Coffee Table Thoughts 12: A
Pandora’s Box?
No idea
what I am going to talk about in this column. I haven’t catched a lot of
wrestling lately and therefore am a bit scarce of the topics. Hence, I will be
just moving from here to there without any structural base.
Open Fight Night
The
first episode of TNA Impact Wrestling’s Open Fight Night came and went.
According to Scott Steiner, this is a waste of an idea and a lot of the time
was wasted on the Indy wrestler who wasn’t going to amount anything in this
business.
I don’t
think it is going to be a game changing concept or anything like that but it
does have a chance of providing a must see television programming once every
month and not only that but it can reignite an entire company through continuous
correct steps, which do not include attitude/NWO era-ish booking psychology!
Here are
my thoughts on three particular matters related to the Pandora’s Box that is
Open Fight Night:
Indy Wrestler
In the
first episode of the Open Fight Night, out of all the various match ups that
occurred, three were the most important. First of those was definitely the
topic I just mentioned above, the Indy Wrestler.
The Indy
Wrestler named Alex Silva was given an opportunity to earn a TNA Contract. This
is an opportunity that most of the wrestlers wait their (wrestling) lifetime
for. His chance was in the form of a match against former TNA Television
Champion Robbie E. The match was good, not too long but he got an opportunity
to showcase his abilities which he very well did.
I was
first of the impression that his success or failure in the ring is going to
determine whether or not he would get a TNA Contract. That, however, was not
the case. It was instead going to be decided by three judges which were shown
in the next episode. Kayfabe-wise it makes sense not to decide his future on
the basis of win/loss because he is a rookie and rookies are expected to lose.
Many a
people disliked the whole presentation in the ring on the next episode of the
Impact Wrestling and claimed it was just a poor imitation of American Idol and
other such reality shows. I, myself didn’t enjoy his promo the next night and
the whole set up did seem phony a bit. But I will tell you what I liked. I
liked how Hulk Hogan put over Ric Flair big time and entrusted him with the
responsibility of selecting future stars for the company. Al Snow is a composed
character and I liked his involvement throughout the Open Fight Night episode
and also on the next episode. He makes a good judge. Ric Flair played his part
pretty well and if there are to be three judges, one asshole is indeed required
and he did a very good job of being one. And the third judge, Bruce Pitchard
gives a different edge to the whole concept of Gut-Check because he is an off television,
business side of contributor to the industry unlike the other two judges. It’s
like a Director is selecting an actor.
As I
said earlier, I was not that impressed with this guy but I won’t say I didn’t
like him. Dude has obviously got a lot of potential and I would like to see how
he (and his career) progresses over the years. And no, that does not include a
World Championship reign in next two years.
One
thing that I hoped they would do and they did not was to reject the
participant. It’s a very simple logic, really. If anyone and everyone who
enters the Gut Check to showcase his talents get selected by the judges, it
devalues the whole concept. You need to have some losers in there. And by
losers, I don’t mean jobbers. I mean those talents that do show some promise
and yet somehow fail to make a nice impression on the judges and lose out. If
you make this a little tougher, its importance will be felt. And I hope they do
go that route more often because otherwise it will move the audience away from
this show.
Television Championship
I was
not aware of the fact that since its inception many many years ago, Television
Championship was meant to be defended on every television tapings. But alas,
here we are and the rule that I was not aware of has been reinstated again!
This
particular match does not have as much speciality to it as compared to other
matches because it will happen at every TNA Impact show and hence it is not
exclusive for Open Fight Night. Some might feel that regular defending will
make the title uninteresting due to repetitiveness. I don’t disagree with that
statement totally and I do believe there will be some rough patches in the
Television Championship saga. But I really don’t think that this will lead to a
too long bad time in this particular division.
Boredom
or disinterest will arise when for some time, only one person or two people are
getting the chance at the title. And we are kind of facing the same problem
right now when every time the title is defended against either of the Robbies
or a combination of them both. But that much repetitiveness is necessary for
the storyline to develop between Devon and Robbies.
This
simple rule will ensure that there is at least some sort of storyline being
focused on the television championship. I would be interested in finding out
which are the wrestlers who can emerge as worthy contenders for the Television
Championship. The fact that this championship will be defended every week makes
the title reign that much more prestigious and meaningful. This is because now
the title reign will not be about number of days but about number of days as
well as number of defences!
Tag Team Championship
Let me
say this, for one night, and for one night only, they treated their tag team
champions like the bestest champions in the company. For one night, the booking
and the hype were picture perfect. For one night, I liked Hulk Hogan’s multi thousand
appearances!
The show
began with Hogan considering which champion apart from the television champion
should defend their titles on the Open Fight Night. Everyone was on their toes.
Hogan played up well and it almost certainly looked like he was going to zero
in on the TNA World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Roode. But no! He decided to go
with the tag team champions instead.
Every
team he interviewed was put over huge by Hogan. Not only that, he actually gave
each team a reason, a chance to show why they should be chosen as number 1
contenders and why the other teams should not be considered for this.
Sure there
was an eye-sore of a team of EY and ODB. They are an anomaly and a slap in the
face of every single tag team that is out there and yes I even include any team
in which Orlando Jordon is a partner. But they did what they do best and that
is to provide some comedic relief. I legit laughed out loud when EY offered ODB
to Hogan for one night and claimed it was her idea!
And I
know the final team chosen was less for emphasising the importance of the tag
team division and more for advancing their own storyline, but you need to look
at the bigger picture.
Recently
I had seen an interview of Paul Heyman circa 2010-ish where he was being asked
about what was right and what was wrong about TNA product. He said they were
concentrating on the wrong guys. He spoke about one particular event, I cannot
remember which event he was referring to, but the gist of it all was that there
was a very important match that took place between Beer Money and Motor City
Machineguns. He said why was the match placed in the middle of the card? Why
should you not put the match at the end of the card? Why shouldn’t you use your
entire two hours showcasing to the world how important this match is by showing
past footages throughout the show in many small skids? He said that is how a
main event should be hyped.
And boy,
did they do just that! Every skid featuring Hogan and the tag team title
contenders was hyping for the main event (not exactly, but still nothing less
than that). And I was enjoying all of it. And you know what’s more interesting?
It was tag team championships on the first episode of Open Fight Night, it
could be X-Division Championship some other day, it could be Knock-Out
Championship some day, it could be Television Championship one day (unlikely)
and it could even be World Heavyweight Championship some day. We are worrying
about the state of X-Division due to over popularity of the X Division Champion
Austin Aries, but in reality, it does not need more than a day to build some
feud and build some future feuds! Open Fight Night will do it for you!
And
thus, due to above reasons, I am excited about this concept of Open Fight Night
and will look forward to the next episode!
I have a
lot to talk yet but do not have enough time, so see you next time!
