I Like TNA

There, I said it, not that I was holding it in.

Every Thursday night, I park myself in front of the television (sometimes at differing times) to watch my favorite hour and only hour of wrestling programming each week. Go on, ridicule me. Mock mercilessly. I'll take it gladly. Because while Impact may not boast "Total Nonstop Action" (despite its name), this is the best wrestling on TV. You will mock me and say WWE puts on a better show but I shall strike you down like the inglorious bastards you are.

TNA is more Extreme than ECW (a brand that is a disgrace to the original name) and implements better storylines into four hours of monthly programming than the entire WWE does in 20. TNA does all that and puts on a better monthly pay-per-view than WWE does. A McMahon vs. Trump feud? This is what Vince feeds his followers? I'll take a Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle feud any day of the week. I'll even add an extra day to the week, just so I can take it again.

By the way, I'm Chris and I'm one of the new writers here. As you may or may not be able to tell, I am slightly slanted towards TNA. This slant mostly came after a couple years of, outside of Wrestlemania, being away from wrestling all together. News hit me that Sting was about to get a push to win the NWA World Title and I sat down to watch the drama unfold. Yes, I am a big Sting fan and you can hold him directly responsible for my renewed interest in Sports Entertainment. Regardless, I started watching TNA religiously at its ever changing date and time. What caught my eye though was the quality of the matches, and I'm not talking Sting's matches here either (I'm such a mark for him that I would watch him wrestle a ham sandwich and would find it entertaining as long as he put said sandwich in the Scorpion Deathlock). No, instead I was introduced to the likes of AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin and Samoa Joe not to mention a host of other X-Division stars. These guys were doing things that I hadn't seen, well some of it since never.

Not only that but TNA had a host of big names stars in addition to Sting, including Christian Cage, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, The Dudleys (under the guise of Team 3-D), The New Age Outlaws (in the guise of the James Gang, since changed to the ridiculous Voodoo Kin Mafia) and Raven (once again being grossly under-used). This was like a dream fed for me, some of the best from WCW and the Attitude Era WWE, the only thing that was missing was Chris Jericho and I would cream my pants.

But enough about the roster because this is about wrestling and TNA did it better than anything I had seen coming out of WWE. It seems sometime around the end of the Monday Night War Vince forgot that one of the W's in WWE was for wrestling. TNA doesn't even have a W and I was getting more wrestling and better quality out those matches than what Vince was producing up the coast.

Let's not even start on the PPV quality. On second thought let's. What TNA really excels at is their PPVs. Given three hours uninterrupted to play with, they make a real wrestling fan like me smile. Sometimes it even brings a tear to my eyes. I watched Genesis on November 13, 2006 and while it didn't quite live up to the two previous TNA PPVs I had watched (No Surrender and Bound for Glory), when compared, head to head, with WWE's November 26, 2006 Survivor Series TNA takes the cake. Nothing on the WWE card compared to Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle. I know, I was there in the Wachovia Center struggling to stay awake with the rest of the crowd. I myself am more pumped up for TNA's Lockdown PPV, taking place in a little over a week, than I was for last Sunday's Wrestlemania. The more I think about Wrestlemania, the more I am disappointed.

Sure TNA needs improvement but some of the fun is seeing what sticks and what doesn't with them. I mean really Elevation X was a complete joke but something the WWE would most likely not even attempt. At least TNA took a chance, something the WWE seems unwilling to do. Cena, Undertaker, Lashley? WWE these are your champions? Christian Cage has more charisma than those three do in his left finger and is arguably a better wrestler than all three.

As I said improvement is needed, as well as a two hour show, but overall TNA gives more in it's limited time than either RAW, Smackdown or ECW. Oh and before you go on about how ECW has the same amount of time TNA does, please know your role and shut your mouth. ECW has the same amount of time to prepare for, at best, a couple of PPV matches not an entire card, so it's nowhere near the same.

Anyway those are my two cents. I like TNA and I'll obnoxiously tell you about it.