I want to take a quick second to write this down, because I can’t believe I’m saying it.
Wrestling fans. If you find yourself with limited time and need to make a choice between watching WWE or TNA, choose TNA without hesitation. Seriously.
Shitcanning Vince Russo in favour of people with a clue has done wonders for that company. There’s good wrestling on Impact and the pay-per-views, and the angles are starting to largely make sense. Beyond C.M. Punk and Daniel Bryan, can you really say any of that about anything going on in WWE right now? No, you can’t.
Tonight, there is a 3 hour Raw for no reason. Starting in July, there will be 3 hour Raws every week. An extra hour for people who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing to work their magic.
Take tonight, for example. On this 3 hour Raw, the hook is that Vince McMahon is coming back to give General Manager John Laurinaitis a public job evaluation. If you’ve been watching with any sort of regularity and possess a memory longer than that of a goldfish, you will remember that this is the same John Laurinaitis that is in charge because of a series of events that began with Vince McMahon being removed from his position of authority by the board of directors due to a loss of confidence in his ability to run things. Sooooo…now, without any form of explanation as to how or why, Vince McMahon is back, giving out performance reviews. We, the fans, are expected to just accept this or better yet, forget about those pesky logic gaps through which you could drive a Greyhound. Vince is suddenly no longer incompetent. Take our word for it, ok? Thanks, fools.
For investing our time in WWE, we’re made to feel like idiots. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just this once, but it happens all the time.
Meanwhile over in TNA, they took that stupid Bobby Roode thing and are making a pretty fun story out of it. Better yet, they’ve let it go for 8 months now, complete with a babyface failure that wasn’t totally infuriating because it was clever and you can still tell where it’s headed in the end, you’re just not sure when and exactly how they get there. That, for the benefit of the WWE crew, is how this stuff is generally supposed to work.
But it’s not just that. Up and down the card, things are interesting and fun, to the point where I find myself looking forward to watching it every week. That doesn’t happen much with wrestling that isn’t Ring of Honor or Dragon Gate USA/Evolve.
TNA still has its problems, but who doesn’t? The point is that it’s dramatically improving and deserves your attention if you’ve never watched or stopped because it went through a long, dark retarded period. Give it a chance. You might just like it, even though it’s TNA.
