Kari Williams, Alestle Reporter
by Kari Williams, Alestle Reporter
This week is going to be a change of pace for the WWE diehards because when I turned on RAW I saw R-Truth and flipped to TNA. (I can’t stand R-Truth…I don’t know why!) But, I must have changed the station during one of TNA’s better moments because I witnessed Samoa Joe’s return to TNA.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an avid fan of TNA, and I don’t follow them regularly. However, Tazz and Mike Tenay made Joe’s return sound like a big deal. I could be biased because (for some reason) I like Tazz as an announcer, but something in the way he carries himself and projects his voice makes him believable.
I will admit though, when Joe made his way down to the ring, in a surprise return, I could not help but have WCW flashbacks. A tag team match…A mystery partner…If a Bash at the Beach turn would’ve happened, I would’ve flipped back to RAW. But it didn’t happen. For that, I commend TNA booking; it honestly surprised me that they did not try to recreate that moment.
It has been done so many times in wrestling, where a company tries to revisit an angle, but instead of making it fresh and exciting, they recreate, identically (but horribly) the same interaction that drew heat five to 10 years ago.
With the Shawn Michaels/Vince McMahon angle from a few years back, McMahon “screwed” Michaels like Michaels did to Bret Hart at the 1997 Survivor Series. Trying to recreate the same atmosphere from 1997 was impossible—even McMahon knew that—but he went ahead with the angle anyway. From my perspective, all that did was anger true wrestling fans like a slap in the face.
But back to what TNA did right. It almost seemed like they teased fans with a Bash at the Beach replay, only to give them what they wanted but never expected. The surprise return coupled with Joe’s quick exit following the match leaves questions to be answered. Since this was the first time Joe has been seen since he was kidnapped weeks ago, (I haven’t watched TNA in months, so this kidnapping thing is news to me.) this strategy seems like it could actually work out. Joe returns to the Impact Zone, helps Team Hogan (Jeff Jarrett, Abyss and Rob Terry) defeat Team Flair and walks away without a word to any of team members.
In the very small amount of knowledge I have of TNA, Joe is one of the better wrestlers there, and I believe his return—and the angle in which he is returning—could help elevate TNA’s position within the “Monday Night Wars Version Two.”
Very few times do the fans actually see what they want to happen, rather than what the corporation wants them to see. TNA’s booking did an excellent job, let’s just hope they’re able to keep that momentum going, and maybe I’ll be able write about TNA because I truly want to, rather than a lack of anything worth my interest in WWE.
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