TNA News: TNA Burns Paying Customers with James Storm Title Win on Impact

Every month, TNA finds new and more frustrating ways to prove that its pay-per-view business serves virtually no purpose to its similarly struggling wrestling product.

By constantly booking pay-per-views as if they were lead-in shows to Impact (let alone doing so with what was advertised as the biggest pay-per-view of the year), TNA does its already ambiguous financial standing no favors with its painfully anti-climactic pay-per-view finishes that give way to free angles that later prove to be more exciting than its infinitely more costly predecessor.

This week's version of screw the customer featured a hot-shot episode of Impact that featured a glad-handing, marathon opening segment that mirrored that of the 2007 Oscars where a crowded panel of TV hosts babbled on endlessly. 

By the merciful conclusion of said segment, TNA had somehow pressed a hard pause on an otherwise brilliantly done build-up of Robert Roode in favor of Roode's former tag-team partner James Storm.  Storm, mind you, did not receive one second of camera time during TNA's Bound for Glory pay-per-view from this past weekend. 

TNA may have pleased its fans with Storm's title win, but the snap decision reflects some all-too familiar holes in the internal structure of a wrestling promotion that has been defined by its own creatively crippling mediocrity.

I truly do believe that Storm is more than ready to carry a major championship after two wildly successful tag-team runs.  But after a title win that proved to be the antithesis of Robert Roode's path to the main event (no video packages/weeks of fanfare and buildup for Storm), I would be remiss if I didn't pose the obvious question of why Storm wasn't the guy given the monster push instead of Roode leading into Bound For Glory, where anything but a babyface title win in the main event seemed to go against all logic. 

Basic wrestling booking concepts would dictate that it's now only a matter of time before Roode turns heel and engages in what should be a hot feud with his longtime former tag-team partner turned world champion. 

But taking all the emphasis away from its biggest pay-per-view of the year to once again cruelly remind its fans that television is the focal point will figure to curb any potential buy rate for a possible Storm vs. Roode match. 

Knowing TNA, this is a match that will probably be shot for free during an upcoming taping of Impact.

TNA is playing a dangerous game by constantly focusing on television to try to grow its product, especially with the company convinced that the majority of its ratings come from WWE and WCW stars of the past who have proven to have very little impact on the long-term welfare of the company's weekly Impact Wrestling program. 

Based on what their week-to-week booking suggests about their reverence for pay-per-view events, the best bet for the fledgling national wrestling company would be to either nix all of its pay-per-view events, or reduce the amount of pay-per-view offerings to only feature quarterly specials with occasional live specials for TV.   

While the die-hard TNA fans continue to stand by the product, God love them, casual viewers of the product have learned a very familiar and valuable lesson:  The next time TNA has a pay-per-view offering, wait. 

Big Nasty previews SmackDown from Mexico in his latest B/R Video entry.  Follow him on Twitter @ThisIsNasty, and tell him how great his latest video was...in Spanish!