Scripted Through Sin 4.08.08: A Week of Build

Posted by Jarrod Westerfeld on 04.08.2008

After weeks of talk about Wrestlemania XXIV, this week we return to talk about TNA Lockdown, WWE Backlash plus more from the TNA Revised project, and maybe more.

Another week is upon us and another round of changes takes up the wrestling industry as we draw closer to TNA's Lockdown, WWE's Backlash and the airing for ROH's Take No Prisoners pay-per-view. But like every story there are plot holes and inconsistencies littering the array of area around all of these companies, and more, if you really look for them.

This week, this edition of Scripted Through Sin looks over some of these issues and even delves into the conspiracy theory aspect of wrestling to survey what might have been planned and what could have been currently. We also look to book the second edition of TNA Revised's iMPACT! No note from Steveo this week as it seems he's fallen off the face of Earth.

Scripting Agenda

TNA Revised: iMPACT! Episode 02

TNA Lockdown

WWE Backlash

The Wrap Up

TNA Revised: iMPACT! Episode 02

We're going to go for the clutch first, as this project has sat on the bench for almost a month now, and the second episode needs to be aired out. With no notes from Steveo, I'm going solo, once again, on this project. So keeping that in mind, any complaints here should just be sent to me, as I'm sure I'll never hear the end of how "bad" I am at writing out a show – though I wouldn't expect any real constructive criticism from my detractors.

Kick Starting the Show
Every show should start off replaying the events of the previous week to remind fans of what happened on the last episode, or just to show to those tuning in for the first time what's going on so they have a clue as to what's going on and understand what it is they're about to watch tonight. So we highlight the Monster's Ball and feature the follow-up between Daniels and Mitchell, the bout between Angle and Booker and the follow-up of that bout with Raven's attempt to run-in and lay out the threatening challenge of an MMA-styled beast. It should also focus on some of the younger stars that'll be featured tonight, such as Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, Murder City Machine Guns and so forth, as the driving point will be establishing them to a more mainstream audience.

Following that highlight package, we head over to our announce team who take this time to put over the matches we'll put on for the night, such as the Tag Team champions and X-Division champion in action tonight. We should immediately cut away here as a very angry World Champion storms to the ring demanding he get his hands upon the man that humiliated him last week on the biggest show of TNA's history – their debut show to a wider audience. Naturally everyone is thinking Angle, but of course Raven is referring to Booker T, interfering in business that did not concern him. Raven's focus here would be to issue forth a challenge to Booker, non-title, tonight. Technically, now, we're double dipping on talent for the build up here, but the purpose is to establish some sort of story here for Angle and Raven, using Booker as the vessel to get to that line.

Booker's acceptance of the challenge should see him heading down to the ring, ready to head into battle now, expecting this as his opportunity to get his name involved in the title hunt, as a win over the champion means more than a win over Angle. Raven immediately bails and further baits Booker into the match concept for the night, but later on as the main event, even offering up a title bout under the condition that Booker fights on his terms. Overzealous, Booker accepts as the idea of becoming a champion again is more tempting than taking himself out of the situation to evaluate what Raven might be up to – Booker should come off as shallow here, only interested in obtaining his goals instead of being intelligent about his approach. As Booker is screaming that he's on, we hit a commercial break at this point to allow time to pass before we allow Cornette to okay the match for the night.

Back from commercial we introduce the challengers to the Tag Team Champions, Murder City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley) against the Blood Inked Bruisers (Tomko & Bernard). This match can eat up time as both teams battle back and forth, leaving it in the minds of fans that both are equally matched as the Guns focus on being fast paced and utilizing their speed to keep the bigger men off balance, while the Bruisers ground and pound when they do catch up to the faster, smaller workers. Being that this is a non-title match, something that has to be stressed by the announce team at the start of the match, we can tease the Guns really going over here, though the champions should walk away the winners as they'll be walking into a serious program come next week before heading into our first pay-per-view following the Spike deal.

Allowing that match to go for nearly 10 minutes, we can shift away to Aries cutting a quick promo about his battle with Abyss not being over, and that Daniels sticking his nose in his business will not go unpunished. He swears vengeance tonight upon Daniels, though he lacks security from his fellow Hazard team mates, but one way or another he will make Daniels pay in blood – pints and gallons worth.

Of course, we have to move fast, as an hour of programming can't be wasted trying to get everyone's face involved, so we move to an X-Title match between champion, Samoa Joe taking on strong contender to the throne, Bryan Danielson. It should be treated more like an exhibition, seeing as the rules will be played upon on this bout – 10 minute limit, enforcement of a strict 5 count on the outside, all to keep the action going quick. The two can easily feel each other out early on as this should be noted as their first encounter in a TNA ring, and as such, they're going to test the waters on each other. A no finish here due to time limit is acceptable as we keep both strong before feeding them to a bigger show where the title rules become more laxed and allow for them to really get them to expand upon their game plans. It's also a nice way to showcase these two talents to their new audience by showing how much more different TNA is to the other companies out there.

To the back we see Booker sulking. This is the time where he should feel as though something isn't right about this opportunity as he sees the cards are stacking up against him, but still feel determined to persevere through this challenge to achieve his goal. Angle should stop by to offer him some friendly words to encourage him in his endeavor. Booker will mostly shrug them off but appear to take them to heart, as Angle walks away.

After the commercial break, and before we head into the main event of the night, we see Booker heading down the halls to the ring, and is confronted by Ron Killings and BG James. Both should be sporting L.A.X. gear and offering up advice for Booker to not head out there alone as he's nothing more than a pawn in Raven's game, and a pawn for the company as they don't care for him or his well being. Booker shrugs this off as distracting trash from his match, as his focus will be only on Raven.


A pillory as seen in Magic: The Gathering's card game.

The match should begin with Booker heading out and ready for war only to see Raven come out backed by Abyss, Mitchell and Daniels, and Raven proclaiming that not only does he only abide by his own rules and that this contest is under Raven's Rules, but that the only way to win the match is not by pin fall or submission, or any other normal means to end a wrestling match, but that an opponent must be humiliated to the point of quitting. Raven should then walk to the ring, only for Booker to be jumped from behind by James Storm. At this point the job of the announcers should be to point out that Storm hadn't been seen in a while, and that the last they saw of him, Mitchell and Raven both confronted James, despite the on-going hatred between Raven and Storm at the time.

The attack from Storm should continue as Raven climbs in with some weapons of his own, as Daniels and Abyss head down carrying a pillory. Drawing blood from Booker and establishing a unit between Raven and these men should be fairly easy to do in this segment, as Aries and Angle should crash the ring to try and even out the odds, only for that to fail and end up with both men being cuffed to the ropes. Booker locked up in the pillory and left to be humiliated as they begin whipping his back. At this point L.A.X. should appear on the ramp, as the match is concluded with Booker passing out and being unable to continue the match. As Raven's unit clears out, L.A.X. should stroll in to help carry Booker out, leaving Aries and Angle beaten and still cuffed to the ring.

Ending the show on that note should leave some suspense for what will happen next week.

TNA's Lockdown

Moving back into the reality, we begin with our focus upon TNA's annual all-steel cage pay-per-view format, Lockdown. I'm sure the 411mania Round Table column about this event will be filled with talk about the qualities of the show and the matches, but this is my soap box and I'd like to take this time to ask some very serious questions about this card, and the build.

So far, the card looks to be as such:
Kip James vs. BG James
My first question of this card is why did they build up the James encounter since February, only to skip Destination X to lead these two into their first encounter being at this event? I know people don't care for these two as they see the James Gang as being old and washed up, but it's a storyline within this company, and as such, the fans should feel cheated that something that was built to look like a match rolling into one of their pay-per-views was simply held onto for the sake of putting it on the "more important" pay-per-view. Not only this, but the fans should feel cheated about the fact that they lost another tag team from their division. A unit that could have been utilized to put over the younger and faster tag teams within the company, only further hurting TNA's direction and their tag division.

Mixed Tag Match:
Robert Roode and Payton Banks vs. Booker T and Sharmell
I don't understand how a feud that's been going on for 4 months can be considered "too long" or "dragged out" but apparently this feud is just that. And that's not my thought upon this feud, this is TNA fans saying this!

Personally, this was where this feud needed to blow off, if it wasn't going to go for long, but the road to get it here has been mediocre, at best. A first blood match between these two was already had, and that didn't resolve anything? When has a first blood not resolved some aspect of a storyline before? Even Steve Austin's first blood loss to Kane resolved an aspect of the storyline that would later evolve the feud into a battle between Austin, Kane and Undertaker. Here, TNA utilized a first blood match between these two to "further" this hatred for each other? Will the pay-off here be Sharmell gets to break Roode's jaw? Was the build to lead into Sharmell exacting revenge upon Roode?

This whole encounter should be a big deal to lead into Roode getting a bigger role, but apparently people seem to think this feud has gotten old before it ever saw its third month.

The Queen of the Cage Match:
Angelina Love vs. Velvet Sky vs. Salinas vs. Rhaka Khan vs. Tracy Brooks vs. Christy Hemme vs. Roxxi Leveaux vs. Jacqueline
A reverse cage match is just as bad an idea as a reverse battle royal because there will be points where people will look lost as to what they should be doing, and unaware of what to do to avoid looking like they're just waiting for their spots. But despite that horrible booking decision, this match does serve a purpose to establish a new contender to the Knockouts Champion, Amazing Kong. The problem here is the lead into the decision for this match, that breakdown after the Brooks and Banks match was horribly done.

Let's establish the breakdown of that run-in mess, shall we? Brooks celebrates her victory over Banks with a second rope facebuster, only to have Sky and Love attack her from behind. So far, this makes sense, as you have the heels outnumbering the face, and it follows what happened between the three before the match. Salinas charges in to help out by keeping Love and Sky's attacks focused away from Brooks, as Banks joins in on the beatdown of Tracy. Heels still outnumber the faces, and it's starting to look weird here as Brooks starts getting the upper hand on Banks, and Love and Sky seem to focus way too much on Salinas as she's already grounded. So what does TNA do to further this moment? They send out ANOTHER heel, Jacqueline, to further place the odds against the faces. But that's not the really odd thing. The odd part about her run-in was she headed straight in to attack Salinas, while Love (or Sky, I can't tell which is which) went over to stop Brooks build up attack on Banks. So we have 4 heels on 2 faces, and things just aren't making much sense to me.

Roxxi hits the ring and targets Sky, I believe, and looks to be dominating, leading me to wonder why you wouldn't have sent her out before Jacqueline, who could have stopped her momentum. And as Roxxi dominates Sky, Love doesn't care about her as she's still fixated on Brooks, same with Banks who ignored Roxxi's run-in. This changes slightly as Hemme hits the ring and just goes after the weaker link in the ring, Salinas. Then we end it all with Sharmell charging the ring clean house with her whip, sending all the heels running from the ring.

Watching this, all I could think was clusterfuck, as none of these ladies seemed to understand who their targets should have been and who they should have been focusing in on. Not only this, but Rhaka Khan wasn't involved in this clutter, but she's involved in this match. Banks and Sharmell aren't in this match, but rather, focused in their tag match with Roode and Booker T, respectively.

The end result is a lot of questions about the order of these run-ins, and how Khan gets bumped into this mess without being involved in the run-in bombardment. Not only that, but the heels clearly outnumbered the faces, and the order of the run-ins was clustered to all hell. And to top that all off, we now have the winner of this bout taking on the Knockout's champion, Amazing Kong, but I don't know when that'll be, as they've not announced that. Much like they didn't announce when L.A.X. would fight the tag team champions, AJ Styles and Tomko, after beating the Rock and Rave Infection and Motor City Machine Guns at Destination X - much like they never explained for how long those contracts from the Feast or Fired match would last before they expire.

Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed vs. Gail Kim and ODB
While I much would've preferred TNA playing on the fact that were it not for Saeed at Destination X, we may have crowned a new Knockout's Champion, therefore, to eliminate her from the equation, you have these three ladies do battle in a six-sides-of-steel match to determine if Kong really is the unstoppable beast that Saeed claims her to be. But this works out just as well, as now we get to see ODB try and exact revenge on Saeed for costing her a chance at the title back in March.

The build here was simple and effective, though I don't recall when they announced this match to be the case. I just hate the idea that they basically had ODB lose out, cleanly, to Kong at the Live iMPACT! show, basically hurting her momentum to look like a credible threat to Kong's title reign. Saeed should've played a role in that decision, but didn't, leaving Kim the more credible contender to Kong's throne.

Nevertheless, this still makes some good sense, and if their triple threat match was any indication as to how well these women can work together, then this should be an amazing bout plus Cheerleader Melissa. You can't go wrong when you add another talent to a bout. The end result should be something fun to see, and with any luck, we'll see ODB and Saeed clash again in the future as that becomes the program to build upon, while Kim gets a couple more cracks at Kong.

X Division Title Xscape Match:
Jay Lethal © vs. Sonjay Dutt vs. Curry Man vs. Sharkboy vs. Johnny Devine vs. TBD
You know, for weeks, people kept telling me Petey Williams would be in this match along with Consequences Creed, but seeing as the site only lists one more opening, I'm beginning to suspect some people don't know what they're talking about.

The build around this bout has been decent, but not because of Lethal and Dutt's video packages, but rather, because of the qualifying matches that allowed these men into this bout. All the more reason I think you can still have this match featured on the card, but not for the X-Division Title, and without Jay Lethal, as you could easily build off of his match with Petey Williams at Destination X.

I don't understand the justification for this match, throwing away an opportunity to further build importance around this title by having Petey re-establish that he deserves a shot at this title as he could've won it had it not been for SoCal Val and Sonjay Dutt's interference. It's a simple story to work with, and you can still run the Xscape match, but make it a number one contender's bout. I know TNA does too many of these as it is and rarely cares to pay them off, but you could establish that you're going to stick to your guns with this one.

Here, we can establish the storyline for them. Seeing as Petey and Steiner are now on the same page, and Steiner thinks Petey is on the same level as him now, or something along those lines, you could have Scott hand over the X-Division title bout case to Petey. He cashes it in for Lockdown, much to the displeasure of Cornette who had just filled out the line-up of that match with the final qualifying match. Petey can point out that Scott, Khan and he, along with some lawyers, looked over the contract and found that he could cite his own stipulations for this match. Because of this loop hole, he further hurts Cornette's plans for this match and insists that he wants his match at Lockdown, as a one-on-one encounter, with SoCal Val and Sonjay Dutt barred from ringside. Jim can then try to make the best of a bad situation, by having another, last minute qualifier for the Xscape match and the winner of the Xscape bout, itself, could be named the number one contender to the X-Division title. The contract upon that stipulation being good for any pay-per-view event for the remainder of 2008, with obviously the winner, Sonjay Dutt, choosing to cash it in for Slammiversary, citing he wants to share one of TNA's biggest stages with his best friend, Lethal.

Hey, look, we get to further build the Dutt and Lethal friction, pay it off later on down the road, and establish more credibility in the X-Division that the title means something to these guys by continuing Petey's push and desire to be a champion. We still keep the Xscape match, and nothing of value was lost in this exchange. Why can't TNA's writers think along these lines so that fans actually get behind the characters and the build of the matches, rather than just be marks for the in-ring workrate these guys have?

Lethal Lockdown:
Team Tomko (Tomko, AJ Styles, Team 3D, and James Storm) vs. Team Cage (Christian Cage, Rhino, Kevin Nash, Sting, and Matt Morgan)
I hate when the WWE does these things, so obviously I'm going to hate when TNA does this. We never got resolution between Cage and Rhino – the finish of that feud with Cage being driven through the cage (no pun intended) left the door wide open for their feud to continue. We never saw resolution between Cage and Sting, or Sting and Nash, but he's teaming up with them despite hating everything Cage stands for, and disliking Nash for costing him his World Title, and we never saw resolution between Cage and Morgan. Now that I think about this, how can anyone stand Christian Cage long enough to side with him in this encounter, considering some the enemies of these people (Sting, Rhino, Morgan) is the person they've decided to team up with?

I hated when WWE put Triple H in the same ring as Batista and made it appear as though these men made up and became friends again, so obviously I hate that TNA is doing the same with Team Cage!

Also, when AJ Styles asked important questions of Tomko during the Live iMPACT! and they were ignored, that's a problem. For one why is Team 3D, a team that has been obsessed with trying to reclaim the tag team titles, teams up with the tag team champions but there's no explanation that they're doing this for the sake of getting a shot at the titles? It takes two seconds to establish that as their motive for teaming up with Tomko and Styles, so why not just do it? Same with Cage amending fences with Rhino, Sting and Morgan. Maybe I just missed this as I really haven't been watching iMPACT! these past few weeks, but it doesn't seem to be that important to TNA or their fans.

Many will claim this build has been amazing, but I can't get into it seeing as Team Cage looks extremely dominant, and I don't buy, for a second, that Team Tomko looks like they belong in the same ring as these guys. Practically every match these two teams have had, Team Cage has walked away looking far more credible than they should. I don't buy that the finish won't come down to Morgan getting a pin here, as it seems to be that Morgan will get some big time grooming to take on Joe in the future.

Plus, for me, it would have made much more sense to simply use Destination X main event bout in this bout – Joe, Cage, Nash and two more teammates, perhaps Sting and Rhino taking on Angle, Styles, Tomko and two more teammates, perhaps Storm and Morgan. You have Joe lose at Destination X against Angle, with run-in's from the Angle Alliance, feed Joe into this Lethal Lockdown to try and dismantle the Angle Alliance, or to establish that if he beats Angle's Alliance that their next encounter for the title, any interference would cost him the title by default. I mean, maybe that's just me thinking too much about the order of these bouts, and the build around these individual bouts, but Team Cage and Team Tomko just doesn't interest or appeal to me. It's also being handled pretty poorly, I'd have to say.

TNA World Title Match:
Kurt Angle © vs. Samoa Joe
The build here has been amazing. I cannot wait to see Kurt Angle defend his World Title, and the honor of his wife, Karen, as he battles AJ Styles.

…

Oh, that's not on this card, is it? Instead we have Samoa Joe training away from the iMPACT! zone, while every face puts over how hard he's been training as if they visit him every so often to see how he's doing. Never mind that the focus around Angle seems to be his interaction with AJ, who is still hung up on Karen, and the fact that when these two interact you can see the friction between these two. I see TNA focusing more on Angle/Styles and Angle/Joe.

To me, Angle and Joe hasn't seen any kind of solid build since Joe's promo declaring war on Angle's faction, and the Destination X fallout, where Joe dominated Angle's team, but got the big win over Tomko. Did anyone else see a problem with that finish? Joe got the win over Tomko, not the World Champion Angle, leaving me in doubt they'd actually pull the trigger on Joe getting the title. But here TNA is, making it obvious that Joe will win the encounter because they've placed a heavy stipulation against Joe, and we all know TNA isn't that stupid as to have Joe leave the iMPACT! zone until his contract expires.

Oh, big question of the column – did Joe ever sign that contract Cornette offered to him, or what? And wasn't that a big deal for Cornette's career as TNA management needed him to secure that talent?

Who am I kidding? TNA, nor its fans, seem to care about continuity, much like most WWE fans don't care about this sort of stuff.

WWE Backlash

And after wasting so much time on the TNA product, I've now got to rush in something about Backlash before the WWE further develops the field that will lead into this pay-per-view, and seeing the roll the WWE's been since last November, it may be a safe bet to assume this show will continue down the path of being entertaining and overall enjoyable.

The formula should be established right now for Batista to clash with Shawn Michaels, Taker and Kane defending their gold against the former, respective, champions, Big Show battling the Great Khali, and for Matt Hardy taking on M.V.P. What isn't established is who Randy Orton will clash with at Backlash, though we have rumors floating around for another four way main event for the WWE Championship on this card.

What WWE needs to establish is Punk as a threat for a title, and a revival in the tag division thanks to Cryme Tymes return. But in all of this, what's lost is the fact that we never got resolution to a few things, namely the last two feuds JBL's been involved in. It's also troublesome that I feel cheated on interaction between Great Khali and Big Show as, barring the poor booking on ECW, we've seen these two face off only for Khali to basically walk away from a fight, which makes no sense to me. In fact, it's God awful that I'm aching to see these two just clash right now and both times in an attempt to establish Khali as the heel of this feud he staggers off, in his slow, walk like a dinosaur motion, pulling in jeers from the fans.

It's a good way to get heat on Khali, but wouldn't it have been better if, on Raw, Khali tried to take down Big Show to no avail, and was chased off by a raging Show? I mean, wouldn't it have been cool to see them look so evenly matched in a brawl that referees had to try and break up the action, only for Khali to swim away from the action while Show actually manhandles a few of them to try and get his hands on this sloth-like giant that disrespected him?

What is also lost is opportunities to establish things, such as Matt Hardy being stuffed in programs with Orton and M.V.P. as Montel thanks Orton for further sidelining his problem with Matt, and Orton really sending a message to Hardy that he's not in his league. Instead we got Orton being lucky, once more, and squeaking past Hardy, who has yet to exact his revenge upon the champion. Now they can easily keep Hardy out of Orton's reign by having Hardy stopped at every Raw show, told he is not welcomed here and Regal proclaims he's not about to have a liability on his hands with Hardy trying to take out their champion. It would also help to re-establish the hatred for M.V.P. in the first place, as every time Hardy looks to focus on Orton, there's M.V.P. to try and cut him off. Now you establish two storylines, running side by side, and can pay them off as you see fit down the road. The second Orton drops the title, you can have Matt capitalize upon that opportunity to try and end his career the same way Shawn retaliated for Orton's attempt to end his career.

With any luck, we'll see a program between Punk and Jericho build, leading to these two trading off victories until Punk cashes in his contract later in the year, and if we're lucky, it won't be for the ECW Championship, as that would be a huge step back for Punk and leave him looking like an idiot. Speaking of which, the fact that ECW teased this on their programming last week bothered me. This is 4 weeks in a row that ECW has been almost unbearable to watch. I want Dusty back in the booking seat of that show, because whoever is booking it now is God awful.

The Wrap Up

And with most of my time wasted on TNA banter, I've now got to close up shop to keep this within a single posting. In the meantime keep on checking out the other writers here of 411mania, and see you next week for another edition of Scripted Through Sin.