TNA IMPACT WORKRATE REPORT 10/26/06

WHAT WORKED:

Wait, so the big Bobby Roode “hottest free agent” angle ends up with him becoming Robert Roode, referred to as “one man enterprise”, and paired with Traci Brooks (wearing glasses and dressed like a flight attendant)???!!!! HOLY SHIT!!! The big Bobby Roode push consists of giving him Mike Rotundo’s old WCW gimmick!!! That rules. WWE just released Tim Horner, put him in an alien costume and run Roode vs. Planetblazer Horner and you have a match worthy of a Clash. Fuck! Franklyn Kazarian and Christopher Harris need to join Robert Roode Enterprises. Jeremiah Lynn? Nah. Sibling Raymond? Maybe. Head of Security Curtis Hughes still works indies. The Taylor Made Man is backstage. Is Terry Runnels still taking bookings through Race? Christopher Harris, Franklyn Richards, Robert Roode vs. Thomas Rich, Richard Morton, Terrence Taylor would make for some fun TV. I mean it’s Russo so he’s all about playing to the internet. So instead of Roode Enterprises vs. York Foundation we’ll be stuck with Roode Enterprises vs. Impacfull Players (Polaco, Storm and Jason). Aw man…The Polaco shoot promos where he talks about how he has struggled against corporate culture of Wallmart, so Roode Enterprises will be a cakewalk. Fuck Christopher Harris. Have it be Robert Roode, Franklyn Richards and Terrence Taylor on Brooks team with Taylor playing the Shelley Levine character. Taylor constantly worrying that he might get replaced by youngster Jason would be great. Didn’t have lot of faith in blue chipper Robert Roode promos…but this has endless possibilities.

Like the Jarrett backstage interview. Jeff did a great job pulling off sincere babyface promo. He really came off like Jerry Jarrett at his best. Which is not something I thought Jeff really had in him. Not sure how that type of Jerry Jarrett sincerety plays in this day and age. And really the mood music in the background almost killed it. Let the mic work carry the segment don’t give me ambient sound to try to tell me what to think. Kind of ridiculous to have Jarrett turn face when Sting is on the top of the card. Face on the top with title means you need heel challengers. On the TNA roster who are the guys who are most skilled at working heel? Jarrett, Homicide, AJ Styles, Christian,…and uh… maybe Bubba? maybe Douglas? BG James? O’Reilly perhaps? If they were smart and had Angle do “shoots” about how pills are stronger than the power of Christ? Sting is the guy you just put in the anchor position. Fed needs more heel challengers, not more guys turning face.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

I kind of liked the three minutes of Abyss vs. Hoyt. I’ve been told that it is rare for a US match to be worked based on hierarchy..and thought this did a nice job of being built around hierarchy with Hoyt as guy way in over his head who needed to throw out everything to compete with Abyss. Both guys stink but match was short enough not to completely expose them and got that story across. There has been a lot written lately about TNA having to compete with UFC..but fuck that shit. IMPACT is on the same station as UFC. Thats not competition. TNA is on opposite Real World/Road Rules Challenge. For amount of time spent doing video packages, interview vs. amount doing physical challenges, tonights Impact was similar ratio to this weeks “Duel”. Think Jarret was a more interesting interview than anyone on this weeks Duel. Sting and everyone else, not so much. As to the actual physical challenge the “duel”provided more visually interesting and violent action. For competitive match not leading to title Brad vs. CT was more heated than LAX vs. Naturals. The rollerderby was highly edited but told its stories in a clearer fashion than the reverse battle royale. Several stories layed out in the opening womens heats. The final women’s heat was pretty anticlimactic is it was worked totally competitive. I’d say final women’s heat and the actual over the top battle royale sections of Fight For Right would be about a draw. But that’s not why I mention the “Duel”. I mention the Duel because while I liked the story of Abyss vs. Hoyt, Aneesa vs. Paula told the same story in a much more compelling fashion and was more athletic and violent. Abyss vs. Hoyt was absolutely smoked by Aneesa vs. Paula. Oh yeah for over the top mugging Snidely Whiplash evil, Beth smokes James Mitchell too.

This show sucked ass…Again a bunch of incite into serial story telling available here:

http://www.worldandi.com/public/1998/november/crawford.cfm

“Why does serialization attract us so strongly, and why did the serial novel so capture the imagination of Victorian readers?... Linda K. Hughes and Michael Lund point out in The Victorian Serial that installment novels tapped into the very philosophy of Victorian life. Personal development became something of an obsession for Victorians, and serials mirrored the belief that personal and cultural progress was gradual, positive, and inevitable. As Hughes and Lund demonstrate, the reader has to believe in slow, positive growth for the serial to really work. Victorians saw society as heading toward ever greater perfection and achievement; serials played out that theme in microcosm…. The real temptation of the cliff-hanger for the author dwelt in the enticement to put action over characters. The masters of the serial, Dickens, Thackeray, Collins, always understood that the reader had to care about not what was happening, but who it was happening to. Jeffrey Walker, associate professor of colonial and nineteenth-century American literature at Oklahoma State University, sees the serial form as an "emphasis on the psychological." Characterization, not action, drives the great serials with "so much more detail, so much more of a thorough investigation of how people related and talked." The reader wants to discover the ultimate destiny of the characters, how they change and develop over the course of the story. Cliff-hanger endings might produce anticipation from installment to installment, but powerful characters kept readers coming back again and again to the same authors. Plot-driven serials, according to Walker, become "flat, underdeveloped, ultimately uninteresting."

Impact was all about lots of stuff happening at the expense of any character development. What I wrote last time: “The endless action/ “stuff happening” in this TNA episode just felt obviously hack and overwritten but I think it also hurts any possibility for character motivated story telling.. This much meaningless stuff actually kills anticipation for next episode in serial. “This was even more magnified today. You get the sense that bookers don’t trust the workers when they need to throw around this much extraneous shit.

And well then there was the Fight for the Right… Reverse battle royale was just awful. I mean all battle royals are going to be hurt by the problem of people standing around doing nothing. But point of battle royals is normally to stay standing. Here point was to go over the rope…so standing around doing nothing even sillier. Then you add on the idea that there where a million sub plots. Why is James Storm just watching but not participating? Why is Brother Ray watching but not participating? Apparently BG James is not only not participating but he isn’t there? Rhino cares so much about his match with Christian that he isn’t participating but is interfering? Are Shane Douglas and Bubba really debating something? Robert Roode is a one man enterprise? Matt Bentley is going to be in the new Flock? Or is he going to be the Pentagon to Raven’s Octagon? Is that Konnan? Why wasn’t he in this? The goal with the Pat Patterson style battle royals is you build to certain big spots but you try to keep the multiple storylines simple and you give time for each one. Here everything happened at same time, couldn’t keep track of any of it…thus none of it matters. The actual battle royale part was even quicker and thus even more formless. The whole thing up to the final Abyss vs. Hoyt section was flat, underdeveloped and ultimately uninteresting.