Ric's TNA recap

How ironic that a number of my posts are simply links to Ric's work?

Ok, seriously, I'm not just going to plug his Impact recap, I have some thoughts.

PS: I see no need to delve deeper into my opinion on TNA, since it's always been the same. Yes, TNA may often present better matches than WWE (although
that definitely wasn't the case on this show), but I couldn't care any less about most of what TNA features, nor does it sell to the masses, because every
other aspect of the product is amateurish in nature.

Now it may or may not come as a shock to Ric to learn that we actually agree completely on this point even though most of our talk on TNA on AIM might look to others as an argument.

My contentions regarding TNA have always been 2-fold:

1. TNA on average has better matches than the WWE and on average their PPVs are more value for your PPV dollar.
   
2. TNA generally has less offensive angles than the WWE, that don't make me want to wear a paper bag over my face every time I watch wrestling.

Now, point 1 is definitely easily debatable, you can make an argument either way. Point 2 I suppose is also debatable but it to me is a lot harder one.

But, here are the problems.

1. Outstanding matches don't sell to a national audience, and even if they did, you don't get outstanding matches on Impact, those are found typically on PPV, which people aren't buying because you're not convincing them to buy even if you say we've got awesome matches at the top of your lungs for a month, that doesn't work. For me, some of the better in-ring work in WCW was in those last 3 months, because Sin, Superbrawl and Greed all had some pretty good wrestling on them, but nobody knows because nobody ordered.
   
2. TNA angles may be less offensive, but what they lack in offensiveness they more than make up for in cheesiness. Most of their angles are recycled from the past and that's the nature of wrestling, but for crying out loud they're recycling the recent past which people don't look back on all that fondly. If you're going to steal, steal something good.
   
3. Production, production, Production. It all looks so low-rent as compared to WWE. Looks are everything and something that looks low-rent will be treated as low-rent. Here's something for TNA to keep in mind. In the great Beta Vs. VCR wars, Beta had a far superior product. VCRs still won out. Why? Because the people behind the VCR new marketing and they marketed their product as superior and so were treated that way even while being technically inferior in terms of quality. (that's the over simplified version but that's the gist of what went down) I'm not suggesting TNA is far Superior to WWE by any means, but even if they were, the presentation is far inferior to WWE and that is always why they'll lag behind.
5. WWE is to wrestling what Coke is to softdrinks. In the south if you want a softdrink you ask for a Coke even if you want a Pepsi. When WCW was beating the WWE like a red-headed stepchild, the name most commonly associated with Wrestling was that of the then WWF now WWE. That's a lot to overcome and that's why the only way WWE is out competed is if they completely self-distruct on themselves.

Only other thing I have to say is that LAX rules, and you know it.

On another note, the example of Beta is why I am not committing to either HD-DVD or Blue Ray. Blue Ray is technically superior, but Blue Ray is also backed by Sony, who were backers of Beta when it lost a race it probably should've won.