Deja vu

I don't think I'm inside my own mind today... Did we all of a sudden forget what happened to WCW in the late 1990's? Well lets step back into the ol' time warp of memory and have a look. its 1996. Some of your favorite WWF wrestlers, Diesel, and Razor Ramon, well, they don't look so good. They look... different. That's because they're different people. The real wrestlers who portrayed those characters, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, have jumped ship to WCW, with one powerful player. Hulk Hogan.

The trio's emergence onto the competition sparked one of the most infamous and memorable events in the history of professional wrestling. The birth of the n.W.o. The n.W.o sent shock waves through WCW. The trio of wrestlers (which eventually turned into a full fledged mob) took out everybody who did, or did not, stand in their way. Every week I would tune in to WCW's Monday Nitro to see who the nWo would strike next. To see Hulk Hogan turned in to a bad guy didn't just enrage the wrestling community, it intrigued them. To see the Hulkster as a bad guy was so shocking but we could not look away. The n.W.o was a force, and a cash cow to WCW. The momentum that WCW gained by this pushed the WWF into the corner, and it almost bankrupted the company. If it weren't for Stone Cold Steve Austin, the landscape of Professional Wrestling would be a very different place.

Fast-forward to 1999. WCW has milked the n.W.o teat worse than Hollywood milking the Saw franchise. The downward spiral was in full effect by this point, and WWE had all but completely regained the momentum they had lost, and then some. WCW was freezing in the ocean like Leo DiCaprio and there was no damsel there to hold its frozen hand, until Vince McMahon came along and bought out WCW. In its final year, WCW lost 80 million dollars and Vince bought WCW, in addition to ECW to complete his monopolization of professional wrestling.

Lets fast forward again to 2002. Total Non-stop Action Wrestling, or "TNA" was formed. Co-founded by wrestler Jeff Jarrett, TNA quickly established itself as an alternative to the now bland WWE product. It had a 6-sided hexagonal ring. The exciting "X-division" which exemplified a high-flyin, high-risk style of wrestling that was not just exclusive to "cruiserweights". TNA had set to establish itself as a refreshing brand of wrestling. One that I found myself drawn towards having grown bored of the tired approach the WWE has to wrestling. Though I didn't exactly have a total fondness to TNA, I appreciated it for being many things the WWE was not.

I liked how TNA pushed its young stars, in particular, AJ Styles. Nicknamed the "phenomanal". AJ Styles wrestling techniques were solid. Athletically, he's probably one of the most gifted wrestlers to enter the ring since Rob Van Dam. I appreciated that TNA would chose to give spotlight to a worker like this, rather than giving spotlight to some old has-been like Scott Steiner. TNA used older stars to boost their rating but they gave spotlight to established stars like Kurt Angle while giving main event time to wrestlers like Christian Cage and Jeff Hardy who would not be given such attention in the WWE.

TNA was putting itself in a position to become another direct rival to the WWE juggernaut which, since its monopolization, has grown stagnant and boring. failing to innovate the industry in any way now that it has no competition. The new stars that the WWE tries to develop are bland, uninspired, they may be the stars that joe-blow wrestling fan wants to see but I (like many) have loved wrestling since my childhood and none of these wrestlers are imaginative or captivating in any way.

For whatever reason, TNA just hasn't been able to get to the next level. So they brought in the big guns. Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan. Bischoff, though not a part of the TNA creative process, was a large reason for WCW's rise, and eventual fall. He is said to be integral to Hogan's involvement in TNA. The debut of Hulk Hogan on January 4th, 2010 marked the first time the WWE had monday night competition for RAW in nearly 9 years since the last airing of WCW's nitro. The introduction of Hulk Hogan introduced what was supposed to be a "new age" for TNA wrestling.

The following iMPACT gave me little reason for hope. The Dudley Boys (now, Team 3-D) started a feud with The Nasty Boys (remember them from WCW 13 years ago? I only did because they were an old school WWF tag team when I was a kid.) who trashed their locker room to instigate a confrontation and Kevin Nash's old n.W.o cronies, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman (otherwise known as 1-2-3 Kid, Xpac or, the guy who has sex with this woman) were out parading around, attacking Beer Money Inc. (Yes, that's the tag team's name) after their match. It wasn't long for the "Xpac sucks" chants to start pouring out and Scott Hall looked visibly drunk off his ass. (I was a huge Scott Hall fan but its hard to support him now when he's in the shape he is now. I can't respect that. He was a incredibly talented wrestler who's demons erroded that all away. He's now just a husk of what he once was) this is not a new age. This is the old age, over a decade older, fatter, and less interesting.

At TNA Genesis, their latest PPV event, they got rid of the 6-sided ring (which I thought was pretty damn cool, and original but what do I know) they introduced Ken Anderson (Formerly Mr. Kennedy of WWE) and The Brian Kendrick (why does he have 'the' before his name... I guess its better than his previous ring name "Spanky") Hall did not wrestle though he was originally scheduled to do so. Beer Money Inc. won that match. AJ Styles is still their world champion. There's still the whole Team 3-D vs Nasty Boys feud to solve, which they hopefully get over with sooner rather than later. My point is, this new TNA era is looking an awful lot like the WCW calm-before-the-storm. The TNA has some upside, but they have a lot of glaring weaknesses that shoot out like an eye sore. I've been trying to get back into wrestling for a while looking to TNA to help with that but it seems like they're doing everything to get me not to watch their program.

At the very least, Vince Russo is nowhere to be seen.

Until next time, PEACE.