TNA nonsense watch: The World Title

The way TNA has been with the World Title has infuriated me of late. Not only did the hand the strap to RVD without any sort of build-up, but now they are doing a tournament for the title which has no value whatsoever.

I like tournaments in wrestling, you often get some good matches out of them, but they are weakened by a lack of feud or build-up between competitors. TNA has made some stupid fucking mistakes of late, and the current “tournament” is just an example of this.

Over the past few months, Kurt Angle has been working his way up the TNA rankings, taking on each competitor in the rankings before reaching the number one spot. This was a great angle, built around Kurt’s competitive spirit and a desire to prove he is the best. This alone would have been enough to do an angle which lasts about a year, perhaps with some bumps on the way to add some drama to the proceedings. After a few matches, Angle started to say that he couldn’t stand it if he lost, and would consider retiring if he did. Then, for no reason, all of Angle’s matches came with an attached career stipulation. Because Kurt is one of the biggest draws for TNA, and because he’s said in interviews that he’s going to be sticking around in TNA for at least a year, the angle has lost its drama. I’ve said it before: Kurt Angle matches are always good, but without a sense of drama or anything really being at stake no one gives a fuck.

With RVD’s kayfabe injury, and him being stripped of the title we are now left with a “tournament” to be the new champion. Kurt, it seems, has been made to look like a dick because of this. In keeping with the angle, it would have made more sense for Angle to bow out of the tournament, his reason being that he has not yet worked his way up through the rankings. So we can assume that the angle is over... well not quite: the career stip is still in place. This means that the tournament is pointless, and that the next champion will be Kurt Angle. So like some horny kid, TNA blow their load too soon and make Angle look: A) Like a pussy and B) like a hypocrite.

Of course, the flipside to this is that TNA may have realised that people weren’t buying into the career match angle, and are thus dropping it. Let’s hope that it is the case. But if this is case, why does Kurt need to have the career stip? It makes no sense to me.

We are all sophisticated enough to know how wrestling works for fuck’s sake. Let’s hope TNA never do an angle like this again.

Oh, and no Joe or AJ in the top 8? Nice to see Williams versus Angle though.