TNA Wrestling: Are They Finally Getting It Right?

I have read a lot of articles that give TNA a hard time. To be fair, a lot of the time I have to say I agree with the criticism.

Since the arrival of Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan, there have been countless failures in all areas of TNA.

However, lately it has been improving little by little and I thought I’d use my first article to point out some of the things TNA has been doing well.

The Immortals

Say what you will about the Immortal storyline, but in my opinion it is shaping together quite nicely. You have Jeff Hardy establishing himself week by week as a better heel.

Jeff Jarrett plays the role of the heel incredibly well, perhaps better than anyone currently in wrestling. Recent segments with Jarrett and Samoa Joe have been good; we can also expect Kurt Angle to get involved in this story soon, too.

As with any takeover storyline, it’s important to make sure the faction taking over comes across as dominant and powerful. But you have to balance the dominant faction out with resistance that will surely start to grow.

I think TNA have done this well, they have played Immortal as the faction in control but they have also slowly started to build up the main resistance with the likes of Matt Morgan and Samoa Joe.

The Immortal storyline also has a decent amount of depth to it. It is not just about Morgan and Hardy fighting over the title; you have other feuds in there. You have the Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe and Jeff Jarrett situation, as well The Pope and Abyss.

Turning Morgan face seems to have been the right decision and is coming over as strong opposition to Immortal. The other important aspect of this story is of course Fourtune, and I have to say I was surprised to see Douglas Williams turn on them this week.

It’ll be interesting to see how TNA follows that one up. Having Fourtune side with Immortal does help increase their power and presence, but the downside it does mean top stars do seem to be lost within the faction.

It is painful to see AJ Styles lost in the mid card and this is something TNA must sort out…soon! 

Knockouts Division

This week on Impact we had one of the better Women’s matches of the year with Mickie James vs Angelina Love. In my opinion, it was probably better than any WWE divas match for some time.

The problem TNA has here, though, is they have devalued the title by having it change holder so many times recently. But this does shy away from the fact they have a great women’s division and are starting to utilise it properly.

We can expect Mickie James to have a title shot soon and if she wins the title, it will definitely give it more credibility.

Sarita has been receiving a lot of air time recently and there is a story between Angelina Love and Winter developing that should be interesting.

I feel this is something TNA is beginning to get right and hopefully will continue to get right.

End of EV 2.0

We all wanted it and (finally) it seems to be over. With the EV 2.0 members slowly leaving the company, hopefully we’ve seen the end of this story. It should have been over weeks ago.

Motor City Machine Guns

Probably the best thing about TNA at the moment. Every match seems to be a Match of the Year candidate and you cannot argue that their best of five series with Beer Money wasn’t anything short of fantastic.

Recently they’ve had some top matches with Generation Me and you cannot forget their match with 3D at Turning Point. And with plenty of good tag teams in TNA to challenge them, expect a lot more great Tag matches to come in the future.

Conclusion

After spending a lot of this year bemoaning how bad TNA can be at times, I have been pleasantly surprised by the last few weeks of Impact.

But I am by no means saying it’s perfect, far from it. Before I become accused of being TNA biased, I hope to follow this article up with a ‘What is TNA doing wrong?’ (I’m looking at you Robbie E and Cookie, Hogan, Bischoff, etc.)

Well that’s it for my first article, any thoughts!?