Misfiring Machine Guns: TNA's Most Wasted Tag Team

On Thursday night's 200th episode of TNA Impact, the Motor City Machine Guns were featured in a brief segment that many may have missed.

At one point during a six-Knockout tag team match featuring ODB, Tara and Awesome Kong against Angelina Love, Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne, the cameras cut to Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin standing the crowd.

Sabin and Shelley were holding signs that said "Conspiracy Victims" and "Yes, We Still Work Here."

It's the latter that caught my attention more because after watching recent TNA shows, I had begun to wonder what had happened to my boys from Detroit.

Since I began watching TNA in 2007, the Motor City Machine Guns have been one of my favorite tag teams in modern professional wrestling.

The only professional wrestling T-shirt I've ever bought is the Guns shirt I donned at Bound for Glory IV, as I cheered on Sabin and Shelley in a steel asylum match; the same shirt I'm preparing to put on to attend an indy show.

From the beginning, I saw potential in the Guns. They had skills, athleticism and the ability to keep me entertained. The last item there is something that I'd noticed had been missing from most tag team wrestling lately.

I watched and waited for the Guns to capture TNA tag team gold. The sad truth of the matter is that I'm still waiting.

Rumors of backstage attitudes and problems with management abounded. This appeared to be the reason the Guns weren't being pushed.

Around the launch of the Main Event Mafia storyline, the Guns seemed to be better positioned. They began a slow heel turn and began to disrespect the TNA Originals and new Executive Shareholder Mick Foley.

It was clear the Guns wouldn't become part of the Mafia, but they had potential to become a successful by-product of the stable's creation.

What happened in the end?

Sabin and Shelley never even really had a full-blown heel turn and Shelley wound up wearing a turkey suit on Thanksgiving.

In January, they won the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championships from the team of Naito and Yujiro, who came to TNA as Team No Limit.

It seemed like a long-term program could be developing between the two teams, a program that could have unfolded on both American and Japanese soil.

Instead, the program lasted all of about a month and had the Latin American Xchange thrown in as well.

After that, the Guns continued to float around TNA, joining singles competition. Shelley would capture the X Division title, which he would later lose to Suicide at Destination X.

That would lead to yet another program with potential for the Guns, one in which they joined Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed (who were in a very weird semi-heel turn at the moment) in attempting to unmask Suicide.

It seems TNA's creative team eventually just gave up on this storyline and had Suicide drop the title to LAX's Homicide instead.

Maybe the creative team realized in the end they would have to tell fans that Kaz is the man under Suicide's mask, which would create yet another mammoth-sized plot hole in TNA's booking.

One would think with all these plot holes running rampant in TNA, someone would have struck oil by now...

But, anyway, the Guns continued to be absent until their little appearance this Thursday night, one some bloggers are already calling a recycling of a Chris Jericho WCW angle... Yes, that's exactly what TNA needs: more comparisons to WCW.

I, for one, hope to see this develop into something more. People may be quickly judging what this appearance means, and I admit, maybe I'm jumping the gun (no pun intended) on thinking it will be part of a bigger story angle.

The question becomes where will it lead? Will it lead to the return of babyface Shelley and Sabin, where they draw the pity of the fans? Or will it lead to a push the team has long deserved as full-fledged heels joining in the parade of superstars going against TNA management?

TNA dropped the ball by not creating a Beer Money vs. Machine Guns feud, so one can only hope that may be in the cards for the future.

Allow Beer Money to recapture the gold from the Main Event Mafia and then have the Guns attack them, setting up a long-term program ending with Sabin and Shelley sharing gold.

Both men have proven their ability to be solo champions; now just let them shine together.

The Guns have worked hard, stepped up their games and won over fans, such as myself. Now TNA, I stand before you and beg to give them more than a turkey suit for their troubles.

TNA has a reputation as being the superior brand of tag team wrestling, and if company officials want to maintain that reputation, the Guns offer a surefire (pun intended this time) means of making it happen.

Here's to hoping we'll see gold on the Guns before the end of 2009. It's what we want; it's what they deserve.