Well I was originally going to do another review of the best Women’s matches of last week. I was all set to praise TNA for their Knockouts Ladder Match, and while I was in the writing process, I stumbled upon the news that TNA released Lisa Marie Varon. She was until today known on TNA as Tara and before that was Victoria back when she working for WWE. That news sort of took the Mickey out of my piece. Maybe if you ask really nice… I might finish writing that entry…maybe not…
Now I wasn’t really going to write about Tara as she didn’t really do anything that week (She might have come out with her on screen boyfriend for his match or she might been featured on Xplosion but I am not certain) but it is the principle. I kind of felt the KO division looked said a couple of weeks ago when Brooke held her “State of the KnockOuts” address. Tara was strangely absent from that as well (foreshadowing?) But TNA has had a couple great women’s matches….Matches that people are talking about…TMZ is talking about these matches… Even WWE seemed to take notice and put more effort into their own women’s division. The ladder match that I was going to write about even drew the highest quarter-hour rating on the July 11th episode of iMPACT! This means that people tuned in just to see that match… probably people that are not the average viewer of TNA. This is what TNA needs if the ever want to beat WWE.
And then they do this. True, Tara is not part of the feud that is exciting everyone, but she is a well know wrestler, one with a large fanbase, and if TNA wants to keep this momentum up then should be giving us more Knockouts not less.
I can’t say I am shocked because TNA has a history of dropping the ball and either misusing someone or under using them. They did to the X division. They were all about the X division. People were buzzing about it. It is almost like they overheard someone going on about the X division and people in charge went…”we don’t want to be known as the place for high flying cruiserweights….” And then TNA practically killed it. They did it to knockouts back in 2007/2008. They were all about the girls. They had two women’s matches a show. People wear talking about TNA as being the place to go to see women’s wrestling. And then like a child with ADD, TNA put the girls on the back burner and focused on Tag Teams. They are all about Tag Teams…until they decided they were not… then Hogan and he crew came over and TNA decided they were all about legends…and then they were not. Then TNA decided to stick to WWE and started their Wrestling Matters campaign… but ditched it so they could have long drawn out talking segments like WWE … Somewhere in between they decided they were hardcore but after a month or two they wussed out.
It just seems like every time TNA has something that could take them to the next level…they sabotage it. Like they want to fail…that they like being in second place. The thing is, I really want to like TNA. In fact back in 2006-mid 2008 I was really into TNA. Maybe I was insane back then, but enjoyed the all the angles. I would read the spoilers and I couldn’t wait to see the program. At the time I felt they were a wrestling alternative to the WWE. When the show went from 1 hour to two hours I thought they were on the verge of something big…that IMHO never quite happened
Maybe I am being unfair to TNA. Maybe I am just a ranting and raving angry mark. Maybe Tara wanted her release. Maybe I am reading too much into it. While that is a lot of maybes, the truth is even though I generally find TNA’s product frustratingly disappointing, I still think they have a better product than WWE. But that isn’t saying much. That is like asking me to compare 2 glasses of curdled milk then tell you which one tastes better. I should probably think about that Ladder match last week. It was sooo good. Gail won and now has a title shot and that is great news.
