In Which I Offer TNA A Critique and Some Helpful Advice

I've started watching TNA again. My reasons for which are mostly uncomplicated; I love Chris Sabin and I'm going to a show in two weeks. (So I'm going to be on TV. Look for the hat.)

My reasons for wanting to go to a TNA show are slightly more complicated, but we're just going to go with I love Chris Sabin for that one too.

I haven't watched TNA since probably 2009, 2010 at the latest. Actually the last one I watched was when Chris Sabin came back from a knee injury only to injure his OTHER goddamned knee.

I've heard rumors about TNA hemorrhaging money basically since I started watching in like 2009. They'd be bankrupt in a few years, they're losing $600,000 every house show (how that is even possible, I do not know), their checks to the talent keep bouncing, talents are taking paycuts, Dixie's dad is running the show.

TNA was like... my first real wrestling. I went to a ton of shows. I am extraordinarily fond of the roster. I think they have some great fucking talent there. Samoa Joe, Magnus, AJ Styles, Daniels, Kazarian, Chris Sabin, Eric Young, even Jeff Hardy, presuming he's got his shit together.

But watching TNA just makes me angry. It should be SO MUCH BETTER than it is. Why does it suck SO BAD?

I feel like a lot of the reasons were clearly illustrated on tonight's episode, which is supposed to be a "free pay per view" which isn't a half-bad idea, in theory.

The opening match was a four-man ladder match. Jeff Hardy, Kazarian, AJ Styles and Austin Aries. Generally solid match-up, plus a few weeks earlier AJ and Aries had what I considered to be an amazing match.

This one was just... boring. A lot of the spots were so weak you had to roll your eyes. They were flying all over the ring and out of it at the lightest touches. Hits and kicks were CLEARLY whiffed. I know; wrestling is "fake." I know. But I still think you need to put on a realistic, believable show. That's part of the THING, guys. I'm not saying that's their fault. I'm not really sure why that was choreographed the way it was. I just felt like that match was not very strong.

Then we had Dixie Carter make an appearance. I don't think we need Dixie to come around until she gets good at being on the mic. She sounded terrible. "So uhhh... Kurt Angle's in rehab... um... he'll be there for a while... he's still there now... um..." You know what? Get JB to be your voice. JB is fucking great. He can speak. he can speak WELL, and he can speak seriously and from the heart. Dixie doesn't need to be Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon is GOOD at what he does. Dixie Carter is not. And that's okay. You don't NEED to be the face of the company. You really don't.

Then two MMA fighters, Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz, talked to each other for a while.

I don't like MMA. I feel like by all logical means I probably should. It's still dudes beating each other up right? But I just don't like it. I find it boring. I like wrestling for the acrobatics. I love seeing dudes flying out of the ring.  MMA just looks like a lot of dudes rolling around hugging. If I wanted to watch shirtless dudes hugging, well... I'd watch something else.

Some wrestling fans DO like MMA, and that's totally okay. But I feel like that's why they're two separate things. If you want to watch MMA, watch MMA. If you want to watch wrestling, watch wrestling. Don't put MMA in my wrestling. If MMA dudes want to wrestle, great! Let them wrestle! Don't put them on the mic for fifteen minutes to TALK about either/both of these things!

Although admittedly I did find myself liking Rampage Jackson after that vignette. So that was OKAY... I guess.

I don't know why this MMA crossover thing is happening. Basically it sounds like those two dudes are shilling for this fight that I DON'T CARE ABOUT and I HAVE NO INTENT OR DESIRE TO SEE. Using MMA is not going to draw in WRESTLING FANS.

There were a ton of backstage vignettes. I don't have a problem with backstage vignettes; in moderation. I love backstage stuff. What goes on back there? What's it look like? What are they doing back there? I even like the way they're filmed. I love the handheld caught footage aspect of that. WWE doesn't have that. WWE's backstage scenes are always like "Oh there just NATURALLY happens to be a camera back here JUST IN TIME to film this TOTALLY UNSCRIPTED SCENE."

But when we have to talk backstage for fifteen minutes about a ten minute match... you know?

Moderation in all things.

The Knockouts match was okay. I like that they have A. Have a women's division and B. The women actually kick some ass. That's more than what I get from the WWE.  There COULD be more women, and they could be LESS like supermodel-lookin-diva-ladies (Hamada? Awesome Kong? Anybody?) but they're women and they're fighting and that's all I'm going to ask for. Maybe fight a dude every now and then. Intergender matches are the shit.

Then there was like a tag match with tables, and that was OKAY... and the cage match with Sabin and Bully Ray, which was probably the best but then again I'm kind of biased... it was just altogether not a very strong show.

If I had one piece of advice, one aspect to change on TNA wrestling, this is what I would offer.

1. Wrestling. Back to basics. You have a fucking amazing roster. USE IT. You are a wrestling show. You market yourself as TNA/IMPACT WRESTLING. You call the people working on your show WRESTLERS. You put on WRESTLING MATCHES. Do you see what I'm getting at here? You are a WRESTLING show. You want to attract WRESTLING fans. Fans of wrestling have STOPPED WATCHING YOU because your wrestling, the CORE OF YOUR SHOW, is so goddamn terrible!

This is your foundation. This is the thing that your show, your company, was BUILT on. Right now you have too many branches on too small a base. MMA! Phone apps! Action figures! Record albums!

We don't need any of this crap!

We want wrestling!

That's it! GOOD wrestling. Good, CONSISTENT wrestling. I want a solid match. I want a clean ending. I don't want interference from outside sources, I don't want illegal weapons, I don't want cheaty pins with feet on ropes, I don't want cheaty pins with tights being grabbed. I want a clean pin or a clean submission. I want two dudes (or two teams, or whatever) in the ring, who know what they're doing. I don't want gimmicks or surprises or interference or weapons or whatever. Two dudes, in the ring, one loser one winner.

I don't think I ask for that much.

I haven't been watching for long enough to get a long-term picture of what this show is doing, but the Heavyweight title has changed hands twice since I started watching. I don't like the sound of that at all. By slapping around your MAIN TITLE you devalue it. If it's changed hands two different times in the past MONTH, you're saying anyone can get it.

That's just a pet peeve of mine; WWE does that too occasionally.

But seriously. TNA, Dixie, Hulk Hogan, Bischoff, whoever is running the damn joint, please. PLEASE. I don't purport to know what you're doing or how you're doing it. I wouldn't know how to run a wrestling company if my life depended on it. But I really, truly, seriously think you cannot go wrong with buckling down and going back to your core basis, which is badass motherfuckin' wrestling.

I know you can do it. I have seen matches that PROVE you can do it. You don't need MMA and a hundred different factions and points and free-per-views and mobile apps and action figures and whatever else the fuck. Quit this fucking nonsense and go script some legit wrestling. Your show is two hours long. Try making at least an hour of that pure wrestling. You don't need to talk about it, just put this dude and that dude out there and let them duke it out. Do they need a reason? Fuck no they don't need a reason. AJ Styles and Austin Aries from a couple weeks back was fucking AMAZING. Why were they fighting? Who gives a fuck? It was great! And then you said "Now we have to finish up this amazing stiff as fuck match so we can have talking."

No. We don't need to have talking. I don't give a fuck about talking. I want to watch dudes beat the shit out of each other. You don't need to complicate things. You really don't. If you put on consistent, good, quality, not gimmicky wrestling... seriously, it will only help you. You cannot go wrong with building up your foundation, you just can't.

Seriously, TNA. You have SO MUCH POTENTIAL with your roster, and I have seen you do amazing, badass, brilliant motherfucking things. Stop trying to be every fucking thing at once. Just be wrestling.

You did this once.

You can do it again.

Dear Wrestling: A Love Letter

In Defense of AIW

So this podcast happened, right?

As a rule, I don't really like podcasts. I don't know why, I just find them boring. I don't even like Colt Cabana's podcasts that much, even though I've found them hilarious when I've heard them, and I generally just adore Colt Cabana. (Who DOESN'T adore Colt Cabana though, am I right?)

But there was this podcast. I heard about it when I woke up to go to work at 5am yesterday and my twitter feed was just blown up with tweets about AIW. I was like "What the hell is this?" and then I went to work.

Over the past day or so I've learned a little more about what the hell happened and listened to some of this podcast, in the interest of fairness.

I didn't like it.

Danielle Matheson, the podcast... I don't know, owner? Host? goes into a rant about AIW and the fans in general. She basically called the fans shitty and bad and homophobic and racist and sexist and... stuff. Really strong stuff.

That's basically what I'm going to focus on here. There are some other things (Whether or not AIW is bad, whether or not someone used the N word in a chant during an ACH/AR Fox match -- I wasn't there, I don't know -- whether or not her personal information was given out and she received threats. If that's true, that's not cool, guys, come on.)

Let me tell you about myself.

I've been going to AIW since 2011.

I've gone alone to almost all of the shows. I've gone alone, to the west side of Cleveland, to an arena with a very large majority of men.

I have never felt unsafe there. I have never felt afraid or threatened, felt like my own personal safety was at any point a serious issue. I have had wrestlers come barreling through the crowd, over the barrier, throwing things in my near vicinity (like a table... and a garbage can) and I have had to move out of the way very quickly. I have never felt threatened or afraid.

In fact, when I took a personal hiatus, and I came back to AIW after being away for NEARLY AN ENTIRE YEAR, I STILL had people coming up to me and telling me they missed me, and giving me big squishy awesome hugs, and telling me they were glad to see me coming back to shows.

AIW... feels like home. Feels like family. I go to shows and I see the same faces every time. People say hi. People wave. People talk to you. When I first started going, I knew no one. And I made friends. It's not easy for me to make friends. Maybe it's something about wrestling. Maybe it's being misunderstood and then being in a group FULL of people like you, who all came together out of that misunderstanding. These people, for better or for worse, are my people.

In any case, I love my AIW friends. I love that so many people said "Hey, welcome back! We missed your face!"

Now, about the crowd at large.

Are we obnoxious? Yes. Are we vulgar? Fuck yes we are. To me, that's one of the best parts of AIW. We chant what we want, when we fucking want to, because we fucking can, and fuck you if you don't like it. One of my favorite chants of all time is "YOU'RE GONNA GET YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD KICKED IN" usually chanted at Johnny Gargano.

Now, are there some wrestling fans that are sexist, or racists, or homophobic, or generally just shitty people? Yes. Because when you put a large group of people together, you're going to get a mixture of things. You get people from everywhere, all walks of life. Have I heard people say shitty racist, sexist things while at an AIW show? Yes. Yes I have. But I've heard people say shitty racist things at the bar. Hell, I've heard my own mother say shitty racist things. Because one person in one place says a shitty thing, it doesn't make the whole group shitty. That's actually being prejudiced.

Like I said, I don't know if someone was shouting racist things at ACH and/or AR Fox. I wasn't there. I don't have that DVD. I don't know. If it's true, yes that person did set a bad example. That one person does not represent AIW, the company or the crowd.

People probably shouldn't chant racist or sexist things. I agree with you there.

But you can't tell people what to chant or not to chant. That's just not on. John Thorne and Chandler Biggins don't have to control us to make us more tolerable for the rest of the world. We are perfectly happy doing what we do. You don't like us? Go away. Controlling us for your own pleasure is not their job. They provide great wrestling. That's what they do. If anything I've heard is any indication, it's not very easy, either. Policing us like this is 1984 is shit that they don't need. And to what end? Because someone, somewhere, might be offended by something? Here's the thing. If you're out looking to find something to be offended by, chances are high that you're going to find it.

AIW works. Their last show, Absolution 8, sold out. People come from out of state to see AIW shows. Some of their highest draws are the Girls Night Out shows, shows featuring ONLY women wrestlers. Is that sexist? That's awesome, is what it is.

I don't like it when people say shitty racist or sexist things either. I really wish all that shit would go away. But people are just going to say shitty things, because people are always and only people. They are imperfect. There are always going to be assholes.

But I really, truly resent the implication that ALL AIW fans are shitty people. I don't think I'm a shitty person. I'm not racist, or homophobic, and I'm certainly not sexist. Because one person said one thing at one show ONE TIME, a show that I was not even AT, suddenly I'm a terrible excuse for a human being? I really don't appreciate that. I don't know who you think you are that you can make that kind of broad-sweeping generalization.

If you don't like AIW, fine. Then don't like it for the booking, for the venue, because it's in Cleveland, because the quality is bad, because the tickets or the DVDs are too expensive, whatever. Something. Don't hate it because of something that is literally out of its control, that makes it what it is.

(AIW fans, this is directed at you. I've heard that some of you threatened the podcast host lady. If you did, and I sincerely hope that you didn't, that's not cool. If someone accuses you of being shitty and bad, the way to respond to that is not to be shitty and bad. Threatening people is generally never the answer. Please don't threaten her. You can disagree with a person civilly.)

I love AIW. I will continue to love AIW and go to shows, and hang out with my buddies, and shout loud, vulgar things at wrestlers, because it is awesome. Because it is fun. It makes me happy. If you don't like AIW... don't come to a show. Don't buy the DVDs. It's that easy. You don't have to like us. We don't care.

Listen... we're all wrestling fans here, right? We all love wrestling? Instead of trying to divide into groups or cliques or whatever... let's all just... love wrestling, okay? We're all on the same side here.

Finally, in closing:

Spotlight: Michael Elgin

I recently returned to the land of independent wrestling after a rather long hiatus, because of reasons that don't matter because HI

Naturally my drug of choice is AIW, Absolute Intense Wrestling, otherwise known as The Only Wrestling In Cleveland That Matters. The show? Absolution 8.

Absolution is like AIW's answer to Wrestlemania, except with actual wrestling and less explosions and more mind-blowing twists. (Like last year, when #Nixon was revealed to be ERIC RYAN (And RSP, and Bobby Beverly, although you really kind of just expect Bobby Beverly to be involved with that sort of thing, and Duke) and then he threw a table at me. Well, not at me personally, he threw a table and I just happened to be in front of it. Admittedly it sure does beat having a GARBAGE CAN thrown at you, but I digress.

Needless to say, if you go to one AIW show, go to Absolution. (If you go to two, you should probably go to JLIT and save on your travel expenses.)

Anyway, the point I was trying to make here, is I went to AIW for the first time in the while and I'm a little bit out of the loop, because one of the most amazing, ridiculous, easily show-stealing matches of the night was between Michael Elgin and Josh Alexander, AKA two guys I had literally never heard of before that night.

I don't know what rock I was hiding under.

I really want to make a The Rock joke in there somewhere, but I'll refrain. I'm a professional, damn it. This post is supposed to be about Michael Elgin being badass.

Anyway, here I am at Abso8 and here is this match between dudes that I do not know. (Although I had been sitting in front of Michael Elgin as he was shilling shirts, and he definitely at one point said "Hey, those nachos would taste better if you were wearing an Elgin shirt" and I do not doubt the veracity of this claim.)

It looks like one of those matches that's going to be brawling and grappling, which is okay but not my favorite. After a while it's like "Okay if I wanted to watch MMA... I'd watch MMA!"

But here's this match. It's okay. Lots of grappling as I expected, but I'm not bored. Neither guy is really coming out as a heel or face so I'm not real sure who to root for. Then here is Michael Elgin, holding Josh Alexander upside down, straight up in the air. Which I've seen, we've all seen it. I'm not sure why being upside down makes it more effective but it looks pretty cool. It's impressive, I suppose, in the physical sense.

Michael Elgin held that move for something close to two minutes.

Any other time I've seen it, the guy holds it for ten seconds, maybe twenty if he's trying to be impressive (or if the opponent is smaller than he is).

But this guy, Michael Elgin, this guy right here, holds Josh Alexander, who is easily Elgin's size if not maybe slightly taller, upside down, straight up, over his head, for two minutes. Well, I didn't have like a stopwatch going, but I will comfortably say between a minute and a half to two. When the DVD comes out, we can time it.

(On an aside, kudos to you Mr. Alexander for being upside down for that long. I applaud you. His face was PURPLE, guys.)

And he suplexes Alexander and I'm like, "Welp! This guys has my vote."

The match goes on for a spine-melting thirty minutes of awesomeness. There were suplexes and powerbombs so massive I thought the ring was going to break. There were near-falls that had me clutching my hat in shock. There was at least one "This is awesome!" and "Holy shit!" chant. The room pretty much collectively lost its shit.

In the end they simply ran out of time. They ran down their thirty minute time limit, because that's how amazing they are. They each got on the mic, put each other over, and set a rematch.

Needless to say, I'm ready.


 Here's an MV of Michael Elgin vs. Davey Richards, because who doesn't also love a little Davey Richards am I right? It's not a match so much as it is a match cut and edited to music, but it's still pretty badass. Apparently Michael Elgin is in ROH which perhaps accounts for a bit of my cluelessness. I haven't followed ROH with any degree of consistency since they went off HDNet. It also turns out that Elgin is actually in contendership for the Heavyweight title.

Whoops.


Anyway, here is him vs. Brodie Lee. He does get the crap beat of him a bit but he puts on a heck of a good fight. Also, the announcer at one point uses the phrase "beating the cock out of", so there's that.


Here's one with him and Josh Alexander, from 2009, when they were but wee tiny babies. You can see a ghost of the awesomeness that will be them at Abso, especially around the 10 minute mark when Elgin goes "ALRIGHT I have had ENOUGH of your SHIT Alexander!"


A proper match between Elgin and Davey Richards. For whatever reason I enjoy these two together; I think it's because I find them to be similar. Not in movesets or anything -- Davey Richards is more like KICKS and FLYING, whereas Elgin is like "I WILL POWERBOMB YOUR FACE" -- but because you basically have to half-kill them to keep them down. Three-quarters in the case of Davey Richards. And maybe that aspect doesn't show so much in this match but in Abso8? Oh my goodness. I actually found myself rooting against Davey while watching this, which is rare, to say the least.

And one final time, here he is wrestling obvious crowd favorite Manabu Soya. In it you will find excellent of examples of Elgin just not staying the fuck down, and those massive powerbombs I mentioned earlier.

So, if you're a clueless noob like I am, apparently, I hope I made a good case for Michael Elgin and why you should definitely know who he is. I hope he does well in ROH with his title aspirations... just so long as he doesn't forget about AIW and the rematch he promised us!