Photo by TNAwrestling.com
This might seem like an odd question to people and given I have managed to avoid most things TNA for the best part of a year my feelings toward it might seem obvious. The problem is I have never been proud of tuning out from TNA like many others and the more I think about it the more I wonder if I should just give up, get off my high horse and join in with the rest of the masochists that seem to be TNA’s core audience.
The reason this has been playing on my mind so much is two reasons. Firstly I have been reading a lot of the stuff on Lance Storm’s site (I recommend highly) He like me has been boycotting TNA for about a year. Before that like many others he was a vocal critic of the TNA product and ofcourse Vince Russo. In one of his Q&A segments someone asked him why he watches if he hates it so much(pre his boycott) and the answer he gave I imagine is the same most people use which is if you truly love wrestling you want to see it done well. You want it to be the biggest and best it can and you want the men and women who make it happen succeed and get the recognition they deserve.This is a mindset a lot of people can’t understand.
At some point in a wrestling fans life they fall out of love with or take a break from wrestling. Either real life takes over, they don’t like any of the things they are able to see or they convince themselves they have matured and that liking wrestling at (insert age here) is stupid. I took a break for a few years in my early teens. Girls became a lot more interesting all of a sudden and generally they don’t seem to find wrestling as cool and exciting as you would think they would. So deciding I had out grown it I left the WWE behind. Or tried to at least. To make me feel like I had grown up I started watching ECW on the sly. That was more mature supposedly. Then I soon moved on to the extreme garbage wrestling like CZW (Jackass type stuff was popular so it was like the best of both worlds) Eventually though just like the mob, no matter how hard I tried to get out they pulled me back in. Sometimes it was only Smackdown and sometimes it was only the cut down recap shows but I came back. I realised I didn’t care what people thought of me being a wrestling fan and that WWE had given me a ton of happy memories so why bother ignoring it when the only person I was really hurting was myself.
Right now that is kind of how I feel about TNA. Everyone says not watching is the thing to do. How else will they learn? The thing is they don’t learn and never do. No matter how poorly they do and how many fans turn away they keep on going, repeating the same mistakes over and over. That wouldn’t be so bad except some of my favorite wrestlers and arguably some of the best in the world are in TNA right now. So if I can’t beat them why not just join them?
The second reason I have thinking alot about TNA is the ECWA Super 8 Tournament. I don’t know whether or not I will be able to see it but hopefully I will and would recommend that anyone that can should. If you want details check out the website or ask Brady, I’m sure he will help you out. The thing we all know about the Super 8 is that it is often a springboard for guys getting into WWE or TNA. By boycotting TNA and putting it down are we not helping put the breaks on their careers and going back to the worst scenario possible of total WWE dominace where you either make it there or forget about being a full time wrestler. Regardless of how you feel about TNA it is still a step up from the indys like Ring Of Honour. Surely it’s better there where they can get more exposure and more money right?
