Tim's Take 09.16.08: TNA's Shoot-Style Blues

Posted by Tim Livingston on 09.16.2008

TNA continues to try and be something they aren't, and I try and figure out why they would do such a thing.

This whole idea of mixing mixed martial arts and professional wrestling...it's been done before. The mentality of the shoot-style matches have been etched in the mind of pro wrestling fans for a long time overseas in Japan, as Antonio Inoki strove to have matches that introduced basically all different kinds of fighting styles. In New Japan, his style of fighting was seen as a way of mixing the shoot-style that started to become prevalent in Japan and the professional wrestling style that his company employed. He was able to make it work, because he knew what in the shoot style world could work inside a wrestling ring. People like Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada and their counterparts found their shoot-styles welcomed in the ring and used in many different ways to emphasize their strengths to work against pro style workers.

What Frank Trigg and AJ Styles did Sunday night is not even close to the view that people like Inoki, Maeda and Takada had. In essence, it was a way to present MMA on a pro wrestling show, but it wasn't done in pro style. It was done in an actual shoot style. Trigg tried to make a match like it was more MMA than pro style. It was apparent from the fans in attendance that this was not what people wanted. This was not the way to do it.

Back at Lockdown, when Samoa Joe defeated Kurt Angle, it was presented as a match more MMA than pro wrestling. This was lost on the fans. The reason a lot of those matches in Japan worked, when it was a pro style wrestler against a shoot-style wrestler, was that it was a complete contrast in styles. When Joe and Angle locked up, it was supposed to show a mat superiority for Angle, but what ended up happening was that for the most part, they tried to make it look like a shoot fight more than a wrestling match. You can't do that and have it be successful.

There are two matches that spring to mind for me when it comes to a match-up with MMA/shoot influences. The first one occurred the day I turned 2-years-old on June 12, 1986 between Tatsumi Fujinami and Akira Maeda. It was presented as a match between someone trying to use pro wrestling techniques and someone who could overwhelm the other with shoot-style techniques, but there was a balance. Someone like Frank Trigg doesn't understand that it doesn't have to be all MMA when he's in the ring. He needs to realize that it's pro-style, not shoot-style, and that while you can still bring shoot elements to the match, you have to confine it to the pro-wrestling ring. It has to be aesthetically pleasing. People know it's not a shoot, so when you DO start shooting on someone and you give someone an injury (like that mouse under AJ's eye) the thought gets lost on the fans.

With the influx of Trigg and Kurt Angle's increasing tendency to be a part of the MMA world, TNA seems to want to lean more towards the MMA line as a way to get an "upper hand" on their competition. What TNA fails to realize is that while they go in that direction, it seems that their competition has adapted to key losses and are putting their best foot forward, without having to sacrifice the core of what SHOULD make them great. They promote athleticism and a bunch of different styles, but they have to remember that they are a professional wrestling company.

If the "Match" that Frank Trigg and AJ Styles had at No Surrender is a step in the direction that TNA would like to go when it comes to mixing styles, then they are in more trouble than they'd know. It's one thing to have an influence, but it's another thing altogether to try and be something that you can't be in the first place.