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| Velez was impressive in her Gut Check, but I can't stomach her MMA shtick Photo Credit: Ivelisse-Velez.Webs.com |
Yes, I know that a lot of this is mandated by Spike TV in the first place. They want MMA as the centerpiece to their programming, and have been straining to get Bellator over as a major entity ever since they lost their relationship with UFC. I can understand the desire for that relationship to work because MMA is still quite the lucrative field. I don't know if it's still growing like it was even three or four years ago (when Brock Lesnar did bonkers numbers for UFC 100), but hey, there's still blood left in that stone. However, professional wrestling, although not exactly booming at Monday Night Wars era levels, is still an entity that can be profitable if treated correctly. While there's overlap between audiences, well, it's not exactly as robust as some ad executives might hope it is. It also doesn't help that pro wrestling and MMA are about as different as apples and oranges. Sure, they're both based on the idea of combat/are fruit, but that's where the similarities begin and end.
With the heavy emphasis on MMA's importance within the TNA narrative comes problems. Why should I, the wrestling fan viewer who doesn't watch MMA, invest in someone like Velez or even more appropriately, King Mo Lawal, when their gimmick basically is that they're a MMA fighter venturing into pro wrestling. Hm, someone with a primary occupation making a foray into pro wrestling as a second career. Does that sound familiar to you? Yep, it's the mid-'90s WWF all over again, isn't it?
Obviously a MMA fighter is going to have a whole lot more gravitas in character than Duke "The Dumpster" Droese. But there's still that mindset that pro wrestling is a second job, and in this case, it's a far more insidious implication given the flight of young men and women from wrestling schools into MMA dojos. If even wrestling companies can't be assed to give us a reason to tune into their program over the "real" thing, then what chance does wrestling have of surviving? It's almost like in this sequestered universe, MMA and wrestling are in direct competition, and the MMA folks have infiltrated trying to get people to migrate from Impact over to Bellator. That's not how it is in the real world at all; wrestling and MMA can and have survived side by side. But that's not the feeling I get when I see a vignette for Velez (who by the by is an excellent professional wrestler doing great work in SHINE among other companies right now) or how Lawal is heralded in a company for whom he's appeared twice in the last nine months. It's not the feeling I get when the only time I ever hear Taz get excited about his job is when he's talking about MMA.
And yes, it's fair on the surface to point out that Chikara has run with the same sort of idea on a smaller scale with Dasher Hatfield, Sugar Dunkerton, and "Mr. Touchdown" Mark Angelosetti. They're similar in that they are people who are "legit" athletes by day and wrestlers on the weekends. But comparing Chikara to TNA again is like comparing honey crisp apples to Granny Smiths. Chikara is a company where the gimmick is king, and where each one gives deference to wrestling before its own identity, if that makes sense. In Chikara, there's no doubt that Hatfield is a wrestler first and an old-timey ballplayer second. Of course, Chikara's also a place where anthropomorphic ants, time travel, and mind control are all in play, so the rules are different between promotions anyway. That being stated, the presentation differs, regardless of the settings or surroundings.
Fans who tune into Impact Wrestling don't want to see MMA fighters who are doing pro wrestling as a side job as a rule. Well, if they're fans like me, that's what their mindset is. It's common sense, really. If people are tuning into your show, they want to see the thing they're tuning in for, not something completely different. To be bluntly and completely fair, Impact Wrestling is still a company that provides a show based on and raised in professional wrestling for the most part. For all we know, Dixie Carter and her creative team may have their hands tied by the network. Whosever fault this is though is irrelevant, because it takes me out of my element as a wrestling fan trying to watch a wrestling show. If they want to give Ivelisse Velez a contract to wrestle professionally for TNA, then I'm all for that. However, when they finally yank her out of the living embodiment of mothballs that is Ohio Valley Wrestling and decide she's "ready" for prime time (spoiler alert, she's ready for it now), let it be as a professional wrestler, not as a MMA fighter who is doing the pro graps because she needs a few extra shekels to spend on the weekend.