realistic and unpredictable (and I encourage O-sters to share some of their suggestions as well), but the column is getting long, so I’ll end Part One with this: my girlfriend was totally opposed to watching wrestling when we first started dating, using that dreaded “fake” word for her reasoning as to why it’s nonsense.

After explaining to her that yes, storylines are scripted (just like her favourite show, ER), and the outcomes of matches are predetermined, I also added that being a good wrestler requires a lot of talent and determination, just like being a good actor, and she’s starting to come around. But she’s still jaded. With that being said, there have been a few moments, and I stress few, during a WWE show where she has had to ask me, “Was that planned?” or “Did he know that was going to happen?” It is these instances that can attract the casual fan and draw attention to the TNA product - particularly since these instances are few and far between in the WWE, and especially TNA.

Check back next week for Part 2 of How to Improve TNA.

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