Fool Me 100 Times, Shame On Me

From TNAwrestling.com

By Chad Smart

I type this shortly after TNA Impact went off the air. TNA had promoted the final minutes of Impact as being the "most shocking of the year. Guaranteed." I did not have high hopes for the surprise given TNA’s track record. But I was curious as to what was going to happen. Paint my face red and call me a sucker because I wasted 15 minutes of my life watching the least shocking event of the year.

I mentioned in the last blog about the poor decision to tape next week’s Impact while this week’s Impact was on the air. Does TNA not understand how the Internet works? Do they not realize that five seconds after something happens anywhere in the world, it will be posted for the whole world to read somewhere online? With the popularity of Twitter there is no such thing as a taped surprise anymore. I bring this up because 90 minutes before the end of Impact, I knew what happened at the Impact tapings rendering the surprise irrelevant.

So what was the "most shocking moment?" As Mike Tenay and Taz were running down the line up for next week’s show, Taz says the production team has a video to show. The video comes up and it is a 90% similar video to WWE’s 2-21-11 Undertaker promo that had aired on Raw the past two weeks. At the end of the TNA video, there’s a shot of boots and a trench coat, then the numbers 3-3-11 appear before the video fades to black. Let me restate, TNA’s "Most Shocking Moment of the Year. Guaranteed" was a copy of a WWE video.

In case you don’t understand, after the 2-21-11 video aired, rumors started that Sting was finally going to make his WWE debut and wrestle the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. So essentially what TNA did was take those rumors and used them to promote Sting’s return to the company. On one hand I can appreciate that and may consider it to be clever. If TNA would have ran the spot during Impact and had Tenay and Taz play off it in a humorous manner, it could have worked. Promoting it as something shocking implies TNA thinks it was a major happening. Personally, I don’t see how a guy, who has been in your company for the better part of the last six years and has never wrestled for WWE, returning after a 4-5 month sabbatical is that big of a deal.

As for Sting’s return, I won’t spoil next week’s Impact in case someone reading this hasn’t read the spoilers and is looking forward to seeing him in the ring. I will say my self-imposed TNA sabbatical is back in effect. And I will issue and open challenge/plea to TNA management and creative personnel, turn of WWE programming and focus on your own company. WWE has five hours of programming throughout the week they don’t need two more so be different. And for the sake of my sanity, stop promoting "the most shocking," "the most impactful, "the most anything." You are quickly entering later era WCW Tony Schivone territory. Present your shows as quality programming and let the fans reactions determine is something is a major event.

I am going to try and not write anymore about TNA unless they do something that actually entertains me or they make a move in a positive direction. But what will I write about instead?