Ladies and gentlemen... I’m afraid to say that because The Nemesis’ article was frankly excellent (and I don’t have anything else really to add, or indeed change) then I’m not going to be doing a negative report of the year’s catastrophes.  They can be summed up in two words.

Abraham Washington

Ok so that’s not all, but read Nem’s article, he’s got it all covered.  The worrying part is, Abe’s actually improved since he started.  Seriously!  Take a look at some of his first shows on youtube, he can barely speak.  Actually, don’t.  Just take my word for it.  Don’t put yourself through that.  In fact I’m slightly sickened that his name stands out above this paragraph.

Anyway, instead of talking about 2009, I thought I should have a look at what could be a defining moment of the decade, as far as wrestling is concerned.  Monday the 4^th of January, 2010.  The day that TNA competed with RAW, and let’s be honest, they put on the better show.  The segments may not all have been WWE standard, with the usual holes you’d expect (I’ll talk about them later) but the matches were better and the Steel Asylum is definitely innovative as a concept.

Before I go any further, I should mention that I’ve watched a full episode of TNA maybe twice before.  I’ve got the same access to it as I have to the WWE, probably better in some cases, as I’ve relied solely on YouTube to get my wrestling fixes over the past couple of year.  WWE occasionally blocks matches – never the big ones, but usually ones involving McIntyre or Kofi, for some reason.

The main reason TNA could be successful

The talent in TNA is about the same level as in the WWE.  Ok so the backstage segments are a bit shaky, but you can always just look at the dress Christy Hemme’s wearing and you’re sorted.  In terms of wrestling talent, TNA has 4 strong divisions.

1)      Heavyweights - Matt Morgan, Samoa Joe, Hernandez, Desmond Wolfe and Christopher Daniels could viably go for the title at some point this year as far as I can tell, and that’s just the younger guys.  AJ Styles and Kurt Angle put on a very good match, and that makes a strong heavyweight division.  There are also Lashley, Abyss, Dinero (Burke) and Eric Young (who I’ve not seen but is a champion).  It’s a good heavyweight division, it’s not as strong as the WWE, but it definitely has potential.

2)      X division - which I guess must be like the Cruiserweight division, that now has the addition of Jeff Hardy (!) which came out of the blue, while there are also guys like the champion Amazing Red, Homicide, Homicide and the Motor City Machine Guns, Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin.  All of them seem exciting, and definitely worth watching.  The WWE has no Cruiserweight division, other than Bourne.

3)      Tag division – The Dudleys, MCMGs, British Invasion, Beer Money, Lethal Consequences.  Yes, I realise that’s 5 teams.  Not very much?  Let’s look at the WWE.  Cryme Tyme, Hart Dynasty, DX, Legacy, Baretta and Croft.  That’s 5 official teams over 3 shows, 6 if you count Big Show and whoever he’s with this week.  TNA appears to have a stronger tag division.

4)      Knockouts – TNA’s women’s division is so strong they can have a singles and a tag division, and it doesn’t look forced or ridiculous.  Not only that, but they’ve got girls who can actually wrestle!  We haven’t seen that in the WWE since... Victoria.  Incidentally, Victoria’s here, and looking good.  Why she had to spend her last weeks with the WWE jobbing to the Bellas I’ll never know.  The WWE’s diva’s division is a joke.  It maybe shouldn’t be as they have some decent divas really (Phoenix, Melina, Maryse, Gail Kim, McCool, Katie Lea and Natalya) but they’re spread across the 3 shows.  TNA has the likes of Awesome Kong, Tara (Victoria), Hamada, Taylor Wilde and Sarita.  All of them looked great in the ring, and I’m assuming there’s at least a couple more in there that can wrestle.  Also, Velvet Sky... hot!

The remainder seem to be old guys, whether they’ve just drafted them in or not.  If I’m honest, I’ve no idea who the Nasty Boys are, but at least one of them looks like he’s about to have a coronary.  Mick Foley, Sting, the nWo (X-Pac, Hall, Nash and Hogan), Jarrett, Rhino, Steiner, Richards, Raven and Ric Flair are all part of the company.  This represents the biggest problem that TNA is likely to face, and that is simply that all of these guys are going to want air time.  This isn’t going to be the case so much for the likes of Rhino, Stevie Richards, Raven or Tommy Dreamer when he inevitably ends up there, but that is a LOT of ego to have in one show.  Add Eric Bischoff to the mix and you have to doubt that TNA can contain all of these guys for much longer than a few months.

The thing is, if that all blows up on-screen then it could make for some interesting viewing.  If it happens behind the scenes, which is much more likely, then the show’s going to suffer.  As I’ve mentioned, there is a LOT of talent in TNA at the moment.  If you start sacrificing their air time to make way for all of the former WWF/E wrestlers, the ones who had their day AT LEAST 15 years ago, then you’re going to be struggling to maintain the audience’s interest. 

Just look at the WWE for the casing point.  Their main attractions are guys who they’ve clearly just run out of storylines for – The Undertaker, Triple H and Shawn Michaels are all title holders.  They’ve never stopped pushing John Cena, which is why the crowd occasionally get on his back (like this past RAW) and basically we’re sick of him.  Unfortunately, the kids aren’t.  He’s like The Rock or Stone Cold minus the charisma.  He can talk, yes, but he just doesn’t have that ability to make you laugh like The Rock (still love that sketch where he offers Lillian Garcia some of his... strudel) or the attitude of Stone Cold.  Natural showmanship is something you can’t learn.  Luckily for the WWE, however, they have The Miz.  Unfortunately for the WWE, there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to make him a loveable character.  Morrison’s great in the ring, but his mic skills seem to have fallen away since the days of The Dirt Sheet.  The WWE has a lot of potentially great wrestlers, but few potentially great showmen.  The next 5 years have to be the years of Edge, Jericho, Miz, Morrison, Orton, DiBiase and Kingston.  Maybe Sheamus.

TNA has to avoid the trap of turning to the veterans to pull out a good show and keep trusting the talent it’s created on its own.  If the main events start becoming full of the likes of Flair, Foley and the nWo, then their ratings are going to fall pretty quickly.  They need the excitement their younger stars can bring and use the veterans as sparingly as they can, just using them really to help along the younger guys. 

What TNA also need to do now is start attracting the unhappy (but still relatively young) talent from the WWE.  I’m talking about the likes of Charlie Haas, who’s not been seen on TV for months.  Other candidates are Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, MVP and Chavo Guerrero.  An obvious choice though, is Mr Kennedy.  I’m also talking about someone like Kane, who’s been woefully misused for years, and I feel has lost all credibility in the WWE since the Khali debacle.  He’s losing his legs and his movement’s not what it once was, but he’s still got another couple of years left in him and would also draw in some of the WWE fans.  At this point I should also say RIP Umaga – someone who would have done a great job in TNA

The Simple Things

If TNA is going to beat the WWE, then they have a simple way to go about it.  As the WWE is now the PG generation that we all know isn’t as entertaining as wrestling should be, they need to offer us something similar to the Attitude era.  They have the personnel to do it, you just have to wonder if they have the writers to do it.  The obvious way to draw some support in is by getting all of the ECW guys together when Dreamer arrives and have some real ECW action.  That’ll bring in almost everyone who’s been turned off by the insipid writing caused by changing the core demographic from late teens and 20-somethings to pre-teens.

Another simple thing they’ve already done is get the timing right.  If you’re going to go to war with RAW, as they’ve decided to do, they’ve done absolutely the right thing in putting themselves on one hour before RAW starts.  That way, if you can watch 2 hours of TNA, you can watch 2 hours of (nearly all) good wrestling, assuming they do that right.  Meanwhile, you get to miss out on whoever this week’s guest host is trying to sell whatever it is they’re trying to sell to you.  And they are ALWAYS trying to sell something to you.  Then you get to miss whatever rubbish the Divas are doing, and a mediocre match involving someone like Carlito, Henry or Masters.  I mean, those guys are all fine and decent enough to watch, but put them up against any of the likely TNA main events and I’d take TNA every time.

Back to the 4^th, which I guess I haven’t really covered in all that much detail.  TNA’s card looked like this:

Steel Asylum Match (like a cell with a hole in the top, means you have to climb up and then across to escape)  – Homicide, Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Chris Sabin, Amazing Red, Alex Shelley, Suicide, Kiyoshi

Jeff Hardy arrives at the end of the match and takes out Homicide.  Shannon Moore’s with him backstage a little later.

ODB vs. Tara

Foley, Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Waltman and Bischoff arrive.  Sting’s around somewhere as well (apparently he’s returning)

Awesome Kong and Hamada vs. Sarita and Taylor Wilde

The Beautiful people and Sean Morley (Val Venis) play strip poker, Nasty Boys arrive

Hernandez and Matt Morgan vs. Stevie Richards and Raven (w/Daffney) – Raven botched a save so we didn’t see much Hernandez

Orlando Jordan interrupts a Dinero interview

D’Angelo Dinero vs. Desmond Wolfe

Abyss vs. Samoa Joe

Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles

Now, this might not look absolutely fantastic, but every single match was better than what the WWE would be able to put on at each level.  It was also better than the WWE’s offering that night:

Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart reconcile

Maryse vs. Brie Bella

MVP vs. Mark Henry vs. Jack Swagger vs. Carlito

DX vs. JeriShow

Sheamus vs. Evan Bourne

Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston

Bret Hart gets kicked in the groin by Vince

Tell me which you’d rather see.  If you disagree I’d honestly like to see why.  I’ve been a WWE fan for a long time now, and what they come up with today really disappoints me, while TNA has offered me an alternative that’s exciting and has better technical wrestling for the most part.

I’m quite excited for TNA, and as long as they keep the formula right, keep aiming at the audience the WWE is missing completely, then they could really turn some heads and do some solid business.  In about 5 years or so the WWE will most likely try to take them over, or will put its weight back into making an Attitude Era II, but for now I’m hoping to enjoy the new TNA ride.

I’ve been The General, over and out.