Five-Star Conversation 09.01.09: TNA Closure

Posted by Geoff Eubanks on 09.01.2009

I’d planned on moving on this week, but I think we need to put a note of finality on this Angle/Jarrett/Carter TNA situation before we leave it completely behind.

In the meantime, I want to know what you good folks think about Rey Mysterio's Wellness violation and the validity of his claim to have a prescription, as well as the apparent fact that Bryan Danielson is set come to World Wrestling Entertainment.

DID YOU KNOW?: This is really neither here nor there, but I friggin LOVE this:



BREAK IT DOWN!
Before we head into COMMENTPALOOZA, let's take a little break…catch our breath…and enjoy a little levity with that wonder, that legend of Los Angeles Public Access Television…FRANCINE DANCER!!!



(Neither the author of Five-Star Conversation nor the owners/proprietors of 411Mania.com are responsible for blindness, madness, Family Guy-style vomiting or the Chris-style losing of one's mind, either Brown or Benoit, following the viewing of Francine Dancer.)

COMMENTPALOOZA!
Personally, I think this has gotten way out of hand. A messy personal situation, for sure, but no reason to mess up the backstage scene for sure.

I think what people are ignoring is Dixie Carter throwing her weight around as a corporate suit and sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

It did dawn on me maybe that's the reason the promos and matches between Angle/Jarrett were so intense and personal.

Also, what's up with everyone saying this'll be the end of them in a few years? They've lasted nearly a decade. I love how all the TNA-haters glance over the NUMEROUS scandals WWE's weathered or had behind the scenes, and still made it out.
Posted By: Guest#7456

But has Carter overstepped her boundaries as President of TNA in having addressed (and subsequently acted upon) the situation involving Jarrett and Angle? That was kinda what I was attempting to point out last week. No, I, personally, do not think Carter was out of line in addressing the situation. My question/criticism last week was two-fold: 1) I have a problem with the anonymous phone call placed to the radio show, both who made the call, thus blowing the public whistle on Jarrett and Karen Angle, and, more importantly, WHY was that call made (and who all was in on it); and 2) why is sending Jarrett home under the auspices of being responsible of poor company public relations for breaking the "Bro-Code" acceptable, but when Angle finds himself in actual legal having-to-stand-before-a-judge kind of trouble, he not only retains the company's standard-bearing title, but faces no disciplinary action at all?

I could possibly be convinced to buy the argument that Jarrett, being the Vice-President and co-founder of the company, should possibly be forced to be held to a higher standard of behavior, but no one but those of us here in geekland know or care about the Jarrett/Karen situation, whereas the media absolutely LOVES a "wrestler caught with steroids in the midst of stalking his ex-girlfriend while driving illegally" kind of story, and it could be argued that a company's champion, as the ambassador to the fans, should similarly be held to a higher standard of conduct, as well.

I will also reiterate here that the only reason this wasn't made such a big deal in the media is because of the "under the radar" position TNA currently "enjoys". TNA is currently in the middle of believing its' self to be bigger than it really is now that it has solid funding and a bevy of performers who are household names, as long as wrestling is spoken fairly fluently in such households.

However, and this is why I hinted at this incident being the impetus (or at least symptomatic of such impetus) for possible demise of the company; unless I hear differently, I am going to have to believe that the phone call placed to the radio show was done purposefully and with intent to give Panda the green light to unseat Jarrett and begin company-wide changes it felt 1) needed to be made for the further success of TNA and 2) would be easier to implement with Jarrett effectively out of the way. Since Jarrett's ouster, we've seen people shuffled around inside the company and others terminated outright altogether, those terminated, coincidentally, being Jarrett loyalists.

Now I'm not saying business is always going to be on the up-and-up or that it's always going to be pleasant or favorable to all involved. It simply will not be by nature, whether we're discussing running a professional wrestling company, a Wendy's or a HMV (for my British friends). However, this news feels disturbing because it doesn't tell me anything about TNA becoming smarter about branding or promoting a better, more marketable product, it displays to me that TNA has become big enough to qualify itself to employ enough old timers looking to cash in on their name-recognition and be as big a fish as they can for as much money as they can before they hang ‘em up.

Like I said last week, Angle convincing Carter he belongs on the booking committee doesn't tell me he knows how to book, it tells me he's learned to politick, and that sounds a little too much like WCW to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm Chicken Little-ing this situation and suggesting we send this guy down to Orlando anytime soon:



All I am saying is that, until now, we've had a wrestling mind (Jarrett) running a wrestling company (TNA) with the dedicated revenue of a non-wrestling company (Panda) that apparently is beginning to think that it knows better how to run a wrestling company than does the wrestler. Now, Jarrett is one wrestler, Angle is another, and obviously, one is in better with Carter than is the other. I still have to question Angle's unproven ability to book as Carter, apparently, is taking steps to run TNA herself.

There are differences between running one specialized business from another, and that's always been the thing, qualms with Vince McMahon or not, McMahon grew up watching and experiencing how to not only run a wrestling business, but expand and innovate the business. Carter doesn't have knowledge/creativity and it doesn't matter how many wrestlers with whom she surrounds herself, I doubt anyone under TNA's employ at the moment has a clue with respect to how to revolutionize the industry, much less simply have the ability to create a truly alternative program to any of the three brands WWE is running currently, otherwise we'd be seeing that from them already.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate TNA's product, certainly their incredibly talented roster of performers, but it's reported widely that TNA has the same "Let's get Vince" mentality that blinded Bischoff back when he was in a position to actually do so, but failed, largely because he became too consumed with the celebrity status he was busy creating for himself (and, judging by the cocky, "cat that ate the canary" grin plastered on Carter's face during her iMPACT! debut last week, I hope she's not raking the leaves off that path).

Bubba has something on his show called "Protection". This is what you heard. Anyone can call and say "protection" and bubba will scramble their voice. He has been doing this for many many years.
Posted By: Guest#7105

A-ha, so there's that mystery solved. Now it's just up to who exactly made the call and, more importantly, why. Was this person acting alone or was there something bigger behind it? I'm not calling Mulder and Scully out on this one, but one wonders and the fact that no one is questioning this has me arching a brow…

Kinda hit the nail on the head with regards to the treatment of Jarrett vs. the handling of Angle, especially where public perception of the company is implied. I just feel like TNA does this constantly - remember when Austin Aries and Roderick Strong were a part of the roster? Aries and Strong get suspended for honoring indy bookings against the company's wishes and yet big stars like Jeff Hardy and Sean Waltman were somehow allowed to no-show TNA events numerous times.

So, yeah...consistency. Gotta love it. BTW, you cracked my shit up this week, Geofafa.

Hey Geoff, you should also take a look at Sforcina's latest Ask 411 column...he gives a really well-stated explanation of Vince Russo's positive attributes being that most folks tend to focus on his more negative traits. Kind of made me look at the current atmosphere in TNA a bit differently.
Posted By: JMAC

Ah, yes…how could I forget Hardy and Waltman's no-showing (I think you throw Hall & Nash no-showing events, too, can't you…?), as opposed to the issue with Aries & Strong, although, in fairness to TNA with respect to Aries & Strong, if I recall correctly, TNA was basically looking to draw a line in the proverbial sand where its' contracted talent was concerned and their ability to work for other franchises to supplement their income, and, basically, Aries & Strong, although in doing the right thing by honoring an indie booking, tacitly screwed themselves out of a TNA contract, which is a damn shame (I'd also wait to pass absolute judgment on Waltman as I'm not sure he was under an iron-clad TNA contract versus pay-per-appearance deal with the company at the time of his shenanigans). But, you get it.

I did read Sforcina's awesome Ask 411 column (as you should, too!) and I really did appreciate his comments on Russo, and he's right, but his comments play into Daj's comments, as well, so let's push along…

with regard to tna, my opinion of them as an organisation hasn't changed that much since i started to pay a bit more attention to them, when angle joined in 2006; if it was vince mcmahon in the trenches with the talent they have, they would be a heck of a lot closer to matching wwe in terms of exposure.

i always took a look at their ratings, found it somewhere between 1.0 and 1.4, and would think "how are they plataeuing like this when they have angle, sting, joe, aj...?" etc

it seems to me that since angle joined, the company has been working on the wcw principle of signing one of vince's stars in an attempt to cause a swing in the balance of power/exposure. in the most recent case, when mick foley defected, i was extremely skeptical (and from the looks of things, right to be so) about how he could create a spike in the ratings (no pun intended), especially if angle and booker and such couldn't.

i personally share the opinion of britain's top dirt sheet, power slam, in that the company needs to concentrate on the aftermath of angles and matches more for their storylines to have a proper impact (e.g. when daffney took a bump into thumbtacks, only for the show to cut to the next item pretty much straight after her match had finished)

as for red dwarf, i'd highly recommend you take a look at the later series as well geoff, if anything because after series three the show got significant budget increases and looks aesthetically much better and so the sci-fi element is much improved.

oh, and i'm doing a degree in mathematics, so my biology teacher completely failed in trying to convince me to pursue environmental sciences, which giving me that work experience was an attempt to do.
Posted By: DaJ

I agree with you and Power Slam, DaJ. That's another thing we see all too little of in wrestling all the way around anymore, and I think that's a lingering symptom of The Attitude Era. Fans became so consumed with laying call-and-response with The Rock, The Godfather, d-generation-X, etc., and, from there, to get to the table spot, or the ladder crash-and-burn, actual storytelling in wrestling became secondary, unless we were going with something so totally outlandish and overdone (Katie Vick, Vince's obsession with off-ing his character, etc.).

This was something I was thinking about just this morning, and why I think there's really something to be said for traditional southern American ‘rasslin. There's just something about the way a southerner tells a story that sets it apart from any other North American territory. I don't mean to come off bigoted here, or prejudicial, but there's a reason why the American south has such a rich and varied history in professional wrestling, from Dallas to Charlotte to Florida to Memphis.

This certainly isn't to suggest that only southerners know how to book wrestling, or that all southerners are necessarily good at it (obviously, we've seen some great stories told up north in The AWA, the Pacific-Northwest, the old school Chicago and St. Louis territories, etc.), just that there's an art to telling a story that southerners seem to appreciate and embrace in a way, perhaps, the rest of us in the country don't have the patience to see through to completion, or are too tempted to throw on a bunch of superfluous bells and whistles, rather than allowing a good, solid story stand on its' own?

To hearken back to JMAC's comment, by way of Sforcina's Russo observation, one thing Sforcina offers on Russo's behalf is that nobody starts an angle as well as Russo:

Russo has a unique booking style, which, like all booking styles, has its positives and negatives. But most people focus on the negatives, and ignore the positives. Here are a few of them.

Russo cares about everyone on the roster. Russo has a mentality that if you have someone under contract, you should use them. As opposed to WWE creative, who let people go if it's too much work to think of something to do with them.

Everyone he cares about he works hard on giving them a look, a persona, moves, the lot. Russo's the kind of guy who'll lay awake at night thinking of a midcarder's signature moves, until he gets it exactly right.

Consistency and logic. This one is kinda weird, in that it's claimed his totally illogical and yet you can clearly claim he's logical. But regardless of your attitude to his storylines' logic, under Russo people don't get along just because they both hate the fans. Old animosities are remembered and referenced. Shades of Grey is much maligned, but it's a hell of a lot more interesting when done right. (It's just that sometimes he doesn't spell things out in little bite sized chunks and that confuses people.)

First chapters. Russo is probably one of the best opening chapter writers in Wrestling. When Russo starts something, it does tend to be involving, gripping and interesting.

He pushes women. It's a straight dichotomy, that Russo both objectifies women (giving them stripper outfits and gimmicks) while at the same time pushing them (you find a hell of a lot more women running around under him, plus some who are pushed and pushed hard, like Sable).

Starmaking. Perhaps the biggest positive Russo brings that is weirdly totally ignored is that Russo pushes new talent. Edge, Christian and The Hardys all got their breaks under Russo. Foley got pushed to the Main Event due to Russo. Russo understands that you have to make new stars to succeed.

He's honest. Russo is a ratings chaser. He admits this. And that's what people hire him for. He doesn't pretend to be something he's not. If you want buyrates to go up, then leash him. But if you want ratings up, let him go.

But above all, Russo lets the talent work. As opposed to the WWE's current script out everything approach, Russo lets the talent do their own thing, he gives out pointers, not scripts, unless the talent needs them.

Russo is much maligned. But he has many positives. He just has to be controlled.

I have to agree 100%, especially with what Sforcina said about "first chapters". I recall when I migrated in seemingly random fashion back to TNA to give it still another shot on the occasion that happened to be the night the MEM formed. I was stoked! I was thinking, NOW we have something happening here! This has to be the beginning of an angle that ultimately ends up using the collective star power of all these name talents TNA's accumulated to get over the myriad young guys who have yet to really ascend to their rightful states as (predominantly) home-grown talent, some of whom have been with TNA since day one.

Sadly, this story petered off into an nWo-style morass of confusion and more oldster proliferation. I still maintain the MEM story jumped the shark when, rather than build to and continue in with an obvious, though logical, foregone conclusion that TEAM 3D would join MEM, they turned their backs on MEM to lead The FRONTLINE, which makes no sense, left the teams completely uneven, and in the favor of THE FRONTLINE, who always allowed themselves to be foolishly divided and conquered.

Now it seems we're hitting the reset button once more in this regard, only, after some disappointing PPV patty-cake (although some entertaining TV matches), now we're apparently heading into another one of Russo's favorite stories, gang warfare. Simply put, it now leaves TNA to really get its shit together and overtake the MEM/WORLD ELITE alliance (which, if they're smart, they'll plant some seeds of doubt in the minds of WE, because it's obvious Angle thinks he and MEM need to recruit WE, otherwise why in the world would The Proud American Kurt Angle sit idly by and allow Eric Young to badmouth the country he broke his freakin neck to represent in The Olympics?).

This program has a huge upside, in that, it could, once again, stand to put a grip of young stars at the top of the card and to depict the fact that TNA means young, capable, hungry talent, along with some familiar faces. However, I ask again, if Angle ends up booking, can he be that voice who writes satisfying, functional endings to Russo's gripping beginnings, or is he in it to go to bat for his MEM buddies and other peers who don't think their time has really come to retire just yet and does Carter really get the difference and is she ready to stand up to Angle and whoever and rectify a mess should one be made? This is the difference between what TNA could be and what it needs to be wary of not becoming, in my opinion.

I've always been wanting to ask the 411 Wrestling section writers this, who is your favorite booker of all time? Now I know some people will say Heyman or Bischoff or possibly even Russo but I was always curious seeing as how no one ever seems to define who their favorite goes as far as booking.
E-mailed By: John Bateman

All that said about the quality of southern booking, and I do believe it, I have to say my favorite booker has to be Paul Heyman. I'll repeat my recent gushing:

[Heyman] managed to turn "just another indie fed" Eastern Championship Wrestling into internationally recognized and ripped off Extreme Championship Wrestling, providing Vince McMahon with the business model by which to turn around a stale WWF when WCW was wiping the floor with them with its' Roman candle hipness. [Author's note: I do realize Heyman ripped off Japan's FMW with respect to bringing extreme to American shores.]

He's displayed the ability to book talent the way talent needs to be booked (ie, hiding flaws while pushing strengths) both while running ECW and booking SmackDown! (leading the Silver and Blue brand to the only period in the show's history that it defeated Raw in the ratings), he knows how to write strong, consistent stories, complete with coherent character development that leads to creating stars, all of which are the only things keeping TNA at this point of its' evolution from really being a viable contender to WWE.

I know it seems silly, like, if these people are doing this stuff for a living, if Vince McMahon is such a genius, WHY do we have such an anemic product from virtually every franchise on television in America? But booking is NOT an easy job, what with your own vision playing and changing and developing in your own mind while you have the desires of management, the fans and the boys breathing down your neck, to say nothing of feeling as if you've finally gotten the story just so and there's a pay-off right around the corner, and then someone gets hurt or, in WWE, suffers a Wellness infraction, and it's back to the drawing board.

However, I would still love to know how Heyman and Russo, the two New Yawk boys, would get on sharing the book. I suspect that with TNA management dictating who gets pushed, assuming they stick with their current ideology of creating young stars, and Heyman employing the "booking backwards" theory that has brought so much success to him and McMahon (back when Uncle Vinnie used to use it), with Russo's ability to create a compelling beginning to the story, the both of them could then work together to flesh out the center of the story, working with the talent to get from A to B in successful fashion.

No...I meant it the exactly way I meant it. From titles being held up when it was clear that "instant replay" would have solved the issue, to "suspensions" of fan favorites because they used a bat on someone (which means they were suspended b/c they broke character) to always erring on the side of caution in favor of a heel getting a rematch after a top rope malfunction in Indianapolis with The Rockers and The Hart Foundation or Flair being pinned by Kevin Von Erich only to see another official run out of the back and say that Flair threw Kevin over the top rope which is an automatic DQ (hence keeping the belt but losing the match).

These moments made victories over Flair sweeter (Ronnie Garvin for instance) and even the most special of SummerSlam moments hit home (Warrior squashing HTM) because the heel after months and years in some cases of using the rules to protect himself succumbs to defeat.

Onto the column, I gave a bit of my take on the Angle situation in my yet to win an award column a few weeks ago. If Nash doesn't have the keys to the booking kingdom (with or without Real Estate Steve) within 2 years, I'll be shocked.

TNA 2011 = The Nash Association
Posted By: thegunisgood2009

See, I think that's the difference between you having grown up on NWA and The WWF has allowed you a wider observation of how things can be booked, as opposed to me only having The WWF to watch back in the day, because there always seemed to be a face-over-heel bias where Tunney et. al. were concerned in New York, mainly because, more often than not, booking had to protect Hogan's stranglehold on the HWT, as opposed to The NWA having to accommodate uber-heel Flair constantly being allowed to weasel away with Big Goldie.

It used to drive me MAD when Hogan would lose the title under the same quality of hijinx he'd employ to keep it "in the name of what was right and good", only for fucking Jack Tunney to come on in the aftermath of such a "travesty of justice" to announce they'd created a special PPV just so Hogan could rematch for the title he "should never have lost", of course, in this instance, I'm referencing the prelude to Flair's winning the Royal Rumble to become WWF Champion after Hogan and Taker couldn't win it from the other without incident, but PLENTY of rules were bent in favor of faces like Hogan, Santana, Snuka, etc.

As for Nash, I don't know. I think he's smart enough to recognize his short-comings from his last stint as booker a decade ago and may not want to wear that crown again. He claims as much now, saying his 13 year-old son needs a father more than TNA needs him to tell stories for them and I hope he's telling the truth there. Of course, he could just as soon come back, accept the position and say, "My son just turned 14 and he don't need his old man anymore, cuz, like most 14 year-olds, he's learned everything there is to know, so his old man's got his business pen and his thinking cap back out of the mothballs!"

Stranger things have happened.

BTW, gun, what do you think of Real Estate Steve on the booking committee following his in-ring retirement, apparently later this month? He seems to be incredibly fair-minded and doesn't have a reputation for going into business for himself, or bending anyone to his will. Could he be a solid, unwavering force for TNA, because it seems to me they could use one. Do you think he's creative enough?

Carter and the TNA business people need to lay down the law with the wrestlers. No wrestlers or their family members ought to be on the Booking Committee. Furthermore, they need to ban fraternization of a romantic nature between talent. Most real corporations have such a rule and if TNA implemented it earlier, they'd like not have the whole Jarrett-Angle fiasco in the first place. If they want to survive long term, then they need to stop be carnies and start being real businesspeople.
Posted By: Iron Knee

That's a great consideration, Knee, but that sounds like a bunch of well-intentioned institution that would be broken as soon as it was made law. You mean to suggest that, if Booker, for instance, hooked up Stevie Ray with Dixie Carter because he had a brilliant story idea and she, based on that idea, wanted to offer Stevie a job, she'd not be able to because Booker is already an active roster member?

More likely to occur, imagine, eg, Alex Shelley getting smoochie with Sereta backstage. Things are going well and it's looking as if Shelley's gonna end up dipping is tortilla chip in her queso dip. Do you think, if it goes that far, either of them is going to go, whoops, we can't do this, it's against the rules, or will they just Cross the Line and make sweet love down by the fire?

As a matter of fact, considering what we've seen in the past month out of TNA management, it wouldn't surprise me if they made an example of Shelley and disciplined him, while allowing Sereta to proceed at will, because they'll view her as a greater commodity (to say nothing of the difference between what WWE would do with Shelley versus what they could do with Sereta).

I think you've made some really good points about Angle/Jarrett and Dixie Carter. I hate seeing Angle putting himself in this position but I have to ask: Even if he has a prescription, should he be driving around with syringes and vials? Isn't that something you keep at home in a medicine cabinet where it's clean and theoretically sterile?

The real question is how does Dixie let this slide, as if he's guilty of nothing else the driving while suspended is still illegal?

Back to our Mark Henry discussion, Henry was in a group of people who went immediately from training onto tv to his detriment. In prior years it wasn't unusual for a wrestler to spend several years on the circuit before making to the main roster. Scott Steiner talked a lot about it in an interview, the sheer amount of ring time needed before you could go on television.

Big Show is another guy this happened to, as Hogan, in his autobiography stated that he and Bisch wanted Show out while he still looked raw and undisciplined. Henry came up so fast because his contract was, as I recall, 10 years and $10 million and Vince needed to see some return on that investment. It's just been in the last few years that Henry has matured as a wrestler.

Here's hoping that the rest of the current crop of mid-carders have a better run than Mark had this early on.
Posted By: Pete

Pete, another fantastic point made in Angle's situation. But then, I suppose some folks text at stop lights, others apply make up, others shave. I guess some shoot up human growth hormone.

You must be all over yourself, Pete! Mark "Oh Yeah!" Henry versus The Big Show on Raw last night!

I need to brush up on that period of The WWF's history, but if memory serves, that was before Jim Ross came into power as the VP of Talent Relations, which was why Henry was signed for so much knowing so little; either that, or there was simply the desire to capitalize upon Henry's Olympic background before the summer was out, figuring his role as a lifelong fan combined with working with a veteran like Jerry Lawler out of the box would be enough.

However, Henry was a nightmare in the early days, an unpalatable cocktail of lack of motivation and proneness to injury. That was why he was Sexual Chocolate, getting involved with Chyna and Mae Young in the late ‘90s, that was McMahonagement's way of sticking it to him, trying to humiliate him into taking his $10 million contract seriously, or into just quitting outright. It took a good damn long time, but Henry seems to have come around, just in time to be used to put over others on the rise.

I don't get TNA sometimes. They can have these great encounters one month, yet give us these matches that don't make sense the next. It's like they're bipolar or something. I honestly think they need to take a break, look at themselves and figure out what is best for the long term. I will say this, they do seem to be a more focused company as of late. That is a good sign. With the amount of talent the company has, there is no way they should be in any type of rut. One thing I would change is disband the MOM. Most fans want to cheer on the legends that have given them so much joy over the years, so make them faces or "on air" mentors to the younger talent. It would give them a chance to somewhat salvage any bad reputations and put over the next crop. Also, love the Price is Right clips.
Posted By: The Great Capt. Smooth

Schmoove, I agree, and for reasons I think we've already pretty well covered, although, when you said they should take a break, my mind went back to when WCW "pushed the reset button" which it feels as if TNA has already kinda done, without going to such plain and elaborate lengths to accomplish (another bothersome comparison between the two companies I find unsettling).

But WHY would you want to break up MEN ON A MISSION…?!



Unless they delivered a promo like this:



Or this…



In the meantime, here's a neat-o little summer activity for the kids:



That's all for this week! Thanks for reading; RESPECK!