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| A wonderful moment set up with some nonsense Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com |
I appreciate TNA for giving me not only a world title match for free, but also a title switch. However, that is three title switches they've given me for free since the return of the new World Heavyweight Champion, Chris Sabin, and it just seems totally ill-advised at this point. With the recent roster cuts, it would seem as though they should be trying to get every purchase of their pay-per-views and One Night Only shows so they could try and pay some performers. When you're letting guys like Luke Gallows walk because of budgetary concerns, you should probably be revisiting your business strategies. But I'm not going to harp on this. It is a feedback thread, and I can save my business strategy rant for another blog entry.
What I want to focus on tonight is the continuity of the show tonight. Mike Tenay and Jeremy Borash welcomed us to the show, reprieving the audience from the Professor's normal breath-stealing announcer, Taz. Of course, Tenay was quizzical at the change, but that's part for the course. Ken Anderson then invited the entire Main Event Mafia to the Aces and Eights locker room, and lo and behold, there was a truck waiting there. No one questioned it until Kurt Angle was abducted. Bully Ray got on the cell phone to talk to the driver, instructing this person to take Angle to a previously discussed spot and give him an offer that he couldn't refuse. After the very next commercial break, Angle was seen speeding the truck back into the arena parking lot before racing into the building. That's right. In the amount of time that it took for Bully to hang up the phone and for Spike TV to run a Bellator MMA promo, Kurt Angle had managed to overcome the truck's driver, fresh off the cell phone, jumped back into the truck, and sped it back to the arena.
Finally, the main event comes on and everything goes on with absolutely no recap or even mentioning of the rest of the night's previous events.
Now, I'm not going to say that they can't remedy all of this next week with some additions to the story. However, it would seem as though they could have tied a couple of these loose ends tonight. In seeing Jeremy Borash still at the announce table at the beginning of the main event, I managed to postulate that Taz couldn't announce because he was driving the truck to kidnap Kurt Angle. Taz then corroborated with Angle, gave him the keys to the truck, and allowed him to come back to the arena to ultimately cost Sabin the title shot.
Alas, it would seem as though Taz (or the man we're referring to as Taz because we still have no idea) could not only complete his task to take Angle to the previously discussed "spot", but he also didn't give him an offer that he "couldn't refuse". I can say this because there was absolutely no swerve, no attempted swerve, not even an attempt to explain any of the events that happened prior in the night.Instead, TNA showed us that they are apparently going to use the Destination X event to elevate whomever they deem as the hottest wrestler in the company at the time because it worked lat year. In fact, I found it amusing that Tenay and Borash continually used the term "cashing in" for Sabin's vacating of the X Division Title for the shot at Bully Ray at Destination X. It would seem as though TNA is treating the X Division Title as the WWE is using the Money in the Bank briefcase.
But back to the continuity thing... I've noticed this a lot with TNA in the short time that I've been watching. Perhaps I'm spoiled to the WWE, where they treat every show like its own event. If something happens early in the show, you can feel confident that they're going to give you answers at some point in time in the next three hours. With TNA, I'm left with more questions than answers. And that's not always a bad thing. I didn't want to know that Bully Ray was the leader of the Aces and Eights when they first showed up. I do want to know, however, why Taz was never on the show when I have to listen to him every week. Did his contract negotiations take too long? Was he fired along with Bruce Prichard (don't tease me)? There's just certain events that I expect to be addressed by the time that I'm done watching the show. Unfortunately, TNA and I are not on the same page with that one.