TNA: The Renaissance of Wrestling?

I'd be having much more fun if I were watching TNA. But since I don't live in the States and I don't get The Wrestling Channel, I do not yet have that privilege. That won't stop me from writing about it, however.

It's good to see that mid-card wrestlers who fall out of favour with the WWE, for whatever reasons, now have a viable alternative without having to leave the country. I'm speaking, of course, about Christian and the Dudleys, who didn't spend much time resting on their laurels before debuting for Jeff Jarrett's promotion (as Christian Cage and Team 3D, respectively).

Since it isn't so long after they last graced WWE television, they can bring a bit of star power to a company that, though full of good-to-great wrestlers, was comprised mostly of cast-offs from the big leagues and up-and-comers from the indies with little to no mainstream reputation. I'm sure the executives at Spike TV (who gave TNA a slot on the network in October after booting off Monday Night Raw) are convinced that the company is going in the right direction, making the most of the potential in their talent that was squandered by WWE Creative.

It should also, hopefully, give some invaluable exposure to the established indie workers who populate the tag team division and bulk out the mid-card, and the junior heavyweights on the roster who make up the infamous X Division. That's the sort of concept that would never take off in the stiflingly conservative atmosphere of the WWE (where anything that might potentially upstage the heavyweights gets quashed immediately) but it's exactly the type of idea that wrestling needs to move forward into the 21st century.

[Now allow me, if you will, a little pretentious self-indulgence.] In the same way that the concept of the circus has been virtually redefined by the likes of Cirque du Soleil, professional wrestling has been reinterpreted in so many ways of which fans in the US and in Europe have been mostly ignorant: from lucha libre in Mexico, to the state-of-the-art junior heavyweights of Japan, to the 'Jap-Lucha' of Toryumon and Osaka Pro, and everything in-between. These styles aren't exactly revolutionary -- they're practically run of the mill in the territories where they originated -- but to a die-hard WWE fan they're fresh and exciting and, most importantly, eye-opening. That's what matters. [It's okay, you can open your own eyes now.]

Sure, TNA is not without its faults -- far too many pay-per-views, a product that can suffer from over-booking, an over-reliance on gimmicks, and overexposure of the undeserving Jeff Jarrett to name a few (that's a lot of 'overs', too) -- but even so it's about time that a major US promotion with national television exposure committed itself to developing talent and broadening the horizons of what's possible in the ring (WCW's many aborted attempts aside). If TNA can draw in the casual fans with familiar faces they know and love from the WWE, and while they're hooked dazzle them with the best talent the indies have produced, it might push wrestling out the doldrums and back into the upswing that's so badly needed.

I concur with Ant Evans' article on the company in the latest issue of Power Slam: as long as TNA does what Paul Heyman did with ECW -- that is, accentuate the positives to hide the weaknesses -- it could soon prove to be a viable player in the mainstream, and deserve a place as the number-two promotion in the States.

But that name, TNA? It's embarrassing. Please change it.